Juno News - Conservative Leadership Results Show

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00:30:30.000 Hi, we're live.

00:30:57.180 I'm Candace Malcolm. Welcome to a very special edition of True North Live.

00:31:01.020 I'm joined by my co-host, my friend, True North fellow, Andrew Lawton.

00:31:04.580 Andrew, thank you so much for being here.

00:31:06.840 Hey, it's an exciting night after months of the race. I'm glad we're doing this.

00:31:10.660 Yeah, I know. I woke up and I was like, you know, I know it's Sunday, but I feel like it's a work day.

00:31:15.000 Like, it's just a really exciting time. We've been following this campaign all summer.

00:31:19.140 And finally, I mean, you know, you see a total ruinous dumpster fire, to be quite frank,

00:31:24.780 over in Ottawa with the Prime Minister just going completely rogue with the Wee scandal,

00:31:29.860 firing his Vance Minister, proroguing Parliament.

00:31:32.560 This is a total gong show over there.

00:31:34.800 And, you know, it's about time that the opposition, which is really supposed to be the government

00:31:38.740 in waiting, has a leader, has a torchbearer to take them to that next stage.

00:31:43.180 So, Andrew, it's a big night tonight.

00:31:45.060 What can we expect from the Conservative show tonight?

00:31:49.100 So the Conservative Party of Canada's official show kicks off in just under half an hour.

00:31:54.780 And they're going to be having a number of speeches from some of the people in the party,

00:31:59.020 such as outgoing Conservative leader Andrew Scheer, the party's executive director,

00:32:04.200 the co-chairs of the leadership committee.

00:32:07.020 And then they're going to get to the real star of the evening, which is the results.

00:32:10.740 So after months of campaigning, millions of dollars raised and spent,

00:32:15.100 four candidates in the running, Peter McKay, Aaron O'Toole, Derek Sloan, and Leslyn Lewis.

00:32:20.840 And we don't know how many rounds of balloting there are going to be.

00:32:23.700 It is a ranked ballot, and I know that we'll have an explanation of the rules later on.

00:32:28.420 But ultimately, the party is hoping to have results start coming at around 6.40 Eastern time.

00:32:33.580 So that's just over an hour from now.

00:32:35.340 But we're going to have some analysis, some thoughts before then,

00:32:38.360 and talking to some of the candidates' campaign teams,

00:32:41.400 and ultimately really trying to contextualize what's going to be happening tonight.

00:32:45.900 Yeah, that's right.

00:32:46.580 So Andrew and I will be with you all night.

00:32:48.440 We'll go to the Conservative feed whenever, you know, they're announcing results

00:32:52.080 and whenever they have speeches and then in between if there's any downtime you'll get to

00:32:56.400 hear some you know analysis from andrew and myself trying to make sense of it all put the pieces

00:33:01.520 together and giving you really a conservative perspective on on what's going on you know

00:33:06.000 i've read so many stories andrew in the mainstream media on the cbc and other networks trying to

00:33:11.360 kind of understand and and and explain this leadership race and i feel like it's not very

00:33:17.040 authentic just because you know give me a break no one over at the cbc is is a conservative member

00:33:22.400 they're not voting they're not really insiders in the same way uh as as we as true north you know

00:33:27.680 most of us over here are conservatives i think some of us are even members i'm not personally but

00:33:32.960 i know that some some of the staff over at true north have definitely voted in this campaign and

00:33:38.000 have a lot a lot at stake are really excited so um i think you caught up with uh each of the

00:33:43.360 campaigns uh so we'll play some interviews as well and andrew let's let's start with your first

00:33:48.000 interview you got to sit down with uh lisa rate and chat a little bit about what's going on tonight 0.97

00:33:54.960 and joining me on the line now a woman who's done this before on both ends organizing the 0.99

00:33:59.440 race and actually running in the race as well looking back to the 2017 campaign lisa rate also

00:34:04.960 a former cabinet member lisa thanks very much for coming on tonight let me ask how is it for you

00:34:09.920 sitting on on the side of the table you're on now as a co-chair of leoc instead of a candidate this

00:34:14.880 time around i guess i'm a lot less nervous than i was the night of i don't have to give a speech

00:34:21.040 um but sadly what i'm missing is the big spectacle i'm missing the ballroom full of people remember

00:34:29.200 friends actually don't always follow each other in these leadership debates so we may have friends

00:34:34.480 that go to one campaign or another and but when he came together at the very end you're all a member

00:34:39.280 of the conservative team so i'm kind of missing that moment where we all kind of put down our

00:34:43.840 arms because it's over and then we we come into one room together to line up behind the new leader

00:34:49.200 there may not be a ballroom full of people this time around but we do have a huge conservative

00:34:53.920 family in this race more than any other conservative race past as far as number of

00:34:58.960 members what do you think that is really attributed to because i find it odd with fewer candidates

00:35:04.640 and a shorter campaign that there are just so many ballots cast this time around compared to

00:35:09.440 the last race well frankly with covet 19 there wasn't a lot else going on in entertainment wise

00:35:16.160 first of all so we we provide a good content if you're a conservative and you are unhappy with

00:35:21.920 what justin trudeau is doing in ottawa you are tuning in to see who is going to be the next

00:35:27.120 leader and you probably got a little bit engaged and here's the other thing that i find really

00:35:31.440 interesting that we should take lessons from coming out of COVID. Gone are the days when

00:35:36.160 candidates would have to fly around the country every single weekend and hit every small town

00:35:41.540 because if you didn't go to that small town, you were going to be penalized for not coming in and

00:35:46.660 seeing the constituents. Now it's just a Zoom call away. It's a Skype meeting. It's a Google

00:35:52.180 meetup kind of situation. So I believe the constituents of the Conservative Party actually

00:35:58.140 got better outreach from these candidates because we were all kind of stuck with doing it from the

00:36:03.840 comfort of our own living rooms. I think that accounts for more money raised because you didn't

00:36:08.000 have to go buy a ticket. You can just write the check yourself or send your email transfer. And

00:36:12.920 it also accounts for the number of memberships. I mean, you were part of the entire process.

00:36:18.860 Now, mainstream media didn't cover it, but that's okay. They were looking for those spectacles,

00:36:23.340 whereas we just got down to business.

00:36:25.880 The committee that you're co-chairing that's been really steering the race from the get-go,

00:36:30.660 Leoc, has had to make some tough calls as a result of the pandemic as far as timing is concerned.

00:36:36.500 This is a fair bit more delayed than the original plan was.

00:36:40.220 Do you think that there is going to be enough time for the next leader to really hunker down

00:36:43.960 and really get prepared and set up a team and get that machine in motion for when the fall comes around?

00:36:49.860 I 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.

00:37:00.000 They've had great teams in all of their campaigns that have been ushering them along extremely well.

00:37:05.540 So I'm not really concerned about transition. I'm not concerned about people getting their feet underneath them.

00:37:10.240 And 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.

00:37:23.800 I 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?

00:37:31.380 it's a really good question i i do believe as i said that this was a very different campaign

00:37:37.140 for somebody like a derek sloan or a leslin lewis because you didn't need to have name

00:37:42.580 recognition in order to connect through zoom because people knew you were running

00:37:46.900 and then you could just dial in of your of your own volition on anything that you wanted to dial

00:37:51.860 in on and then make up your own mind without being in a room with all kinds of people and hearing

00:37:57.460 other people chatter in your ear i i think it was a really great opportunity for those who may not

00:38:03.300 have as big a name recognition in the party or in canada to equal the level playing field well i

00:38:09.540 know you've got to get to it that's starting just at 6 p.m eastern so coming up very quickly lisa

00:38:14.100 rate thank you so much for your time and for your work throughout the course of the race

00:38:18.260 my pleasure andrew thank you for covering it all so very well that's very kind

00:38:22.660 and so obviously a lot of work goes into these leadership races and you know andrew and i were

00:38:30.660 talking before we went live about you know what were really the big moments of this campaign what

00:38:35.140 were the defining moments what were the the times that changed people's minds and really defined

00:38:39.380 who a candidate was to the conservative members and just because of the nature of this campaign

00:38:44.820 run you know social distance through covet 19 it's just been a totally different kind of campaign

00:38:50.100 And 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.

00:39:10.680 So it really has been an interesting campaign. Anything is possible. To me, the big moment,

00:39:17.220 the big story from this campaign has been the emergence of Leslyn Lewis. She was a very unknown 0.55

00:39:23.640 candidate, even among conservatives. Most people had never heard of her. But she had this really, 0.98

00:39:29.420 really charismatic star power. And she maintained, she had this ability to last throughout the 0.79

00:39:35.460 campaign, even with mainstream media that frankly ignored her, didn't pay much attention to her. 0.69

00:39:40.380 she really shined, lasted all the way to the end of the campaign. Andrew, you caught up with

00:39:45.540 someone from Leslyn Lewis's campaign, so let's hear that interview now.

00:39:51.360 One of the undeniable success stories of the campaign, regardless of the result, has been

00:39:56.280 Leslyn Lewis's rise from being a political unknown to a major player in this race. Her campaign

00:40:01.680 manager, Steve Outhouse, joins me on the line now. Steve, good to talk to you. Thanks for coming on

00:40:05.980 today. Hey, great to be here. Thanks, Andrew. You know, there were better known people with

00:40:10.360 in the party that couldn't even make it on the ballot as far as getting the money and signatures

00:40:14.620 in. What do you attribute Lesley Lewis's rise through this race to? Well, she had the courage

00:40:21.420 to get out there and she worked hard every step of the way. And I do believe she's just a special

00:40:27.220 candidate that a lot of people connected with and resonated with her message and they got excited

00:40:32.060 about it as she went. It was a faster pace of fundraising and support that I've ever seen on

00:40:37.640 any campaign i've been a part of i still don't have a perfect answer is what you're attributed

00:40:41.820 all to but i believe it starts with just the candidate and people connecting with her

00:40:45.200 i know a lot of people early on were looking at her as being a social conservative contender but

00:40:52.120 one of the more unique stories i've seen is how many people from across the spectrum even

00:40:56.700 people that might be peter mckay supporters are saying they're putting her second or

00:41:00.840 erin o'toole supporters that say they're putting her second and really a broad base of appeal that

00:41:05.540 doesn't seem to be ideologically pigeonholed. Was that an intentional part of strategy for you,

00:41:11.180 or is that just something that happened organically on the campaign?

00:41:14.840 Well, it's a bit of both, but it is definitely, it's who Luslin is. And for people like myself,

00:41:21.440 who often get branded as social conservatives, yes, we are, I guess, by that definition,

00:41:25.980 a social conservative, but we're more than that. We're conservatives, we're fiscal conservatives,

00:41:30.460 we're libertarians, we're people who want to see government generally having less involvement in

00:41:35.240 the day-to-day lives of individuals and letting freedom reign. And so Dr. Lewis is someone who

00:41:42.740 put herself forward as, yes, I am a social conservative. I'm going to be very open about

00:41:46.100 those views, but I have a broader agenda than that. And I think that that gave people a lot

00:41:50.420 of comfort and they were comfortable marking her second and in many cases marking her first,

00:41:55.380 even if they wouldn't have seen themselves as supporting a social conservative candidate when

00:42:00.120 this all began. I guess I would just put it she is a leadership candidate who is a social

00:42:05.980 conservative as opposed to a social conservative who is a leadership candidate. This week we had

00:42:11.200 that viral clip of an interview with Andrew Scheer on CBC in which the topic of the coverage and

00:42:17.060 attention that the Lewis campaign has received was called into question and basically the point

00:42:22.500 that Andrew Scheer has made is that you know CBC wasn't really following this story as much as it

00:42:26.820 was focusing on kamala harris in the u.s for example do you think that the story of what

00:42:32.260 leslund lewis's candidacy represents has been told uh i don't think fully no and and i'll say

00:42:38.860 like so i i was certainly at the beginning of this race covid took over the media coverage on on

00:42:43.680 everything and so i i know for dr lewis and myself and there were interview requests that came in for

00:42:49.480 sure and so she did i don't want to come down and kind of be completely like say something to the

00:42:54.180 effect, she's not had any coverage. She has had coverage. And we've had even interview requests

00:42:58.400 that we haven't been able to do. So it's not like there's been no coverage of her. But I do think

00:43:03.940 in the past, you know, whatever, it's been a week to 10 days since Kamala Harris has been named,

00:43:08.980 you know, vice president or the vice presidential candidate on the Biden ticket.

00:43:14.620 That has sort of put things into pretty sharp, you know, distinction, I guess, or we can see

00:43:21.720 there really wasn't that same amount of buzz it was one thing to say well there hasn't been a lot

00:43:26.720 of coverage on the cpc leadership race overall because of covid or there hasn't been a lot of

00:43:30.880 coverage on her because perhaps she's you know not seen as one of the purported front runners

00:43:35.080 but it was just very interesting to contrast that with what we've seen since kamala harris has come

00:43:39.220 on the ticket i don't know if you can answer this question but i'll put it to you anyway

00:43:43.520 if she's not successful is she around for the long haul in the party running again as a candidate

00:43:49.260 Yeah, that's certainly her plan.

00:43:50.540 I mean, she has said that she would be looking to run in the next election.

00:43:53.820 And there's been a lot of people asking questions about which rioting and so on.

00:43:57.720 And all those will start to be looked at after today's results come out.

00:44:02.800 But, yes, that is her plan.

00:44:04.540 She, I think, is going to be a very powerful voice in the Conservative movement in Canada for, I believe, years to come.

00:44:11.020 And on the note of the results, what do you think is going to happen tonight?

00:44:13.940 I'm not going to make any predictions.

00:44:15.440 I'm as interested as anybody to see what happens.

00:44:17.800 I mean, we've certainly worked hard as a team.

00:44:19.880 We've left no stone unturned, and, you know, we're working towards a win.

00:44:24.880 We still see that there is a path there, but obviously there's other campaigns working hard to help their candidate win as well.

00:44:31.940 So we've got some great candidates, and we'll all learn the results soon.

00:44:36.560 Steve Outhouse, campaign manager for Leslyn Lewis.

00:44:39.220 Thank you so much for coming on tonight.

00:44:40.600 Thanks for having me, Andrew.

00:44:41.640 it was a really interesting way of putting it that uh leslie lewis is a social conservative 0.98

00:44:49.200 but that didn't really define her throughout this race and you know it's true that she appealed to 0.99

00:44:54.160 a broader range of people even even people who just wanted to try something different uh have

00:44:58.860 something different not a queer politician per se uh leading the helm and i i think that there

00:45:04.040 was a lot of energy not not so much that the mainstream media paid attention to it andrew as

00:45:08.320 noted in that interview there was a super viral video uh from i think it was from yesterday the

00:45:14.080 day before of andrew sheer just sort of on the cbc telling it like it is saying you know the reason

00:45:19.120 that uh they're they're the media doesn't think that there's a lot of energy around less than

00:45:23.680 loses because they're not really paying attention to the campaign and for people who are i mean

00:45:28.080 less than lewis released her fundraising figures she raised two million dollars which is incredibly

00:45:33.680 impressive there obviously is a lot of energy and you know i'm glad that uh her campaign manager

00:45:39.760 there again just sort of said as it is you know inside the conservative world inside people who

00:45:44.800 who pay attention they are very excited about less than lewis despite what organizations like

00:45:49.600 the cbc who like to like to ignore what's happening in service circles especially when there's a good

00:45:54.640 news story like this true north had a report that came out last week that found that there was 500

00:45:59.200 percent more headlines about kamala harris who has literally nothing to do with canada other

00:46:04.640 the fact that she went to high school in montreal uh and yet you know they're covering her left

00:46:09.120 right and center and hardly giving any coverage to someone who could potentially become prime

00:46:12.880 minister of our country yeah and at the very least even if she doesn't win the candidacy itself

00:46:19.200 is the story i i think and i i think you're bang on there when you talk about just the the double

00:46:24.080 standard that's really dogged that campaign throughout the course of it as far as the

00:46:28.080 mainstream media is concerned. Well, I was happy to hear Steve say that she was in it for the long

00:46:34.000 haul. So even if she doesn't win tonight, she will continue to be involved with the party

00:46:39.360 and run as an MP in the next election. That was an array of good news that I heard from that

00:46:46.800 interview. What was your sort of takeaway? What was your biggest moments of this campaign, Andrew,

00:46:52.560 aside from the emergence of Lesley Lewis?

00:46:55.500 I really think it was seeing how the candidates navigated the media environment.

00:47:01.940 I mean, we saw a real contrast there.

00:47:03.700 Aaron O'Toole going to war with CBC in an interview.

00:47:06.800 Derek Sloan deliberately not doing a lot of mainstream media interviews, as one example.

00:47:12.940 Peter McKay focusing exclusively on mainstream media interviews.

00:47:17.020 Because I think if we are talking about the leadership race as a model for the next election,

00:47:21.560 seeing those different media strategies is, I think, very noteworthy.

00:47:26.060 That's a good point.

00:47:26.880 And, I mean, it is something true, again, to just go back to that interview you just did with Steve Outhouse,

00:47:32.340 where he said that she wasn't really defined as being a social conservative.

00:47:35.760 And that is a problem for conservatives in this country going forward,

00:47:39.640 not so much that it's something that Canadians care about, but it's something that the media really obsesses about.

00:47:44.160 And so one of the things I would sort of not worry about, but I would be a little hesitant about,

00:47:48.180 is if someone like Lesley Lewis was leader

00:47:51.220 and went into an election against Justin Trudeau,

00:47:53.480 they would just spend the entire time criticizing her

00:47:56.040 because of her position on abortion. 1.00

00:47:59.060 And the media and the liberals would try to define her that way.

00:48:03.180 And she did a good job explaining it and discussing it on the campaign trail.

00:48:07.200 But again, the media is just so awful and biased in this country

00:48:11.020 that you know they're going to try to set the agenda like that.

00:48:13.240 So it was interesting to see how Lesley Lewis described herself

00:48:18.120 and was able to talk about other things aside from that one issue,

00:48:22.060 which obviously, Andrew, is a very important issue,

00:48:24.620 but it's not the only issue.

00:48:26.280 And at a time like this, when the country is in record debt

00:48:30.800 and in a complete depth of an economic disaster

00:48:34.480 partially caused by our own government,

00:48:36.900 there's a lot more that you want to discuss and talk about

00:48:39.280 other than someone's position on something like that.

00:48:42.440 Well, you also caught up with someone from Derek Sloan's campaign

00:48:47.260 or someone who is a supporter of Derek Sloan

00:48:49.220 and someone who worked with Derek Sloan.

00:48:51.020 So let's go to that interview now.

00:48:53.800 Joining me now is Tanya Granik-Allen,

00:48:56.360 former Ontario PC leadership candidate

00:48:58.780 and someone who's actually been on the road

00:49:00.440 doing last minute get out the vote work

00:49:02.440 with Derek Sloan in the last few days

00:49:04.740 across Southern Ontario.

00:49:06.260 Tanya, thanks for coming on today.

00:49:08.200 Thanks for having me, Andrew.

00:49:09.280 Great to be on.

00:49:10.300 Derek's been unabashed about running

00:49:12.600 as a social conservative.

00:49:14.480 You've been, as I mentioned earlier,

00:49:16.100 You're on the road talking to a lot of Derek Sloan voters at stops around Ontario.

00:49:20.420 Do you think that his supporters are just social Conservatives,

00:49:23.400 or is there a broader base of support that you think he's tapped into in this race?

00:49:28.300 You know, I think a lot of people early on wanted to pigeonhole Derek

00:49:31.640 and the type of supporter he would attract.

00:49:34.660 However, based on touring 12 cities and 48 hours with him,

00:49:38.580 you had a broad spectrum of Conservatives coming out to meet Derek.

00:49:41.680 I think because Derek was so genuine and he's authentic in his word, people who are fiscal

00:49:47.780 conservatives, social conservatives, libertarians, people who just wanted the straight goods would

00:49:53.500 come out and listen to Derek and said, hey, you know what, I've got, I'm throwing my support behind

00:49:58.000 you. In fact, at one tour stop, there was a woman who wasn't even a member of the party and she came

00:50:03.080 out with her daughter, socially distanced, of course, and she said, you know, I just want to

00:50:06.900 say I support your policy on no mandatory masking. I don't even know if I support the rest of you.

00:50:12.120 I'm not even a member, but I just want to say thank you so much for standing up for me and my

00:50:15.080 family. You've done the leadership race before. You know, it's a fair bit grueling. What's your

00:50:22.040 read, not even as a member of Derek Sloan's team, of just how he's done and how he's risen to this

00:50:27.040 challenge in the last several months? Well, early on, you know, I was assessing all the candidates

00:50:31.340 and I was an early endorser of Derek, and now towards the end,

00:50:36.040 clearly I was the only candidate I ended up endorsing.

00:50:40.580 I thought he, you know, at first I was like, okay, he's very young,

00:50:43.180 he's a newly elected MP, but quickly he got his footing.

00:50:46.540 And again, it's a very unusual campaign with COVID,

00:50:49.640 with not being able to get out in front of people,

00:50:51.340 but clearly that's one of his strengths is when he connects with the voter,

00:50:55.280 speaks to them, looks them in the eye, they see that he's the real deal.

00:50:58.320 He's really authentic and something that attracted me to him early on.

00:51:02.800 And, you know, when you're speaking to Derek, he's not going to deviate.

00:51:05.820 What he says is really what he means and what he's going to do.

00:51:09.940 Yeah, that whole idea that we heard was conservative without apology.

00:51:14.280 That was the cornerstone, I think, message of Derek Sloan's campaign.

00:51:18.240 And that has been a very consistent one.

00:51:20.600 Do you think that message itself is one that at this point in time is really needed in the Conservative Party

00:51:25.900 or even more broadly, the conservative movement?

00:51:29.120 Absolutely.

00:51:30.040 I think many of us who consider ourselves small-c conservatives

00:51:35.480 or members of the Conservative Party are sick and tired

00:51:38.740 of seeing our leadership bow down to the politically correct,

00:51:42.700 to the political elite, to others.

00:51:45.860 You know, I'm a card-carrying member of the Conservative Party,

00:51:47.740 so to the liberal bullies, Big L, Little L,

00:51:51.140 I think we're sick and tired of the apologies.

00:51:53.640 If we believe we have the right message and the true message, why would we apologize?

00:51:57.520 And what is that message?

00:51:58.600 It's standing up for freedoms in Canada, standing up for our charters of rights and freedoms,

00:52:03.880 standing up for those God-given freedoms.

00:52:06.040 And I think that's something that one should never apologize for.

00:52:08.400 In fact, they should stand proudly.

00:52:11.020 And that's why I think Derek's slogan definitely came.

00:52:14.240 It's true, but you're right.

00:52:15.520 It was the right slogan at the right time in this movement.

00:52:18.500 So what do you think is going to happen tonight?

00:52:21.260 I guess time will tell.

00:52:22.700 think it's really going to be interesting to see who gets knocked off first and where that down

00:52:26.140 ballot support goes. I know recent polling has said it seems to be neck and neck with O'Toole

00:52:31.780 and McKay. And again, that's, you know, advanced polling. There's only one poll that matters. Of

00:52:36.260 course, that's today. You know, I think back to 2016 when it was Hillary Clinton running against

00:52:40.520 Donald Trump, polling had her out in the lead. I think there was a big shock on election night.

00:52:45.680 We'll see if that's going to be the case today. I think regardless of the outcome,

00:52:50.080 you know Derek should be very pleased with the campaign he ran and I think that we're going to

00:52:55.300 see a lot of emerging voices from this this campaign it'll be I think it'll be a challenge

00:52:58.880 for whomever emerges as leader to make sure that we unite everybody within the party.

00:53:03.020 Yeah very wise words. Tanya Granik-Allen thank you so much for your time. Thank you so much.

00:53:11.060 So this is one of the joys of doing a live podcast but while we were playing that interview

00:53:16.260 you. We just saw that David Aiken, who is a reporter over at Global News, he tweeted the

00:53:21.860 following. He said, well, we're off to a great start with the conservative leadership. And I

00:53:25.760 just got word that they're running 90 minutes late right now. So our plan, Andrew, is to do a

00:53:32.180 30-minute pre-show and then go to the conservative show at 6 p.m. Well, it doesn't look like that

00:53:38.540 conservative show is going to start now until 7.30. So we are just trying to figure out what

00:53:44.340 we're going to do on our end with the true north live podcast we're definitely going to continue

00:53:48.940 to bring you content we might have to take a short break at some point in between just to

00:53:53.780 make sure that we have everything lined up to to bring you all the information and bring you all

00:53:58.900 the news uh from the evening so that was just a quick programming note we were no longer going

00:54:04.020 yeah my dinner plans were predicated on throwing over to the party feed at six o'clock so i'm

00:54:07.800 I'm going to be, like, losing weight in real time on this show now.

00:54:12.580 Sneaking, sneaking a breakfast bar or something in between segments here.

00:54:17.980 Yeah, so, I mean, look, this happens, this is live.

00:54:20.640 And it's kind of interesting, Andrew, because, you know, you would sort of expect a delay.

00:54:24.540 I 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.

00:54:33.260 Maybe it was 2017 in Toronto I was there.

00:54:35.900 And there always are delays in this kind of thing.

00:54:38.460 But given that the results, you know, the deadline for mail-in ballots was Friday and, you know, it's now Sunday.

00:54:46.120 They just announced, what, 10 minutes before they were supposed to go live that they were running late.

00:54:49.700 A little bit chaotic over there.

00:54:51.800 But, you know, we'll continue to try to do our best.

00:54:55.800 So, you know, that was a really interesting interview, Andrew, that you did with Tanya Granik-Allen.

00:55:00.940 And I know she has a lot of support in Ontario and a lot of people who look to her.

00:55:06.240 So was she working on that campaign or she was just sort of a supporter?

00:55:10.280 So Tanya is actually a very interesting example because she runs a parents' rights group in Ontario called Parents' First Educators

00:55:17.840 and is a very avowed social conservative.

00:55:20.360 And she actually did something very similar to what I did, which is really start vetting the candidates very rigorously,

00:55:26.480 doing some really in-depth, no-holds-barred interviews with them

00:55:30.420 to see who she would endorse.

00:55:31.860 And ultimately, she was not fond of some parts of Lesley Lewis's campaign.

00:55:36.520 Peter McKay, I think, gave her the same brush-off that he gave to us.

00:55:40.280 And Erin O'Toole, I don't think she was thrilled with.

00:55:42.540 So she ended up endorsing only one candidate.

00:55:46.140 And because of that, she was able to join and help with some of the get-out-the-vote,

00:55:50.540 So especially in Ontario, where Tanya Granik-Allen is very well regarded among social conservatives.

00:55:56.840 So that was something that was very interesting.

00:55:59.240 And 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.

00:56:08.100 And 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.

00:56:20.540 Right. Well, the impression I got about Derek Sloan was that he was just willing to speak his

00:56:24.900 mind and he was willing to say what he believed. He didn't feel like a rehearsed politician.

00:56:30.180 You know, I'll give you an example. During the IPG, what was supposed to be the Independent

00:56:34.300 Press Gallery's debate that turned into that fireside chat that you hosted, you know,

00:56:38.940 when you guys were talking, it didn't really even at times feel like an interview. It just felt like,

00:56:43.060 you know, two friends talking about public policy or whatever. And then during the Q&A at the end,

00:56:47.540 he was asked, you know, would you recognize Taiwan as an independent country? He didn't even

00:56:51.820 hesitate for a second. He just answered. And it's so refreshing to hear that because, Andrew,

00:56:56.820 we live in a time where so many politicians are just so rehearsed, so robotic. They basically

00:57:03.460 base their platform on polling, on the latest data. And you don't really feel like you're

00:57:08.940 talking to an authentic person. You're just talking to a poll tested. And you see it in

00:57:15.080 in politics all over particularly in the u.s you know with those democrats but you see you see it

00:57:19.800 in canada too you saw it a little bit with andrew sheer it was just really refreshing to me to hear

00:57:24.840 derek sloan just sort of speak his mind and say things not politically correct at all you know

00:57:30.120 we know that the way that he was talking about the coronavirus and he wanted uh dr theresa tam to be

00:57:36.040 fired that that would turn into a big storm it turned off a lot of sort of more centrists i

00:57:41.720 I suppose. But from a conservative perspective, it was just sort of, again, refreshing to hear

00:57:46.980 someone who wasn't too worried about what the media was saying about them, wasn't too worried

00:57:51.540 about whether they were going to get slapped on the wrist or censured because of not being

00:57:57.160 politically correct enough. He was really just an authentic guy. And I could definitely see how

00:58:01.080 that would appeal beyond just the base of social conservatives there.

00:58:08.100 If you're just tuning in, this is the True North Conservative Leadership Results Show.

00:58:13.380 I'm Andrew Lawton, and hosting this is Candace Malcolm.

00:58:16.760 If you are just tuning in, we'll tell you that the official results have been delayed a fair bit.

00:58:21.480 Originally, the Conservative Party was to start its stream at 6 o'clock Eastern time,

00:58:26.060 which is in about a minute and a half.

00:58:27.740 And now they've done a little tiny, teeny, modest delay to 7.30 Eastern time,

00:58:33.040 which is, I think, a significant one that actually is even larger a delay than the English language

00:58:38.920 or rather the French language debate, which was delayed, I think, by close to half an hour as well.

00:58:44.240 So, I mean, these things do happen.

00:58:45.500 We're going to be with you for the long haul here.

00:58:47.800 We're already putting together a cast of characters to come

00:58:50.660 and shed out some light on different themes that have emerged through this campaign.

00:58:55.180 One story I will point out that's kind of interesting is I'm hearing from multiple sources

00:58:59.800 that the party is citing as its reason for the delay

00:59:03.840 the volume of ballots.

00:59:05.320 They had over 172,000 ballots cast.

00:59:08.420 The thing that I find interesting about this

00:59:10.220 is that the party has been promoting

00:59:12.040 the number of ballots for days now

00:59:15.260 since the deadline on Friday night.

00:59:17.900 So they've been aware of this.

00:59:19.160 And you'd think to some extent

00:59:20.760 they would know their capacity to count these.

00:59:24.140 And even earlier this afternoon,

00:59:25.700 you'd think they'd know,

00:59:26.680 hey, you know, it's 4 p.m.

00:59:28.360 we're supposed to be going live we're not done yet like that strikes me as

00:59:33.100 very disorganized to not know that they aren't going to have a number in time

00:59:37.480 for the show that they've been promoting but Andrew have you ever been to a

00:59:41.640 convention or a leadership event like this where they have been on time I feel

00:59:46.380 like this is just you know that this is exactly what happens every single time

00:59:50.040 well the jokes on us we're starting at 5 30 I guess yeah we should have seen this

00:59:54.860 one coming but that's okay you know we were kind of trying to squeeze a lot into a 30-minute

00:59:59.580 broadcast so i'm perfectly fine with stretching it out and hopefully we'll be able to bring in

01:00:04.220 some additional interviews but one of the interviews that you did was you got to catch

01:00:08.700 up with someone from the aaron o'toole campaign to talk about what they went through and what the

01:00:14.860 biggest moments were for them so let's go over to that interview i'm joined now by aaron o'toole's

01:00:21.100 campaign manager fred delori fred good to talk to you thanks for joining me tonight thanks for

01:00:25.340 having us on one of the big themes we've heard from aaron o'toole and your campaign throughout

01:00:31.020 the course of the race has been really that idea of being a true blue conservative was that really

01:00:37.500 what you think it was and is at stake in this race you know who is the most authentic broad

01:00:42.300 spectrum conservative in the running for the leadership well absolutely this is a this is a

01:00:46.620 race for the leadership of the Conservative Party. This is, you know, their membership are the ones

01:00:51.260 who are voting and it's important to communicate to them. And I can say, you know, it's been

01:00:56.940 working very well for us. It's a message that has been resonating. What would you say have really

01:01:02.360 been the big themes that have been central to the race? I know a lot of it was sidelined by

01:01:07.500 the pandemic, but in the last month in particular, it really seems like all of the campaigns really

01:01:13.440 leapt forward and did all the things that under normal circumstances they would have been doing

01:01:17.680 since january right well it's certainly been a strange campaign uh you know there's no in the

01:01:23.680 in the campaign manager manual there's no tab for how to manage during a pandemic

01:01:29.280 uh so things have obviously changed in the you know the messaging and everything that's

01:01:33.440 been going affected by that uh the main themes though of course it's not just about beating

01:01:38.480 trudeau it's about replacing him with a conservative version uh that we want not

01:01:42.080 a liberal light bird so that's been something that's very important to our campaign and to our

01:01:46.480 membership i know that obviously social media would have been a pivotal role in the campaign

01:01:53.520 regardless but i think we can all say more so when for the bulk of the campaign you couldn't travel

01:01:58.480 you couldn't have any in-person events how did you really adapt to that i know there were a lot

01:02:03.360 of videos that were being pushed out on a number of issues clips and stuff like that but but more

01:02:08.880 broadly speaking how was that for the campaign well it was interesting because at the beginning

01:02:13.040 of this campaign there was actually an internal debate about how much to have the candidate tour

01:02:17.280 around the country or do uh different facebook lives videos like that reach more directly to

01:02:22.720 all the members uh so the pandemic obviously forced us to do what we were thinking about

01:02:26.800 doing anyways uh so we were ready to to quickly go into that mode and instead you know aaron o'toole

01:02:32.640 was able to talk to someone in newfoundland in the morning and someone in bc at night

01:02:36.560 and go right across the country by doing zooms and whatnot so it's been it's been a great uh

01:02:40.720 a great way to do a campaign now i want to ask you about one of the key endorsements that aaron

01:02:45.600 o'toole had landed and really seemed to i think push and that was that of jason kenney and i had

01:02:51.200 made the observation when that happened that i think next to stephen harper that's probably one

01:02:56.080 of the the most significant endorsements you can get in canadian conservative politics right now

01:03:02.320 how much do you think that translates or endorsements in general translate to votes so

01:03:07.680 generally uh endorsements don't drive votes at all a lot of a lot of times it's a waste of time

01:03:13.600 uh they really don't pull a lot a lot of weight um when you go for an endorsement what you really

01:03:18.800 want is that person or a worker to go there and sign up memberships but generally endorsements

01:03:25.040 do have no impact having said that jason kenny though was a very special endorsement it's very

01:03:30.080 different word he's perceived as such a leader within the conservative movement uh across the

01:03:34.400 country uh in all parts of this country um certainly gave a huge boost to our campaign

01:03:43.280 there was a huge front runner in this race and we kept chipping at him and this is one of those

01:03:47.680 things that helped put us in a position where i think we're going to win this well on that note

01:03:53.760 i'll ask you the question i've been asking everyone what do you think is going to happen tonight

01:03:56.960 i think we're going to win on the third ballot okay so you're going specific third ballot win

01:04:02.560 is what you're predicting yep and i think less than lewis will be our phone all right fred

01:04:07.920 delori campaign manager for aaron o'toole joining me thank you so much for your time fred good luck

01:04:26.960 Thank you.

01:04:56.960 showing a black screen okay so that was really interesting interview that you did there

01:05:08.720 andrew and it's interesting to hear uh from fred delor delori just talking about you know how kind

01:05:16.180 of intense it was interesting how he was the only one who actually made up predictions he predicted

01:05:20.760 that his guy was going to win not surprising i'm sure they all think they're going to win

01:05:23.980 But he said that it was going to come down to the third ballot and that he thought that

01:05:28.100 it would be a competition between him and Lesley Lewis.

01:05:31.720 It would be really interesting because if you paid attention to the mainstream media

01:05:35.300 over the last few days, they all are kind of calling Peter McKay the front runner and

01:05:39.940 saying he's basically a shoo-in, it's going to be a landslide.

01:05:42.680 So I think we definitely still have an interesting evening on our hands. 1.00

01:05:47.000 That is, if we actually are delivered the results tonight, which at this point were

01:05:52.680 delayed by an hour and a half at least and who knows what will happen. Yeah and on that note just

01:05:58.720 a bit of breaking news coming in here. Susan Delacorte who was one of the debate moderators 0.99

01:06:03.240 in the general election debate last year and is a columnist with the Star predominantly has said

01:06:08.640 that the vote counting machines are apparently ripping the ballots. Now I didn't hear the original

01:06:14.080 quote but she cites Lisa Raid as saying that. So when the ballots are being spoiled by the machine

01:06:21.600 that's supposed to be counting them suffice it to say I don't think the speed at which they were

01:06:26.420 hoping to get through that stack of ballots is going to be on track so I mean if this this problem

01:06:31.420 I mean could create even bigger implications as far as the integrity of the results not just the

01:06:37.180 timing of the results well absolutely and I mean Andrew if they're if they're hand counting that

01:06:43.180 many ballots how many ballots did they say they got 180,000 I mean if that's the case that they

01:06:48.200 that they can't use the machine that they had designed to do this and they're going to be

01:06:51.880 counting those ballots by hand there is no way we're going to find out tonight um again interesting

01:06:57.560 that they will be waiting until the 11th hour i mean they're supposed to be live right now you'd

01:07:02.520 think that this is stuff that they would have been dealing with since friday afternoon when the

01:07:06.520 ballots officially closed so a little bit again a little bit of chaos over at the conservative hq

01:07:13.480 I guess. But we're going to do our best here to, you know, the show must go on. This is sort of

01:07:20.260 like the IPG debate all over again, Andrew, where we were supposed to have four candidates to do a

01:07:26.480 debate. And then at the last minute, two of them backed out. And so we ended up completely changing

01:07:31.400 our script and our schedule. So we're doing that again. But luckily, I think there's a lot of

01:07:36.040 content to talk about. I think that, you know, you raised really good points in that interview

01:07:40.620 that you did with Fred about Aaron O'Toole because, in my mind, I think he's sort of the

01:07:46.360 frontrunner of this campaign. You know, he was endorsed by Jason Kenney, as you said in your

01:07:51.500 interview there. He ran a very strong social media campaign. I follow all of the candidates on

01:07:56.620 Facebook and Twitter, and, you know, it was really Aaron O'Toole that I kept seeing over and over

01:08:02.340 again. His videos were going viral. He had really kind of funny, smart visual, you know, his tweets

01:08:09.120 that he was sending out and all that kind of stuff.

01:08:10.860 I just thought he ran a really good campaign.

01:08:12.780 So it's a little interesting to hear his campaign manager.

01:08:16.120 I think, I don't know what Fred's official role over there is,

01:08:18.940 but to hear Fred say that he thought that Peter McKay was the frontrunner.

01:08:22.840 I guess, you know, again, in the minds of people over at the CBC,

01:08:27.240 Peter McKay is the frontrunner.

01:08:28.380 But I think Aaron O'Toole is also very familiar.

01:08:30.720 You know, he ran in the last leadership debate.

01:08:33.200 He came in third, a very strong showing in that race.

01:08:37.320 that ultimately Andrew Scheer won

01:08:39.340 and Maxime Bernier was a close second.

01:08:41.580 So, you know, he's been a leader in the party

01:08:43.720 for a number of years now.

01:08:45.260 And I did think it was quite interesting

01:08:47.100 that his campaign team there referred to him

01:08:49.680 to some other guy, to Peter McKay as the front runner.

01:08:52.960 Yeah, and I think that one thing

01:08:54.580 that I found interesting on the social media game

01:08:56.820 from the O'Toole campaign

01:08:57.840 is that they really tried to tap

01:09:00.340 into some of the culture war issues.

01:09:02.880 I mean, his first video was about cancel culture,

01:09:05.760 which is an issue that you usually hear about from conservative commentators, not from conservative politicians,

01:09:11.600 really waging into the battle about statues being taken down.

01:09:14.960 And I mean, certainly something like that is very deliberate, same as when he went after CBC's bias in funding.

01:09:20.500 I mean, that is a political issue, but I think it's really a conservative cultural discussion.

01:09:25.280 And I think that that was certainly a calculation, but I think a very smart one,

01:09:29.140 because that's the way you get people energized and excited about your campaign.

01:09:32.900 If 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.

01:09:52.000 The ones that excite people are the cultural battles.

01:09:55.260 Absolutely.

01:09:56.220 And I think that that is why, you know, Aaron O'Toole, we saw his videos going viral.

01:10:01.640 we saw his tweets go viral. You know, he had a really funny tweet the other day that, again,

01:10:06.120 you know, he really went heavy on this Jason Kenney endorsement. But, you know, it had had a

01:10:10.500 sort of juxtaposition. Aaron O'Toole endorsed by Jason Kenney, who is, you know, one of the most

01:10:16.200 foremost conservatives, the premier of Alberta. And then inside next to it, it had Peter McKay

01:10:22.140 endorsed by the Toronto Star, which, you know, everyone's least favorite newspaper in the country.

01:10:26.660 So that was clever, and the sort of viral-ness of that, you know, goes a lot further than just his own reach.

01:10:34.400 But, 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

01:10:40.920 was about how usually a convention, usually a leadership race, ends in a convention, and you have the whole conservative family coming together.

01:10:49.400 And, you know, I've been to those events, and they're so fun.

01:10:52.060 there's so much energy you see so many familiar faces you know people who have

01:10:56.200 worked together you know different offices at different times and different

01:10:59.680 parts of the country everyone's just kind of coming together so regardless of

01:11:03.940 how you know not I won't say nasty but just how competitive these races are how

01:11:08.680 the different campaign teams work so hard and pour their hearts and souls into

01:11:12.380 these campaigns and you start to feel like other conservatives are like your

01:11:16.240 enemy but then you know you have the convention you all come together and

01:11:19.820 reunite and everyone unites around the candidate. But because we don't have that in-person event

01:11:25.440 this year because of COVID, Andrew, do you think that's something that's really missing? Do you

01:11:30.180 think that it could potentially lead to fractures in the Conservative Party just because you don't

01:11:34.820 have that kind of coming together? I know this was a really vicious campaign. There were times

01:11:38.940 where, you know, Aaron O'Toole and Peter McKay, I think there might have even been lawsuits filed

01:11:43.500 against each other over something about someone watching someone else's Zoom clips or something.

01:11:49.720 Anyway, it was a really hard-fought campaign.

01:11:53.280 Do you think any of those divisions are going to be long-lasting in the party,

01:11:56.360 or are they going to be something that we can get over quickly?

01:11:58.900 It's tough to say.

01:12:00.320 I mean, when we saw the 2017 leadership race,

01:12:03.120 there were 13, 14 candidates, depending on the particular point in the race.

01:12:07.140 And in that, there isn't as much direct one-on-one animosity,

01:12:11.680 although certainly there was between the Scheer and Bernier campaigns.

01:12:15.460 But I think there's a cautionary tale in that,

01:12:17.420 Because look at what happened with that dynamic between Andrew Scheer and Maxime Bernier after the race.

01:12:22.500 Now, I'm not suggesting that the loser or one of the losing candidates of this race will split off and form their own party.

01:12:29.980 But 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.

01:12:37.380 So in this time, I think, yeah, people that know politics and are in politics are used to this fight.

01:12:42.880 They know how it is to just be on opposing teams and then all come together because everyone wants the Conservative Party to win.

01:12:49.440 But 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.

01:12:58.860 And 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.

01:13:11.140 And 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.

01:13:20.040 They're pro-LGBT rights.

01:13:21.480 They're pro-choice.

01:13:22.560 But the difference was Erin O'Toole had said, yes, social conservatives have a place in my party.

01:13:27.820 And Peter McKay said the opposite at various points in the campaign.

01:13:31.840 And 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.

01:13:40.100 Yeah, 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.

01:14:08.600 that under a new leader that those old fractions would become apparent and that didn't really

01:14:12.920 happen at all. Maybe if it had been you know a Jason Kenney versus Peter McKay scenario which

01:14:18.700 everyone kind of thought that that was what was going to happen back in 2015-2016 you know maybe

01:14:24.160 if that had been what had happened it would have fractured it. But Andrew what we saw was a little

01:14:29.080 bit of a different fraction with Andrew Scheer winning and then Maxime Bernier coming so close.

01:14:34.680 I mean, Maxi Bernier was winning on most of those ballots throughout that evening.

01:14:39.420 Everyone but the last one.

01:14:40.820 Everyone but the last one.

01:14:42.300 Yeah, he was the person who the most people put first on their list, put second on their list, and so on.

01:14:48.620 And yet, at the end of the day, there wasn't even room for him in the party.

01:14:52.060 I think he left the party just a couple of months after that.

01:14:55.320 And the fraction seemed to be sort of the difference between more establishment conservatives and more,

01:15:01.720 I don't want to say Trump-y conservatives, but people who were just sick and tired of political correctness and wanted more authentic politics.

01:15:09.360 And a lot of those people have left the party.

01:15:11.320 Some are still there, but they're not completely happy.

01:15:13.900 I 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.

01:15:23.200 And so it will be a juggling act if either of those two candidates win.

01:15:27.380 I mean, same with Leslie Lewis or Derek Sloan. Whoever wins this thing tonight is going to have

01:15:31.600 a difficult job on their hands, just keeping the party together, keeping them energized and excited.

01:15:36.880 And, you know, you said that Peter McKay, you know, sort of brushed some people off and doesn't

01:15:43.000 really connect very well with social conservatives. I think you could say that about a lot of

01:15:46.880 conservatives. I have a hard time imagining him really exciting the base out in Western Canada

01:15:53.520 or getting Albertans really excited about being, you know, voting for the Conservatives.

01:15:58.280 A lot of Albertans, frankly, have had enough of the whole Canadian Confederation,

01:16:02.840 and they're looking in another direction entirely.

01:16:05.620 So I would worry about, again, party unity under any of these,

01:16:09.760 but very specifically under Peter McKay.

01:16:12.020 What do you think?

01:16:13.140 Yeah, I would agree.

01:16:14.260 And just on the note of Peter McKay, I want to make something clear for the record.

01:16:17.920 We had extended invitations to all four campaigns to send a representative,

01:16:22.920 someone from the campaign team to chat for a few minutes and as you heard in those interviews

01:16:27.720 they were all very light very friendly thinking of the past of the campaign thinking of the future

01:16:33.500 and Peter McKay was the only candidate to not accept that invitation similar to when we did

01:16:39.400 our initial leadership series interviews on my show back in March Peter McKay was the only

01:16:44.380 candidate to not accept the invitation and when we did the independent press gallery debate Lesley

01:16:49.880 Lewis had taken ill and was unable to attend, Peter McKay chose not to. And, you know, if this

01:16:55.720 sounds like a petty squabble, it really isn't. I think this is very significant when there has

01:17:01.000 been a trend going back to the very beginning of the race for Peter McKay to just not be available

01:17:06.400 and not even to have someone from his team available to chat for a few minutes on the night

01:17:10.940 the results are coming in. So the reason there wasn't a member of the Peter McKay team on this

01:17:15.880 show today is not for lack of trying it's not for lack of invitation it's because that is again the

01:17:20.840 latest example of the mckay campaign simply not being interested you know i i try to keep an open

01:17:26.920 mind with peter mckay i try not to sort of prejudge him from other uh experiences i had with him or

01:17:33.080 or views i had of him back when he was a minister in the harper government but you know there it

01:17:38.440 does feel like there's a reoccurring theme here andrew he he didn't want to sit down for an

01:17:42.440 interview with us why i mean what's so what's so scary about an interview with andrew lawton i mean

01:17:47.400 you know every other conservative candidate uh was more than happy to sit down with you you sat down

01:17:52.600 with i think most of them also back in 2015 i'm sure on your on your radio show and other uh

01:17:58.440 platforms you've interviewed just about you know every leader you i know you've interviewed

01:18:03.000 justin trudeau you've interviewed stephen harper you know you're not gonna come out and say

01:18:07.320 something radical that's going to get him in trouble it's just you know why why is he so

01:18:12.040 hesitant to talk to us to participate to engage with conservative media um again i think that's

01:18:17.960 going to be part of his problem again i try to keep an open mind and if he wins uh wish him all

01:18:23.880 the best and hope that he is able to defeat justin trudeau sooner rather than later um but i think

01:18:30.360 that he really does need to work on his uh outreach and his openness to to talk to uh conservatives

01:18:36.360 wherever they are which which frankly it's not through the toronto star it's not on the cbc

01:18:41.560 it's increasingly uh through independent media outlets and i know that that the folks over at

01:18:46.840 the rebel have had the same kind of issues you know they have to chase him through parking lots

01:18:50.760 and hotel lobbies just to try to get a comment from him and he runs away from them um for us he

01:18:56.440 just he says no or says yes and then changes his mind and doesn't show or no or no response at all

01:19:01.960 uh just for those of you tuning in the official results are delayed by about 90 minutes but our

01:19:07.000 team has been working uh around the clock for the last however long it's been since we learned that

01:19:11.640 to put a great show together and we've got a great rotating uh cast of people that are going to come

01:19:16.840 on and chat about these things from various perspectives so that is all coming up if you're

01:19:21.160 just tuning in now i wanted to give you a heads up about that yeah and i think that we are going to

01:19:27.160 have some great programming andrew we're going to try to get some guests on unfortunately we're

01:19:31.000 gonna have to cut this stream off because we're gonna have to change over to a different stream

01:19:35.720 so that we can accommodate bringing guests in but we're gonna try sorry just just to correct i'm

01:19:39.800 told that the the our stream is going to remain the same so if you hold tight okay and keep watching

01:19:44.440 the channel you're watching on now uh it will be the same for you but on the back end we've got to

01:19:48.600 take a little bit of a break uh to change things over okay thanks for that clarification andrew

01:19:53.640 yeah so we we're gonna we're gonna continue with you we're gonna stay on until 7 30. we're just

01:19:58.520 going to take a very brief break so that we can switch the platforms on the back end here

01:20:03.240 and then that way we're going to come back with some interviews andrew do we have any interviews

01:20:07.160 lined up so far yeah we've got a lot we're going to be speaking with elissa golab from right now

01:20:11.880 which has been very involved in driving support to lesl and lewis specifically but more broadly

01:20:17.480 and raising the uh the social conservative issues that have become so contentious we're also going

01:20:22.040 to be joined by our true north colleague anthony fury and some other folks as well and that's all

01:20:26.600 going to be in the next 45 minutes or so great well Andrew before we before we take a small

01:20:32.600 break here did you have any uh any predictions for the night any anything that you're hoping

01:20:37.720 to have happen other than hopefully you know we'll actually hear the results of this uh

01:20:41.880 I predict the party will announce another delay so all I can tell you is to stay tuned and we'll

01:20:46.200 have you looked after all right well there you have it okay folks we are going to take a very

01:20:50.600 quick break just stay stay put and we'll be back in a couple minutes and we'll have some interviews

01:20:54.440 for you.

01:21:24.440 Thank you.

01:21:54.440 Thank you.

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01:23:54.440 Thank you.

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01:30:24.440 Thank you.

01:30:54.440 Hi, welcome back to True North Live. I'm your host, Candice Malcolm, joined by my co-host,

01:31:05.080 Andrew Lawton. Thank you so much for bearing with us. Again, you know, this is not live television,

01:31:10.120 but it's live, you know, internet television or live podcasts. So we're trying to do the

01:31:15.080 best we can with the information as it's coming in. As you definitely know by now,

01:31:19.800 the conservative leadership uh uh race the results were coming in there it was supposed to start at

01:31:25.400 6 p.m then bump back to 7 30. so we're going to give you lots of content lots of interesting

01:31:30.920 interviews with with some folks that you're probably familiar with and we've got our first

01:31:35.640 interview lined up right now andrew i'll throw it over to you for the interview yeah one of

01:31:40.440 the big themes that emerged from the mainstream media in the last federal election was andrew

01:31:45.240 shares social conservatism. And that has really pushed itself into the discussion in the

01:31:50.840 conservative leadership race. And we mentioned earlier, the infamous albatross comment from

01:31:56.520 Peter McKay about social conservatives, which is really, I think, soured a lot of social

01:32:00.820 conservative voters on Peter McKay and a possible Peter McKay leadership. And I do have to point out

01:32:07.400 that this race has been in many respects, not defined by social conservatism, but defined by,

01:32:13.900 I think the willingness of the candidates to embrace the various factions of the party.

01:32:18.240 And Candace, you and I were talking about this earlier.

01:32:20.500 You have Derek Sloan and Leslyn Lewis that are running as social conservatives.

01:32:25.400 You have Aaron O'Toole who's saying, listen, I'm not a social conservative, but you all

01:32:29.240 have a place in my party right now, which is a group that has done a lot to advance

01:32:34.220 conservative or rather candidates who are pro-life through nominations and leaderships

01:32:39.860 has been very active in this race and specifically towards Leslyn Lewis. Now, I have to disclose when

01:32:46.280 I ran as a candidate in the Ontario election in 2018, Right Now was supporting me. I am very

01:32:51.760 grateful for that to this day. The co-founder of Right Now, Alyssa Globe, is joining us on the

01:32:57.540 line. Alyssa, thanks very much for coming on on short notice. Good to have you. Thanks for having

01:33:02.020 me. So let's talk about why Leslyn Lewis, because I know that one of the things that you look at 0.97

01:33:08.680 often when you're deciding who to endorse is who the most electable candidate is that's going to

01:33:13.640 be really in alignment on your issues and being pro-life. At the beginning of the race, Leslyn

01:33:19.120 Lewis was a virtual unknown. Well, I think she had a lot of winnability factors that made us 0.99

01:33:27.160 drawn to her right away. You know, we worked with her. We actually have helped support her

01:33:32.200 in the 2015 election when she came very last minute in the riding in Scarborough. So we

01:33:38.120 already had door knocked with her we knew her we knew what her capabilities were and then on paper 0.54

01:33:42.360 just in terms of her credentials all of these things um you know encapsulated her becoming the

01:33:49.960 number one candidate for us and it proved to be uh highly rewarding because she's done an amazing job

01:33:55.160 so far well she really has and it's been exciting for so many of us to to see a candidate like that

01:34:01.160 because you know the mainstream media likes to paint conservatives as being you know backwards

01:34:05.880 and sort of archaic and old white men and so it's so exciting to see uh you know someone who's who's

01:34:11.720 who's got a totally different background but can still communicate um the issues so so for someone

01:34:16.840 like you alissa who you know being pro-life is you know the most important uh aspect of of what she's

01:34:23.560 running for you know what specifically about her her policy um was it that that really uh got you

01:34:29.400 you guys excited? Well, for me, I think it's her personal story. Just the fact that she was

01:34:35.280 coerced to have an abortion while articling on Bay Street as a lawyer, as a young female lawyer,

01:34:41.380 was a big thing that her friends and family were coercing her, and she withstood that pressure

01:34:46.760 and had her baby, and now she has two children. And so she's actually experienced and walked in

01:34:52.400 the footsteps of women who experience unplanned pregnancy and feel that pressure to abort. And

01:34:58.000 so it's very difficult to have you know the mainstream media the evan solomons say you know

01:35:03.760 you're trying to roll back women's rights when she actually went through that process and her 0.64

01:35:08.480 policies are there to support women one of her main policies is to find pregnancy care centers

01:35:14.000 very difficult to argue against that and it's all things that the pro-life movement ardently

01:35:17.680 endorses so these are the things that really draw me personally to her campaign and her candidacy

01:35:23.440 One thing I found interesting is that Lesley Lewis has gotten a lot of support from people

01:35:28.560 that aren't from the social conservative or pro-life wing of the party necessarily. In fact,

01:35:33.760 I've seen a lot of people even who are on the Peter McKay campaign who have put Lesley Lewis

01:35:37.800 as their second choice. And even in the media, when they have gotten around to covering her,

01:35:42.680 they've done it in a favorable way that they didn't really extend to any other candidates

01:35:47.000 in history who have socially conservative views. So why is it that you think she's been able to

01:35:52.040 bypass a lot of the treatment that pro-life candidates typically have

01:35:56.540 gotten? Because I think her her pro-life policies are grassroots policies that 0.99

01:36:02.520 are already a part of the Conservative Party of Canada handbook so she's not

01:36:06.500 really saying anything that we haven't already decided at convention not only

01:36:10.520 that but she has these credentials that make her very different like her a

01:36:13.940 master's degree in environmental science I know people automatically view that as 0.96

01:36:18.500 bad thing but she has um you know she puts canadians first she has a very in-depth policies

01:36:24.900 on um the environment that a lot of social conservatives i think kind of veer more towards

01:36:30.260 the right and don't take that into consideration as much when there are a lot of people who are

01:36:35.060 socially conservative but maybe a little bit more progressive in terms of environmental or economic

01:36:40.340 issues so i think less would encapsulate all all those things so she has a broad background

01:36:45.540 i can really unite the party in all aspects well absolutely and i i don't think that those are

01:36:50.740 necessarily bad things because it's so good to understand the other side so the fact that she

01:36:54.900 has a master's degree in environmental science she understands the environmental arguments she

01:36:59.700 understands you know what the opponents are trying to say i know i personally took a few classes of

01:37:04.820 international environmental law when i was in grad school and i find them painful because i

01:37:08.420 disagreed so much but it was ultimately helpful because you know you understand what the other

01:37:13.620 side um is going through well Alyssa maybe just quickly tell us what what does a right now

01:37:19.060 endorsement uh provide or what you know what is it that you are doing uh at this point for

01:37:23.780 Leslyn Lewis uh well we did encourage people to rank their ballots fully so even though Leslyn

01:37:29.620 was one we still wanted people to vote for um all the candidates one to four um and so what that

01:37:35.700 means is basically we'll call our our membership lists uh we'll encourage people to buy memberships

01:37:40.580 will help with get out the vote will uh doorknock to pick up ballots um basically work as a little

01:37:46.360 party within a party and do as much as we can to help the candidates and tilt the skill in their

01:37:52.160 favor so they come out on top i know that one of the dynamics of the conservative leadership race

01:37:58.820 that oftentimes can be make or break is the ranking and you just indicated that let me ask

01:38:03.620 you about aaron o'toole because i i know that some pro-life voters i've heard from say they

01:38:08.580 They cannot vote for Aaron O'Toole in good conscience because he's pro-choice, whereas

01:38:12.800 you've actually looked somewhat favorably on him and you've asked people to rank him

01:38:16.840 after Lesley Lewis and Derek Sloan.

01:38:19.260 Is someone who is not on side with you, but is willing to allow people who are on side

01:38:26.000 with you to have a voice in the party, is that enough in this day and age?

01:38:29.660 Yeah, I mean, personally, I was very disappointed to see pro-life MPs endorse Peter McKay when

01:38:35.020 he very vehemently says that if they are in cabinet they won't have that freedom to vote

01:38:40.540 according to their conscience and that their views are that stinking albatross that has felt

01:38:44.780 that has become his stinking albatross in this leadership race um so i'm very disappointed in

01:38:49.500 mps who have endorsed him because even though you say you're pro-life what are you actually going to

01:38:53.820 do about it and conversely even though aaron says he's pro-choice he has dif he has different pro-life

01:38:59.660 policies that were outlined in our interview and he has a fairly good voting record so he has the

01:39:05.500 actions to back it up um so these things are really important it's one thing to say something

01:39:10.620 it's another thing to do it and so that's why i think it was important for us to rank our ballot

01:39:14.620 fully and not be dropped out of the conversation if you know it doesn't go our way with the first

01:39:18.620 two rounds alissa just one final question this is something that always really bothers me it seems

01:39:25.180 like there's a really big disconnect between canadians and public opinion and what the

01:39:30.300 mainstream media says is allowable opinion i'll give you an example when it comes to specific

01:39:35.740 aspects of abortion obviously late-term abortions we've all kind of read and seen really gruesome

01:39:41.660 imagery and pictures of sometimes how that goes uh sex selective abortion is a big issue now

01:39:46.620 because people are coming from other parts of the world where they just don't want baby girls and

01:39:50.780 And those are the kind of policies that most Canadians would just rightly instinctively say, like, no, no, no, that's not okay.

01:39:57.260 You 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.

01:40:05.060 But when it comes to the media, it's like you can't even have the very introduction of a conversation.

01:40:09.740 You can't even have the beginning of a conversation.

01:40:11.640 So, you know, I know this is a very deep and loaded question, but maybe you could just

01:40:17.000 provide your kind of brief explanation as to why there is this huge disconnect between what the

01:40:22.440 media says we can talk about and what most Canadians believe to be true.

01:40:27.960 I mean, I think that the media has their narrative, but them, much like party establishments,

01:40:33.080 are very much stuck in their own bubble and they're disconnected to what the opinions of

01:40:37.160 Canadians actually are and I'm currently 35 weeks pregnant and just a few years ago thank you

01:40:44.360 just a few years ago there was a Montreal woman who had an abortion at 35 weeks and even though

01:40:50.360 the doctors didn't know what was wrong with the baby and it wasn't her life wasn't in danger and

01:40:56.200 neither was the baby's life in danger so there was a big outcry about that yet when you say that the

01:41:02.840 abortion debate is closed or we won't reopen the abortion debate you are supporting these late-term

01:41:07.960 abortions that are actually happening and allowing them to continue and there were two polls recently

01:41:14.440 an angus reed poll and i can't remember the other one but both said that the majority of canadians

01:41:19.240 want restrictions on abortion in every single province they broke it down even in quebec

01:41:24.120 and one-third of people in the liberal and ndp parties also want restrictions so this crosses

01:41:30.120 party lines this crosses all different types of canadians it's a winning policy um and i think

01:41:36.040 that it also follows the directives of the supreme court which actually told parliament

01:41:40.920 to regulate abortion equally across the country so i'm not sure why parties let the media dictate

01:41:47.240 what policies are going to put forward but if they actually looked at the numbers which is what our

01:41:51.800 organization is ruled by they'll see that these types of policies will help them win in the gta

01:41:57.240 and differentiate themselves from other parties

01:41:59.680 who are trying to say the same thing.

01:42:01.980 Alyssa Gallobe, co-founder of Right Now,

01:42:05.020 and as you've heard, unabashedly supporting Leslyn Lewis,

01:42:08.600 but for a different reason than a lot of other people,

01:42:11.160 a very singular focus on an issue that matters a great deal.

01:42:14.440 Alyssa, thank you so much for coming on tonight.

01:42:16.040 Good to talk to you.

01:42:16.860 Thanks so much, Andrew and Candice.

01:42:18.500 Thanks, Alyssa.

01:42:19.920 And this is the live Conservative Leadership Results

01:42:23.260 show on True North.

01:42:24.880 Candice Malcolm and yours truly, Andrew Lawton hosting. And if you're just tuning in and you

01:42:30.180 are no doubt aware that we're rolling with the punches here, I hope, because we had a delay of

01:42:35.060 about 90 minutes so far. And like I said earlier, I mean, we have to be prepared for the inevitable.

01:42:40.840 The one report that came out was that the ballot counting machines are ripping the ballots. And

01:42:46.400 there are other reports that are still coming in about some of the turnouts so far. I've seen

01:42:51.200 little glimpses here and there of people saying that so-and-so is in the lead and you have to

01:42:56.280 take these with a bunch of grains of salt. But we are with you for the long haul. We've got a whole

01:43:01.460 roster of people that are going to be coming on to break this down. But Candice, what did you

01:43:06.080 think about what Alyssa was bringing up there? Yeah, I mean, it's a really interesting organization.

01:43:10.740 I know you know them really well. You've worked with them. I'm not as familiar with them, but

01:43:14.580 you know, it definitely seemed like, you know, everyone knows that social conservatives or

01:43:20.020 pro-life conservatives are the most sort of organized, energetic, involved people that

01:43:26.720 they volunteer, they get involved. They really are passionate and care about politics. And so

01:43:32.280 it's not surprising that they would be so well organized. And I think it was probably a good

01:43:37.440 choice picking Leslie Lewis, just given her personal story and what she went through. And

01:43:41.620 I think that's why the media will have a tough time pigeonholing her and trying to paint her

01:43:47.440 in a specific way when she's had her own experience that she's lived through.

01:43:51.880 So I thought it was a really interesting interview and a great organization.

01:43:55.700 And there is something, I think, very important in the clarity that Leslyn Lewis has had with

01:44:01.380 her position on abortion, because I actually talked about this with her back in March when

01:44:05.400 I sat down with her at the very beginning of the race as part of my conservative leadership

01:44:09.120 series, which had invitations extended to everyone.

01:44:12.400 And her platform had specifically called it a no hidden agenda platform where she listed 0.99

01:44:17.420 point by point, I think it was three or maybe four things that she wanted to do on the abortion 0.87

01:44:22.260 issue. And if you contrast that with Andrew Scheer, who I really think suffered in the last

01:44:28.680 election, because his position was always equivocal and waffly. I mean, he was pro-life,

01:44:34.140 everyone knew he was pro-life, but he still just wouldn't say that as clearly and unabashedly as

01:44:40.200 he felt it. And I think that was what really dogged him in a lot of cases, where if he just

01:44:44.400 said, yeah, this is what I think. So what? And there, there really isn't a criticism to be

01:44:49.340 leveled that is as relevant and pertinent and ongoing as the one that he got. Whereas Lesley

01:44:54.000 Lewis and also Derek Sloan, I think have been able to really sidestep that by just being so clear

01:44:59.100 and so open about what they feel. Yeah, that's a really good point. Cause one of the issues with

01:45:03.680 Andrew Scheer is, you know, he's Catholic. And like you said, everyone knows that he's pro

01:45:07.760 life and people who are pro life, it's not just, uh, you know, like what's your favorite color

01:45:12.220 something like that it's a very deeply held belief and and and to to to say i want to be

01:45:17.660 prime minister of this country but i don't want to change any of the laws you're kind of like

01:45:23.020 well okay you're either not very sincere in your personal beliefs because if you truly believe

01:45:29.900 um that you know that that abortion allows for murder of babies how can you just say i'm going

01:45:35.260 to be prime minister and not do anything about it but then to try to say to the media like oh don't

01:45:39.740 worry you know i'm not going to legislate on it then they're going to think okay well he probably

01:45:43.740 is and down the road we're going to end up uh with policies that we're not being told about right now

01:45:48.220 so i don't think andrew sheer handled that question very well at all and like you said

01:45:52.940 just being transparent and open about it uh with these candidates is a different approach and i

01:45:57.340 guess we'll we'll have to see how it goes depending on whether one of those pro-life candidates

01:46:01.820 actually wins tonight uh how the media handles that and and how they react to someone you know

01:46:07.260 if they are completely upfront and transparent in the way that Les Lewis has been.

01:46:11.180 Yeah, very much so. And continuing along with our live show, we have one of our True North

01:46:15.240 colleagues, a columnist, a commentator, does all sorts of things in front of and behind the scenes,

01:46:21.360 Devin Drover, joining us on the line. Devin, thanks for coming on.

01:46:24.580 Happy to be here. It's exciting.

01:46:27.080 Your perspective, I think, is a really interesting one in this race, coming from Atlantic Canada,

01:46:31.420 where I think the prevailing narrative has been that Peter McKay has a lock on the Atlantic

01:46:36.000 provinces. And I wanted to ask you, how strong is that grip that he has on Atlantic Canada as far

01:46:42.740 as name recognition, organization, and really just the broader support? Well, I think Peter

01:46:50.120 McKay has benefited a lot from having represented in Atlantic riding for a very long time,

01:46:56.060 from also being the regional minister for Newfoundland and Labrador when we didn't have an

01:47:00.080 MP here. So he definitely benefits from that. But it also comes with any scandals that were

01:47:05.520 involved. So the helicopter incident is very, very well known in Newfoundland, for example. So

01:47:12.240 it comes with both good and bad reputations. I think one of the areas that he benefits from is

01:47:16.760 he did have a lot of support from the provincial parties who normally in this region are less or

01:47:22.940 more hesitant to support federal conservatives. So for example, Chess Crosby, the leader of the

01:47:27.960 provincial PC party here in Newfoundland and Labrador endorsed him. The leader of the Nova

01:47:32.440 scotia pcs tim houston endorsed him he had a number of endorsements from m8 from mlas in both

01:47:38.040 pi and new brunswick so he does benefit from that and he also has the endorsement of caucus

01:47:42.600 even though it's a small caucus a lot of the caucus members endorse him for the region as well

01:47:47.860 he has that kind of former or former colleagues that have come out and helped him a lot in the

01:47:54.700 right in the region as well so devon does that translate into actual seats in atlantic canada

01:48:00.900 because I know that the Conservatives were basically completely shut out, I believe, in 2015.

01:48:05.320 I believe they did a little better. Maybe you can remind us of what the seat count looks out there.

01:48:09.080 But do you think if Peter McKay were the leader of the Conservative Party going into a general election against Justin Trudeau,

01:48:14.900 that 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.

01:48:21.000 Well, I mean, if we look at just historically, Stephen Harper was not the most popular guy in Atlantic Canada when he was prime minister,

01:48:27.560 but we still managed to win between 2004 the the 2004 election and the 2015 election we've won

01:48:35.240 up to 19 of the 32 seats in the region never at the same time but of those 32 seats conservatives

01:48:40.440 have been competitive then um i think we would have done a lot better last election if we were

01:48:45.240 focused on different writings we the conservative party tended to support writings that were not

01:48:50.680 um that were historically conservative leaning but no longer in 2015 or

01:48:55.400 or uh 2019 were conservative writing so for example they put a lot of effort

01:48:59.640 here in st john's in a seat that we came third in

01:49:02.440 and then there was a seat that we had no campaign manager and no candidate until 0.99

01:49:06.200 after the uh after the the campaign begun and she

01:49:10.040 only lost by a few hundred votes so it just shows that the the conservatives

01:49:13.480 aren't um organized on the ground here and

01:49:15.960 they're not there seems to be a disconnect between the

01:49:18.600 ottawa war room and actually what goes on in atlantic provinces but i do suspect with peter

01:49:23.560 if peter is elected leader tonight he'll have room to grow uh here though i think that um

01:49:29.960 those gaining 19 seats only matters if he can hold on to everything the conservative party

01:49:34.200 actually has and i think that's probably where he he may struggle with is maintaining grassroots

01:49:39.480 support when kind of expanding to what may be considered more moderate parts of the country

01:49:44.120 including Atlantic Canada and parts of Ontario. And from a leadership perspective, I'll tell

01:49:49.720 people a little bit more in depth about the rules and regulations of the race if that interests you

01:49:54.600 later on, but I will note that each riding has an equal weighting in the overall results. Each

01:50:00.440 riding is worth 100 points, whether it's a riding that has 7,000 Conservative members like Calgary

01:50:06.120 West or Calgary Heritage, or if it has just a few dozen members like some of the Quebec ridings do.

01:50:11.400 So 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.

01:50:25.980 And 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.

01:50:42.740 Yeah, exactly.

01:50:43.380 And 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.

01:50:50.020 When 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.

01:51:00.860 He won Alberta and still managed to lose the race.

01:51:03.780 So I think that regional breakdown does make a huge difference.

01:51:06.540 whether or not, you know, Peter McKay has enough support between Atlantic Canada and Quebec to

01:51:13.300 kind of counter any support he's losing in the West, that remains to be seen. I guess the other

01:51:17.360 strength Peter McKay does have is despite the endorsement of Jason Kenney and a lot of the UCP

01:51:22.760 backing McKay, you did see a lot of conservative MPs from Alberta support Peter McKay. So there

01:51:29.280 is a bit of a divide there. And that's, that'll be interesting to see if the MP endorsements

01:51:34.000 actually translate. In the last election, we saw that Scheer had a number of the caucus endorsements

01:51:40.500 and then did end up pulling it off. So maybe those endorsements do matter, maybe they don't

01:51:46.300 matter. I guess it'll be interesting to see how that works out tonight. It'll be one of the things

01:51:50.500 I'm looking for. Well, Devin, enough about Peter McKay. Aside from him, I mean, you've been following

01:51:56.640 this race really closely. You've been writing op-eds for True North and commentary. What do you think

01:52:02.100 the big sort of moments are, what has the takeaway been? And are you confident in the sort of strength

01:52:08.220 of the Conservative Party at this point to be a real contender to beat Justin Trudeau in the next

01:52:13.960 election? Yeah, I think the biggest takeaway for me is just how disappointed I think the

01:52:21.080 grassroots are in kind of the old candidates. And I'm going to say, I'm going to lump Aaron O'Toole

01:52:26.300 and Peter McKay in that category together. And I think one of the big things I saw is how much

01:52:30.480 momentum lesden lewis has been able to gain and she went from literally a universal unknown to

01:52:35.660 raising millions of dollars and that's no easy feat when you looked at last during the last

01:52:40.300 leadership race you had candidates who everyone thought or who mainstream media loved to talk

01:52:44.580 about like uh um like um lisa wright for example who couldn't even hold her own seat in the last

01:52:50.040 election but everyone was hyping lisa wright up as if she was going to be the next leader of the

01:52:53.500 party or would have an important role and she couldn't even manage to win her seat

01:52:56.240 because she just, at the end of the day, was not exciting for the grassroots of the party.

01:53:00.780 We have someone like Lesley Lewis who is able to speak passionately about both social and fiscal

01:53:05.540 conservative policies, and she's managed to do a great job. So I think that's kind of the big

01:53:10.200 takeaway. I do think unity is a big problem for the Conservative Party after this leadership.

01:53:16.280 If the party fails to unite behind the leader, whether or not it's any of those candidates I've

01:53:21.260 mentioned or Derek Sloan, if they fail to do that, I think they're going to have a hard time

01:53:25.280 uh, leading into the next election. And I do think we need, we need to ensure that both,

01:53:29.040 that all, all four candidates have a significant role in the party moving forward. Um, I think

01:53:34.800 that that was a fault of Maxime. I think he's, uh, he's went from somebody who had a lot of

01:53:39.360 relevance to now he's kind of seen on the fringe and would have had a lot more influence if he was

01:53:44.000 given a key role in, uh, Andrew Scheer's shadow cabinet. Um, we didn't see that. I I'd like to

01:53:49.040 see that, um, no matter who wins tonight, all four leadership candidates have front bench roles or

01:53:54.160 in the case of Leslin or Peter, are willing to seek nominations or at least be involved

01:53:59.640 in a fundraising capacity and a local event capacity.

01:54:06.520 You touch on an important point there.

01:54:08.540 And I know it's very difficult to do the what if and the what about game because, you know,

01:54:12.820 in a parallel universe in which Maxime Bernier stayed in the Conservative Party of Canada,

01:54:16.640 I think there's a very high likelihood that he's the leader tonight.

01:54:20.440 And 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.

01:54:37.440 Because quite frankly, Maxime Bernier was so close, and a lot of the criticisms he had put towards Andrew Scheer tended to come to pass.

01:54:45.360 So I think we were looking at a very different race if Bernier were still in the conservative party.

01:54:50.240 I mean, certainly he'd still be a member of Parliament right now.

01:54:53.560 Yeah, absolutely.

01:54:54.180 I mean, he would have held his seat pretty easily, I think.

01:54:57.120 And I think he could have been an important voice for kind of that libertarian populist

01:55:01.200 wing, however you categorize Maxine Bernier these days.

01:55:03.700 But I think I think he definitely made a mistake in doing that.

01:55:06.960 I think he he was an important voice in the last election.

01:55:09.960 I think he was able to bring in a kind of or unite both libertarians and social conservatives,

01:55:14.900 which is actually a huge it's not an easy task all the time, but it's really important

01:55:19.900 to keep the base together. And even if you look at some of the polling that was done,

01:55:23.900 that was asking questions like, what is the most important thing you're looking for in a candidate?

01:55:29.360 Some of those people just wanted to vote for a candidate that they could defeat Justin Trudeau.

01:55:33.680 That doesn't mean that they, you know, necessarily want to elect somebody as leader that can't keep

01:55:40.480 the party together, because that is at the end of the day, the only way to beat Justin Trudeau.

01:55:43.640 So I do think Maxine Bernays shot himself in the foot there. And I think unity has to be the main,

01:55:49.380 the main takeaway from tonight if we do get the results so i don't i don't disagree i think that

01:55:54.420 maxine bernie if he had stayed in the party would be much more relevant today but i can't blame

01:55:58.820 it entirely on him devon i mean like you said he didn't even have a role in andrew shear's shadow

01:56:04.740 cabinet he was sort of pushed to the side we saw him coming out really strong with messaging on

01:56:09.860 immigration speaking out against illegal immigration it seemed to make the conservative

01:56:14.100 sort of establishment uncomfortable uh to the point where he was sort of pushed out from my

01:56:18.260 perspective so i think that that was on andrew sheer for failing to really keep the party uh

01:56:24.340 united and andrew lawton and i talked about it earlier how everyone thought that the divides

01:56:29.220 in the party were the sort of old alliance uh pc parties i i i think those lines still exist and

01:56:34.580 if peter mckay wins tonight uh we will see them um but but but i think that that sort of again

01:56:40.340 almost like populist establishment uh divide you you gotta say that's just as much on the

01:56:45.300 establishment side uh as it is on the populist side uh so so uh just speaking of the sort of

01:56:52.740 again regional divides between the the sort of peace alliance what do you make of alberta what

01:56:58.100 do you think uh would happen say if if peter mckay uh did win i think you said that he got a couple

01:57:04.420 of endorsements from mps in alberta which is really surprising uh do you think that that folks

01:57:09.700 in Alberta who are very conservative or very libertarian, very populist, would stick with

01:57:15.420 the Conservative Party with a Peter McKay leader? Yeah, and not to sound patronizing to my many

01:57:21.520 friends in Alberta, but I don't think they have another real place to go right now. I don't think

01:57:25.620 the PPC is a maintainable party in most seats in Alberta, and unless the Wexit party takes off,

01:57:30.800 I don't think they have a real, they don't have anywhere else to go right now. I don't think that

01:57:36.480 means, though, that Peter McKay can take advantage of them, which is, I think, to your point, that's

01:57:41.880 what Andrew Scheer was doing with Maxine Bernier's wing of the party, right? He was not letting him

01:57:45.980 speak out on issues, but was trying to make sure that he still had all of their support. I think

01:57:51.120 it's important that if I was Peter McKay and I won the race tonight, the first person I would

01:57:57.220 call tomorrow morning, one of the first people I would call tomorrow morning would be Jason Kenney

01:58:00.160 to make sure to really get that support back.

01:58:04.900 I wonder if it may have been a mistake by Jason Kenney

01:58:08.480 to endorse so early in the race,

01:58:10.820 because I think Lesley Lewis is going to do very well

01:58:13.300 in Alberta tonight as well.

01:58:14.380 And I think it would be embarrassing to him

01:58:15.860 if Jason Kenney doesn't come out heavily on top in,

01:58:19.960 or sorry, if Aaron Atul doesn't come out a lot on top in Alberta,

01:58:22.480 I think it'll look bad on Jason Kenney's behalf.

01:58:24.880 But I do think that Peter needs to, if he does win tonight,

01:58:28.700 needs to work with jason kenny a lot and work with the ucp a lot to maintain support in alberta

01:58:34.140 and he also needs to um and and him and aaron atool will have this problem that they'll need to be

01:58:40.140 open to keeping the social conservatives in the tent i don't like either of their answers i know

01:58:44.380 alissa just mentioned uh both of their positions um you know uh jason or um where peter mckay

01:58:52.140 won't let those bills be discussed aaron atool says he will but that was you know we're all we've

01:58:57.340 all become aware of how a leader can say one thing and then, you know, in cabinet meetings

01:59:02.080 do a completely other thing. So I really don't like either of those answers. I think they need

01:59:06.120 to be more welcoming to social conservatives if elected leader tonight. I think the Alberta

01:59:12.240 dimension is an important one. And there's no better trio to talk about the intricacies of

01:59:17.760 Alberta representation than two Ontarians and a Nova Scotian. But bear with us if you're listening,

01:59:21.900 because you're going to find probably the three most Alberta-friendly Ontarians and Nova Scotians

01:59:27.280 in this group right now, because I spent a lot of time in the last several months covering Western

01:59:32.420 alienation. I don't necessarily think of myself as an Ontarian yet. You know, I've definitely

01:59:36.780 lived here for a few years, but in my heart, I'm still a Western Canadian.

01:59:41.640 Fair enough. And that's why I go with Western sympathetic. But, you know, I've spent a lot of

01:59:45.440 time covering the Western alienation, talking to a lot of the people that are really leaning

01:59:50.000 towards greater independence and in some cases separation. And I do think that regardless of

01:59:55.180 the result there's a big loss in that not a single western Canadian was in the race at all I mean

02:00:01.440 the closest you could say would be Rick Peterson who was not able to get on the ballot I mean he's

02:00:07.460 running for a nomination in Edmonton Strathcona but but I really don't think he's a model Albertan

02:00:12.280 in the sense of what we're talking about when it comes to really being a an unabashed Alberta

02:00:17.420 defender and and you know even if someone wasn't going to win it would have been really great to

02:00:21.240 see someone who represented the West in and and there were people that opted not to I mean you

02:00:26.320 had Western MPs like Candace Bergen and Michelle Rempel that didn't want I didn't want to run

02:00:30.840 Ronna Ambrose who's from Alberta didn't want to run so so it's not like there weren't options but

02:00:35.860 the fact that no one stepped up I think is a big loss for the party because a lot of people in the

02:00:41.200 West are looking at the race and saying my interests are not represented in any of the

02:00:45.700 candidates. Yeah, I think that's completely true. And I mean, also, you have somebody like Pierre 0.55

02:00:53.680 Polyev, who is an Ontario MP, but is a Franco Albertan originally. So, you know, there were a

02:00:58.200 lot of candidates in the race that could have taken advantage of that Western or not taken

02:01:02.700 advantage, but would have benefited from being the Western candidate. I'm shocked that no one

02:01:06.260 entered the race just to be the Western candidate because it seems like a clear, you know, they

02:01:09.800 would have had a clear path to, you know, getting at least, you know, first or second ballot support

02:01:15.560 by a lot of, a lot of the membership. So I do think that is disappointing. I think there's also

02:01:20.380 a lot of diversity amongst the Western caucus, or diversity of belief amongst the Western caucus.

02:01:25.520 So you could have had, you know, a more libertarian leaning member of the Western

02:01:28.940 caucus run or more populist or social conservative candidates. So there would have been a lot of

02:01:32.940 good candidates to choose from, from the West. And hopefully, no matter who wins tonight,

02:01:39.320 they can tap into a lot of the talent we have in the Western bench to keep those people

02:01:42.640 involved. Western alienation is a real thing, and we need to be very careful with it, which

02:01:48.580 I think the last time we, or not the last time, but under Mulroney and Campbell, we realize what

02:01:55.380 happens if we ignore them. Well, the last time that there was a PC, a progressive conservative,

02:02:00.100 really running the country, which, you know, again, if Peter McKay wins, the party's called

02:02:04.940 the Conservative Party now, but he very much, you know, his ideology and his worldview and

02:02:09.200 where he comes from, his political history is very much

02:02:12.880 on that side, the progressive conservative side.

02:02:16.300 Well, Devin, thank you so much for your insight.

02:02:18.480 It's great to have someone on the team

02:02:20.680 from Eastern Canada, from Atlantic Canada,

02:02:22.460 and we appreciate you coming on

02:02:24.220 on very short notice here tonight.

02:02:25.940 So enjoy watching the rest of the show

02:02:28.200 and thank you so much to Devin Drover.

02:02:31.440 Thank you for having me.

02:02:32.700 Have a good night, bye-bye.

02:02:34.140 All right, see you later.

02:02:36.860 So we are live.

02:02:38.000 We're doing our supposed to be the pre-show before the conservative leadership race winner

02:02:43.920 is announced.

02:02:44.540 Although at this point, Andrew, do we have any word, anything from the party about where

02:02:49.200 we're at in terms of a timeline?

02:02:51.680 No, I don't know how many ballots are stuck in the shredder yet.

02:02:54.920 So we don't have anything in the way of numbers.

02:02:57.360 And again, this is something to take with a grain of salt, because I know that oftentimes

02:03:01.040 the rooms themselves where the ballots are being counted and where the scrutineers are

02:03:05.940 very uh closed off however cory tonight who is fairly well connected he's not affiliated formally

02:03:12.020 with any campaign said on cbc that it looks like mckay is not doing all that well in the early

02:03:17.320 results and that leslin lewis is doing quite well now i don't know how to quantify not very well and

02:03:22.420 quite well and i i don't know if again this is just a bit of bluster but this is uh again if we

02:03:27.460 are reporting what we get this is what we've got right now in the absence of numbers the uh the

02:03:32.320 official timeline that's been proposed by the party is that we're going to have their stream

02:03:36.900 starting at 7 30 eastern which is in about 27 minutes again this was already delayed 90 minutes

02:03:42.740 with not much notice so we have to be prepared that it could be bumped back again but that's

02:03:47.220 where we are right now but as we've said we're in it for the long haul we're bringing you

02:03:50.760 commentary analysis interviews with people from true north and from outside the true north family

02:03:55.460 that have their finger to the pulse of what's happening in canadian conservative politics

02:04:00.120 Yeah, and that was interesting to have Devin Drover on one of our researchers and a contributor

02:04:07.560 here at True North because, well, he's from Atlantic Canada, but I don't think he's always

02:04:11.640 the biggest supporter of Peter McKay, so definitely an interesting perspective there. And we've got

02:04:17.720 another True North fellow that is going to be joining us here. We've got Anthony Fury. I guess

02:04:23.560 you're in Toronto or maybe somewhere up in cottage country, Anthony, but thank you so much for taking

02:04:29.240 the last minute invitation to joining us on this show hey guys great to be here no i i'm not up uh

02:04:36.120 i'm not in toronto i'm at an undisclosed bunker somewhere in rural ontario so uh hanging out up

02:04:42.280 here in uh in great parts of the woods great well thank you so much uh for for coming on anthony so

02:04:49.240 you know you're you're really a national security sort of expert and someone who pays a lot of

02:04:54.120 of attention to security and those kinds of issues.

02:04:57.880 Doesn't really seem like that kind of stuff

02:04:59.520 has come up very much on this campaign.

02:05:02.560 But I wanted to get your take on it

02:05:04.160 because both Erin O'Toole and Peter McKay

02:05:07.040 have sort of military backgrounds

02:05:10.680 and they're big supporters of Canadian Armed Forces.

02:05:14.120 So I wanna hear your take specifically

02:05:17.080 from a national security perspective on these candidates

02:05:20.800 and how this campaign has gone so far.

02:05:24.120 Well, 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.

02:05:39.580 But even prior to the pandemic, foreign affairs is really the big issue.

02:05:44.340 We've got a world very much changing.

02:05:47.440 We've got China competing with the United States to be the rising global superpower.

02:05:51.600 These are things that have to be confronted. 0.96

02:05:54.680 We have to deal with them.

02:05:56.180 And Canada has to be positioned in a way to take best advantage of the future in all of this.

02:06:01.040 Pick and choose the right allies, distance ourselves from different organizations and countries

02:06:06.520 and these sort of multinational institutions

02:06:09.180 that perhaps don't best serve our interests.

02:06:11.360 So I do think, and I wrote a column

02:06:13.260 when this whole leadership first began,

02:06:15.180 talking about the fact that, well, odds are Peter McKay

02:06:17.680 or Aaron O'Toole will be one of the two who win.

02:06:20.860 This is, you know, we're thinking months ago

02:06:22.400 and still is right now.

02:06:23.560 And at least we're pretty well served from that

02:06:25.380 because they're both foreign policy-minded individuals.

02:06:28.380 I don't know how much they're willing to deviate

02:06:30.140 from the status quo, which is what we need right now,

02:06:32.760 but I'm glad that their eye is on that issue.

02:06:35.720 they do both have a background. Yeah, I think that's an important aspect of this. And both of

02:06:41.440 them have really been pushing those credentials as being a part of their experience and their

02:06:46.800 vision. Aaron O'Toole, I think, is in that RCAF jacket and pretty much every photo of him that's

02:06:51.580 taken at all, like anywhere in the campaign. Peter McKay often talks about his time serving

02:06:56.620 in Afghanistan, which I find is a bit disingenuous because I think there's a difference between

02:07:01.900 wearing a uniform and being a defense minister, but both of them have really tried to bolster that

02:07:06.920 foreign policy side of their experience. And I guess that lends itself to a question of,

02:07:12.140 do you think there really has been that much of a substantive focus on policy,

02:07:16.720 foreign or otherwise, throughout the race? No, there hasn't at all. It's been really

02:07:21.660 disappointing. And I also think one thing that, obviously, the pandemic has been a bit to the

02:07:26.720 detriment of the leadership, because, I mean, hey, guys, if I knew that all you needed to do

02:07:31.080 to become the next conservative leader was make a bunch of phone calls and put up some YouTube

02:07:35.180 videos and you were actually banned from doing campaigning. Gee, I would have run and a whole

02:07:39.180 bunch of people would because, you know, that's pretty much stuff that we all do now. Anyway,

02:07:43.240 so they've obviously been hamstringed in terms of doing what is a traditional

02:07:47.100 leadership campaign, going around meetings, reading people, working the room

02:07:51.000 and so forth, and that's been unfortunate. But what we're also seeing

02:07:55.040 right now, and I've been predicting, and you guys have been talking about this a lot now,

02:07:58.780 I think post-pandemic, I mean, a lot of the functions are going to be challenged.

02:08:03.200 A lot of individuals, you know, Justin Trudeau, among many, are just not aware of the fact

02:08:08.520 a lot of stuff is going to change.

02:08:10.560 And I think people are rethinking their relationship to so many things, obviously to travel, but

02:08:16.040 also to public health, to government.

02:08:18.920 They're going to be rethinking trade.

02:08:20.220 They're going to be rethinking economic nationalism, regular folks, not just those engaged in the

02:08:25.180 political process already.

02:08:26.460 And I think one of my big criticisms I would make

02:08:29.800 of this current leadership race

02:08:31.360 is that they haven't seemed to acknowledge this.

02:08:33.100 It just seems like a regular conservative leadership race.

02:08:35.740 Guys, the very definition of what is conservative,

02:08:38.380 what is liberal, what is social democrat,

02:08:40.540 what is republican, that's all going out the window

02:08:42.840 in the next few years is a really radically change.

02:08:46.220 And I wish you'd kind of flush that out a bit.

02:08:48.720 That's a really good point, Anthony,

02:08:50.180 because I do feel like the world is sort of orienting

02:08:52.960 more towards you have the sort of elites

02:08:55.420 the people who are in charge who tell us what to do and what to think and then you you sort of have

02:08:59.340 the rest of the people we we played some interviews earlier that uh andrew did with some different

02:09:03.820 campaign uh people for the different campaigns and they were all kind of talking the same thing that

02:09:09.100 you know their their campaigns appealed more broadly uh to people than just the specific

02:09:13.660 say type of conservative they are like like derek sloan appealed to a lot of people aside from just

02:09:18.780 you know people who are social conservatives a lot of it was because he he came out pretty

02:09:22.540 strongly saying that i uh disagree with uh the mandatory wearing of masks well uh you know you've

02:09:29.660 been covering well i mean with your job with the toronto sun you know you cover the news day in

02:09:34.700 and day out and this has been a really really turbulent say six months in the world it's also

02:09:39.660 been a really interesting past two three weeks just seeing how the trudeau government is sort of

02:09:44.700 self-destructing and and crumbling you basically see a dumpster fire over the prime minister's

02:09:49.900 office you've been covering that uh really really closely so what what do you think is is in store

02:09:55.820 for whoever wins tonight what what's what's it going to be like the next you know couple of

02:09:59.980 weeks couple of months uh trying to hold this trudeau government to account yeah and a couple

02:10:05.660 of weeks is really i think the important way to put it because of course there's a phone speech

02:10:09.740 coming up towards the end of september and as i read my column in today's gun papers i mean i

02:10:14.700 And I think this speech is more going to represent a platform, and it's going to represent a

02:10:19.720 completely new platform, Trudeau going in a different direction, or at least ratcheting

02:10:24.100 up what he does.

02:10:25.100 This is like, you know, Trudeau on steroids or what have you, it's pulled in, there was

02:10:28.920 media reports from inside liberal sources that there's going to be ambitious climate

02:10:33.520 goals.

02:10:34.520 Well, I'm sorry that I thought the previous goals were ambitious, but what on earth does

02:10:37.180 that mean?

02:10:38.180 Radical reform and social reform and so forth.

02:10:40.860 So I really think what we're looking at here is a platform, and quite frankly, one,

02:10:44.700 so far to the left that it may be judging single like it, Tom will care when you do not campaign

02:10:49.180 on the platform that Justin Trudeau is putting together. And if you want to put forward a

02:10:53.600 platform, well, there's a place and a time for that. It's called an election. A throne feed

02:10:57.860 is really just a little reset. You realize, okay, I had my legislative priorities to accomplish my

02:11:03.620 agenda, but they weren't right. They're going to bring in some different legislation, but the

02:11:07.400 agenda still has to be the same within that umbrella. That's not what we're looking at right

02:11:12.360 now I think we're being told a whole new agenda I think what Justin Trudeau is doing is going

02:11:15.860 all right you don't let a you don't let a crisis go to waste here's my opportunity and I'm going

02:11:20.260 to throw off the cloak of you know pretending to be some sort of centrist of the you know Paul

02:11:25.200 Martin mold not that any of us ever believe that and I'm now saying here I am full progressive

02:11:30.020 SJW you know let's get this party going I say okay fine if that's who you want to be all right

02:11:35.080 and you know I'd expect democracy but put it to the people so I really think there needs to be

02:11:40.040 election pretty soon i don't like the idea of spending all that money just 12 months after the

02:11:43.800 last one i i guess that there are technical challenges to doing it during a pandemic but

02:11:47.960 you know he's the guy who i think is bringing us to this juncture where we have something

02:11:51.880 totally different than what he campaigned on only 12 months ago yeah very well said anthony fury

02:11:58.520 toronto sun columnist and true north fellow thanks very much for coming on on such short notice

02:12:03.080 thanks guys have a good one thank you sorry i'm told we had some audio issues with anthony there

02:12:10.120 sorry about those we'll try to get those fixed up in the post-production version but that is the

02:12:14.620 the challenge with live television or live candace and i haven't figured out what to call this yet

02:12:19.960 but live something so in any case casting on the internet there we go yeah live streaming as the

02:12:25.600 kids say these days but in any case this is the true north live conservative leadership results

02:12:32.080 show. We are going to continue to follow this. I've seen some reports that the leadership results

02:12:37.340 might be delayed even further to 8pm potentially. There are apparently thousands of ballots or at

02:12:43.440 least a thousand that need to be looked at manually because the machine has been ripping

02:12:47.880 them up. So a process that was supposed to be somewhat automated is now looking at something

02:12:53.380 that is a lot more manual. And this takes a fair bit of time. We were talking with Anthony about

02:12:58.360 some of the policy centric discussions that we would have loved to have seen and one of the big

02:13:03.540 ones and certainly one of the issues that has been very dramatically represented in discussions we've

02:13:08.640 had and what our supporters have asked us is the carbon tax and people on the right certainly say

02:13:14.540 they're against Justin Trudeau's carbon tax but there was some confusion about whether in fact

02:13:19.840 all four candidates were unequivocally against it and you had Derek Sloan promoting himself as being

02:13:26.660 the only one that wanted to get out of the Paris Accord. You had Leslyn Lewis that said she wanted

02:13:31.440 a sensible, common sense approach to it. And because she had an environmental sciences

02:13:36.320 background, I think people were a little bit unclear on which side of the global warming

02:13:41.480 alarmism discussion she was on. And then you had Aaron O'Toole's platform, which I challenged him

02:13:47.460 on in my fireside chat with him at the Independent Press Gallery event a few weeks ago. And I'll roll

02:13:52.720 that clip now one of the things that most conservatives i think can agree on is that the

02:13:58.640 carbon tax is a job killer i think this is something that everyone on the right tends to

02:14:02.760 get even many people not on the right you say in your platform that the carbon tax is gone

02:14:07.440 you also say you want a national regulatory and pricing scheme on industrial emitters and your

02:14:14.600 rationale for this has been that you don't want to target individual canadian families but rather

02:14:19.140 target the companies themselves. We all know that any cost that a company has to bear gets filtered

02:14:26.360 down. So any tax that's put on a manufacturer or distributor is something that Canadians are paying.

02:14:31.440 So how can you say you're against the carbon tax when your plan seems to just move the tax to

02:14:35.740 another payer? No, there is no tax. There's no federal carbon tax. I will eliminate the carbon

02:14:41.980 tax completely, Andrew. What I've said in terms of the national framework, we have to respect what

02:14:48.020 the provinces are doing now. In BC, there's been their provincial carbon tax started by Gordon

02:14:54.860 Campbell. I've talked to him about some of the challenges and problems that were caused,

02:14:59.720 but he explained to me his rationale there. Quebec has a version of a cap-and-trade system.

02:15:04.800 Alberta, Ontario, my own province has a large emitter strategy just working with emissions

02:15:09.440 of the larger emitters. We need to follow the provinces here because guess what? They have

02:15:15.500 shared jurisdiction on the economy I've been saying this for years the Court of

02:15:19.580 Appeal in Alberta in February just supported my view when they said

02:15:22.500 Trudeau's carbon tax is unconstitutional we actually have to say on the federal

02:15:27.940 government how can we make sure we respect the different approach within a

02:15:33.020 national framework and say this is how we're going to reduce emissions not with

02:15:37.500 a tax but with partnering with the provinces to get their emissions down

02:15:41.600 but does your platform or does it not say pricing because the provinces are pricing but you say

02:15:48.020 national pricing so is there going can you say that there is not going to be any federal price

02:15:53.100 on carbon at a federal level for anyone whether it's a family or an industrial emitter the

02:15:58.980 provinces will be in the driver's seat so I will respect what they do well Andrew you handled those

02:16:08.480 those fireside chats so well,

02:16:10.160 and you got so much new information.

02:16:11.960 I remember afterwards it was like,

02:16:13.320 we learned things about both those candidates

02:16:14.980 that we didn't really know.

02:16:16.520 And that answer that you got

02:16:18.440 on the sort of climate change policy,

02:16:20.540 to me, it just seemed like doublespeak,

02:16:22.720 the sort of, you know,

02:16:24.700 exactly the typical political speak that you expect

02:16:28.140 where, you know, he was saying one thing,

02:16:29.640 but he could have been saying something else.

02:16:31.500 Were you satisfied with that answer?

02:16:34.640 And what do you think the climate policy would be

02:16:37.440 under Aaron O'Toole? You know, I was satisfied with the answer he gave, but it was still confusing

02:16:43.480 about why it had to get to that point because the Peter McKay campaign had actually been

02:16:48.420 pressuring Andrew, pressuring Aaron O'Toole rather on that section of his platform for quite a while

02:16:53.760 and there was never a response or a clarification. So, I mean, the reason I asked about it was because

02:16:58.600 I was still unclear on what he supported and his answer didn't seem to align with the wording that

02:17:03.740 I had took or the interpretation that I had took from the platform I was happy with the answer I

02:17:08.520 was just a bit confused about why I had to press him on it so hard in that interview yeah and I

02:17:15.760 mean that's kind of the whole point of the leadership race is to get to know the candidates

02:17:20.480 get to know their policies so that in a general election there isn't the kind of confusion you can

02:17:25.800 you can expect that you know what they said during the leadership race that you know that's going to

02:17:30.440 be their policy and you can kind of have a clear idea it still isn't really clear in my mind what

02:17:35.560 what his policy um would be but i mean again that's sort of also the nature of these campaigns

02:17:41.640 is that you have one campaign saying one thing you know the candidate themselves saying something

02:17:46.320 different but i wanted to uh ask you andrew quickly before we bring on our next guest um

02:17:52.340 so something about what anthony fury brought up which was that he didn't really think that

02:17:57.040 Justin Trudeau had a mandate anymore,

02:17:59.580 and he thinks that it's time to go to a general

02:18:03.180 and have an election.

02:18:04.700 I know that that was Justin Trudeau's sort of own

02:18:06.860 justification for the prorogation of parliament.

02:18:10.180 He said that, you know, he was gonna introduce

02:18:12.460 something that was so ambitious,

02:18:13.880 it was only fair to restart parliament

02:18:15.820 and have a new session.

02:18:17.140 Well, just judging Trudeau from his own rhetoric,

02:18:19.240 then wouldn't that lead to also needing to get

02:18:21.860 a new mandate from Canadians?

02:18:23.140 What do you think?

02:18:24.220 Do you think that there's going to be an election

02:18:25.940 coming up soon? Or do you think it's still, you know, a ways away? I think if you were to take

02:18:31.400 the pandemic out of the equation, and questions about safety and logistics and health of having

02:18:37.680 an election, I think there's a hugely strong case to have a fall election, even though that would

02:18:42.580 just be one year past the previous election. So I do think there are going to be issues about

02:18:47.020 whether it looks to be a bit more opportunistic if there's an election now or whatever the case

02:18:52.580 may be. But I think if you're to take coronavirus out of the equation, there is a tremendous

02:18:57.200 justification for an election. So I guess the question is, do you then find a way to do it

02:19:02.060 because it's what makes sense for the country and you work around it? I think a lot will depend on

02:19:06.600 how the United States tries to navigate this terrain. I just want to deviate for a moment

02:19:11.800 from the direction we're going here because there have apparently been some interviews on TV

02:19:15.960 with representatives from the McKay campaign and the O'Toole campaign.

02:19:20.880 And the tone of this is that Fred DeLore, who we heard from earlier, tremendously confident.

02:19:26.900 And Peter McKay's campaign is actually downplaying expectations.

02:19:30.300 So whether this is a bit of flexing on the part of either, I don't know, or strategy,

02:19:35.160 but that's just the tone as it's coming in.

02:19:36.840 The campaigns are showing a very different interpretation of what they've seen so far

02:19:42.040 with O'Toole's campaign very confident

02:19:43.880 and McKay's campaign a fair bit more reserved.

02:19:47.120 Well, interesting.

02:19:47.800 And we did talk about that a little earlier

02:19:49.740 that if you were only watching the mainstream media,

02:19:51.780 you're only watching the CBC,

02:19:53.200 you would think that Peter McKay had this thing in the bag

02:19:55.500 and that he was going to run away with it.

02:19:57.460 But, you know, from the conversations I've had

02:19:59.480 with conservatives and some of the polling I've seen,

02:20:02.320 you know, of course, polling's like always going to be off

02:20:05.620 and traditionally is not very accurate.

02:20:07.460 But it seems to me like Aaron O'Toole is doing pretty well

02:20:11.740 so is Les and Lewis. Well, Andrew, let's bring in our friend Aaron Gunn. Aaron Gunn is a political

02:20:17.180 commentator. I had him as a guest on my show for the True North Speaker Series a couple of weeks

02:20:22.620 ago. And Aaron Gunn, you're out in Vancouver Island, is that right? Yeah, out here in Victoria.

02:20:30.620 Victoria. So first of all, thank you for coming on our podcast on our live stream,

02:20:35.260 sort of late, late notice and last minute, we appreciate it. Why don't you give us a little

02:20:40.140 bit of an update about what uh what the campaigns have done out in british columbia and uh what you

02:20:45.820 know from people that you're hearing people that you're speaking with uh you know what do you make

02:20:50.540 of this race so far well i think like uh some of your previous guests noted earlier uh all the

02:20:57.740 candidates are from out east or at least from our perspective uh what is out east and with the

02:21:03.740 COVID travel restrictions, I think you have that added almost obstacle of them actually

02:21:10.700 interacting with British Columbians. So most of the interactions have been online. I think the

02:21:16.700 kind of traditional different camps of the Conservative Party are all there and being

02:21:22.620 represented. So the Social Conservatives obviously strongly promoting Leslyn Lewis. I would note that

02:21:29.340 A couple of high-profile BCMPs have endorsed Peter McKay, which had upset a lot of their

02:21:37.180 socially conservative members. So I've heard that story, especially in the riding of Abbotsford,

02:21:44.220 over and over again as well. You raise an interesting point there, and I know a lot of

02:21:49.500 Albertans might not want to be lumped in with British Columbia, but there are a lot of British

02:21:54.300 Columbia ridings, I mean, if you get outside of the Vancouver area and the lower mainland,

02:21:58.940 that are very much aligned with some of the Western issues.

02:22:01.420 They're experiencing the issues with the federal government's energy policy right now.

02:22:05.800 They're experiencing the problems with pipeline uncertainty, a lot of the economic challenges.

02:22:10.580 So, I mean, there are parts of BC, especially in the North, that are very much in the West.

02:22:15.040 Would you say that any of those issues have really been discussed outside of, I mean,

02:22:19.180 there was that one Zoom debate that was hosted by a number of the British Columbia,

02:22:23.720 or I think all of the British Columbia Conservative Riding Associations.

02:22:27.020 But has anyone been speaking about these issues?

02:22:30.680 Well, I've been disappointed in it.

02:22:34.940 There'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.

02:22:45.480 They feel at times haven't been discussed as forthrightly as they could have been, as, for example, Candace does on her show.

02:22:55.140 So I would really like to see that level of discussion actually moved also in the into the Conservative Party

02:23:00.420 But they seem to still be scared of the mainstream media of saying the wrong thing

02:23:06.580 And not having an open and frank discussion with Canadians

02:23:10.200 So that did concern me a little bit, but of course on the energy side there were some conversations

02:23:15.100 But not as much that I would have liked to see for sure

02:23:18.740 Well, Aaron, I know on your social media channels. You're really big critic of cancel culture

02:23:24.200 you've come to the defense of people like Don Cherry when they've been unfairly sort of maligned

02:23:29.800 by the mainstream media. Have you been impressed at all by any of the candidates, any of the

02:23:35.400 campaigns? I know you just said that you feel like they're all, you know, too afraid, too timid of the

02:23:39.640 mainstream media and what they might say, but have you seen any sort of glimmer of hope in terms of

02:23:45.000 any of the policy about cancer culture? And then just a sort of follow-up question, you know, how

02:23:50.360 come there wasn't any candidates from Western Canada? How come there weren't any MPs or anyone

02:23:54.760 from British Columbia that threw their head? I know Andrew Saxton ran in 2015 and he was sort of,

02:24:00.120 you know, the torchbearer for British Columbia for their issues. We didn't see anything like

02:24:04.760 that this time around, so maybe you could quickly comment on why we didn't see anyone from BC or

02:24:10.040 from Western Canada running. Well, that's a really good question, Candice, and I wish I had an answer

02:24:16.440 for you. To me, Justin Trudeau is an incredibly vulnerable Prime Minister. I think for someone

02:24:22.360 who is running for re-election, his first time for re-election, he got the lowest percentage of

02:24:28.500 the popular vote. I think that's a correct statistic. So I think he's someone that's

02:24:31.920 incredibly vulnerable. There's scandal after scandal. I would have hoped that there'd be

02:24:35.680 people lining up to take over the Conservative Party to get that chance. But I think your two

02:24:43.940 questions that were kind of related I think the ascent of cancel culture kind of the toxic

02:24:50.260 environment of working in the eye of the media now and trying to placate all these different

02:24:55.460 groups and the identity politics has really turned a lot of people off from politics in general

02:25:00.420 so I think that's one of the reasons as far as people speaking on the cancel culture topic I

02:25:07.460 I think there were, again, no one really excited me, but I would say Peter McKay disappointed

02:25:15.960 me the most, for sure, in a couple different points that he made.

02:25:21.640 So I think, you know, I think we'll see what happens and how, I'm sure this won't be decided

02:25:26.660 on the first ballot.

02:25:27.540 We'll see how everyone's second choices kind of pan out.

02:25:32.840 We are just five minutes away from when the Conservative Party of Canada is supposed to

02:25:37.440 be starting its show. And we're going to keep going as well, right up until the moment that

02:25:42.400 the results are available and start coming in again. We're still waiting on exactly what's

02:25:48.620 going to happen and when that is. I want to bring into this discussion with Aaron Gunn,

02:25:53.600 Sam Eskenazi, who is a fellow with True North. And he is ultimately someone that we have seen a lot

02:26:00.900 from and heard a lot from and really can break down some of these complex issues. Sam, do we

02:26:06.460 have you um i hope so hopefully no okay good yeah well i heard you say you hope so so we're glad to

02:26:11.780 have you here uh sam we just heard from aaron a lot of the problems about i think some of the

02:26:16.480 uh the alienation between uh the west and western issues and bc and also the candidates who by and

02:26:25.000 large are from you know downtown toronto i mean that's the dynamic with the exception of derek

02:26:29.980 sloan all of them are lawyers too so that's something you have to keep in mind what would

02:26:34.280 you say sam has been the biggest issue that you think needed to be covered and wasn't by any

02:26:40.660 candidates throughout the race well i think for me the biggest thing was a lot of people were

02:26:45.240 talking about modernizing the conservative party but there was very little substance as to what

02:26:49.880 that actually means and so is it going to be we're suddenly going to adopt identity politics and

02:26:54.800 become like the liberal party in many platform issues is it going to be that we're going to

02:26:59.340 simply say you know this issue and that issue are put to bed we're never going to discuss them ever

02:27:02.320 again? Is it going to be we're suddenly going to talk about conservative ideals or some kind of

02:27:06.400 value in a different way? Because I think there's a lot of messaging that could definitely be

02:27:10.080 improved. And that's the type of modernization that I would support. But very, very little kind

02:27:14.380 of substance that I saw, at least in that respect. That's a really good point. Whenever we hear that

02:27:19.520 word modernize, you kind of think, OK, they just want the party to become more liberal. They just

02:27:23.800 want us to become more politically correct and more in line with what they say. And I kind of

02:27:29.240 that same feeling with the talk of a moderate conservative i don't really know what that word

02:27:35.240 really means in terms of conservative i know aaron you were just saying that you were pretty

02:27:39.080 disappointed uh with peter mckay but i think i think the word moderate means the same thing in

02:27:43.960 this context modern moderate it basically just means a more liberal version of of the conservative

02:27:50.920 aaron what what do you think that the party is missing or what do you think that they need in

02:27:55.320 in order to get back into power in Ottawa?

02:28:01.240 Well, I think that's the question, Candice.

02:28:03.380 And to me, what the party is missing and what it needs

02:28:06.140 and whoever the new leader is needs to take up

02:28:08.500 is a bold vision for Canada that's complete.

02:28:14.120 So if you go back through kind of the,

02:28:16.560 some of the leaders in Canadian history,

02:28:18.360 I think on the conservative side,

02:28:19.960 you really need somebody to articulate something

02:28:22.560 like John A. Macdonald did back in the 1800s,

02:28:25.400 where he had a complete bold vision for Canada,

02:28:28.800 and Canadians rewarded him with six majority governments.

02:28:32.000 And I think if you look at and you read your history

02:28:34.220 about some of the incredible undertakings that he took on,

02:28:37.800 we're not even in the same league right now.

02:28:40.820 And I think we're missing that.

02:28:42.460 I think people are hungry for that.

02:28:44.340 I think, by the way, it's not just Liberal voters

02:28:47.100 that could come over to the Conservative Party

02:28:49.200 and present with a vision like that.

02:28:50.740 It could be new voters.

02:28:51.700 It 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.

02:29:18.140 I'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.

02:29:30.680 Let'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.

02:29:45.020 And 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.

02:29:55.100 We saw Andrew Scheer do this the other day on CBC.

02:29:58.040 We saw Aaron O'Toole do this a bit through the leadership.

02:30:01.460 Do 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,

02:30:12.220 listen, you aren't the best vessel for me to put my message forward.

02:30:15.480 We'll start with you, Sam.

02:30:16.840 I don't know if I would have said ring.

02:30:18.420 I think, you know, that's a good way to put it,

02:30:20.640 but definitely kissing something.

02:30:22.520 You know, look, I would hope so.

02:30:24.380 All we need is someone who's going to speak plainly to Canadians

02:30:27.540 to explain what they're going to do and not be sucked into some trap.

02:30:31.620 I mean, there's that clip that you shared in,

02:30:32.980 a number of people shared it, of Andrew Scheer, you know,

02:30:35.340 pushing back on Natasha Fada on the CBC about why, you know,

02:30:38.820 coverage of Les and Lewis.

02:30:39.620 that's was a very calm you know not an angry conservative not nothing crazy just listen you

02:30:45.940 ask yourself that question why did you guys not cover leslin that's the kind of pushback that we

02:30:49.640 need because so many conservatives tend to get trapped into this box they put you into a little

02:30:54.000 frame and now you're supposed to argue your way out of this little box that you're in when the

02:30:58.400 premise of the question might be just totally farcical and so pushing back is definitely

02:31:02.420 something that needs to be done it doesn't need to be done in a mean mean-spirited way you don't

02:31:05.940 need to be Donald Trump to be firm and say, listen, you know, I'm sorry, but I reject the premise of

02:31:10.140 the question. What actually happened is A, B and C. So definitely, I hope so. You know, we'll see

02:31:14.480 who wins, but I hope they're going to do such a thing. Yeah. And I think you raised something

02:31:19.380 that was kind of, you know, the idea of watching Andrew share pushback against Natasha. I don't

02:31:24.820 have a problem with Natasha. I think she's one of the better, if not the best journalist over at

02:31:28.620 the CBC. And at least she asked that question. I don't know that any of the other hosts over the

02:31:34.400 CBC would even ask that. But when you see Andrew Scheer kind of push back against her, you're like,

02:31:39.960 yes, this is exactly what a conservative needs to do. And you kind of wonder, like, where was this

02:31:44.420 Andrew Scheer over the last year? Why wasn't he this punchy and this willing to push back against

02:31:49.840 the media when he was leader? And I really hope that whoever wins tonight is able to sort of have

02:31:55.940 that courage and that ability to push back against the media. I think we have a clip of

02:32:02.600 Derek Sloan doing exactly that. So let's play that clip now.

02:32:09.860 You've experienced yourself a fair bit of pushback from the mainstream media, not just on

02:32:15.380 social conservative issues, which I suspect we'll get to later on in this discussion, but even your

02:32:20.660 approach to some issues that have been very pertinent throughout the coronavirus pandemic,

02:32:25.100 such as wanting Theresa Tam, the public health officer of Canada, fired. We know from the last

02:32:31.540 election, from all of Stephen Harper's elections, conservatives are not dealt

02:32:35.380 a fair hand by the mainstream media. And I think that on the cultural side

02:32:39.760 we can talk about media bias and all of these things. But if you're within

02:32:43.660 those parameters, you're operating as a figure in Canadian politics,

02:32:47.640 you know the treatments the media is going to give you is not going to be good. How do you

02:32:51.600 push back against that when you are, as you know, a conservative without apology,

02:32:55.540 a hardliner on a lot of social and economic issues?

02:32:59.420 Well, I mean, the simple answer is you don't jump through their hoops.

02:33:02.780 And so there's been, I mean, we get a lot of requests from mainstream media that we just ignore.

02:33:07.440 And it has nothing to do with, you know, it has nothing to do with those organizations,

02:33:12.700 but it has to do with the fight that we're in.

02:33:15.240 And right now, our fight is to win this leadership battle.

02:33:18.500 So I'm not, there's some candidates who bask in the glory of, you know,

02:33:22.780 sitting down with CBC and all this stuff.

02:33:24.480 If I don't think that sitting down with a particular media outlet is going to help me reach conservative members,

02:33:30.680 I don't even bother going on.

02:33:33.280 So part of it is just not jumping through the hoops that the media has.

02:33:36.960 And in a general election, obviously, the strategy is different.

02:33:40.320 But the other thing, too, we have to remember is that we have access to social media.

02:33:44.040 And we can drive our narrative through controversy or not using social media.

02:33:48.980 So I think that we, you know, my experience anyways is that there's some conservatives

02:33:54.320 who feel that they've done a good day's work when the media isn't slamming them.

02:33:58.360 And to me, I say, listen, you know, if the media isn't slamming you, maybe you're not

02:34:02.420 doing a good day's work.

02:34:03.740 You know, if you're going to stand on conservative principles in this day and age, you're going

02:34:07.220 to get kicked back.

02:34:09.060 And sometimes we need to be able to stand there and take it and say, you know what,

02:34:12.420 we've said the right thing.

02:34:13.660 We don't need to apologize.

02:34:15.120 We don't need to rephrase what we're trying to say.

02:34:18.980 Well, I think conservatives just feel good when they see, whenever you see someone pushing

02:34:28.860 back against the media, we know the media in this country are so unfair to conservatives

02:34:32.640 and don't give them a fair punch. I think that one of the keys to a conservative winning

02:34:37.400 election is bypassing the media. I mean, you see so many new organizations like True North,

02:34:42.480 like The Rebel, there's so many people out there where you have the ability to just bypass

02:34:47.040 the media entirely so why would you go through their filters and we saw that uh down in the

02:34:51.840 u.s with trump you know he's been doing this for years uh completely bypassing media regardless

02:34:56.880 of what you think of trump himself you have to admire his his message and his ability uh to just

02:35:01.920 kind of bypass the uh the the media sam i want to get your your thoughts on this uh what what are

02:35:09.600 you thinking what do you think is going to happen tonight uh what are your thoughts on the the

02:35:13.600 campaign and how how it's been run is there any specific candidate that you're talking about that

02:35:18.080 you're looking at that uh has really excited you or done anything that's really impressed you

02:35:23.120 so you know it's it's hard to say i mean i i don't want to pick favor we're so close to

02:35:27.200 we're so close to the announcement i feel i don't want to necessarily jump in with a last minute

02:35:31.280 prediction um you know i think i think it's been an interesting campaign i mean peter mckay has

02:35:36.560 been around since the beginning of this you know iteration of the conservative party so it would

02:35:41.360 definitely be interesting i think a lot of criticism that he took was that he sort of felt

02:35:44.960 that he was the heir apparent right that it was just you know peter mckay's that it's his turn

02:35:48.720 now and that's his turn um aaron i think he's done a lot of good work this is not his first

02:35:52.480 time running for leader so he's done a lot of good work trying to really boost up his image um he does

02:35:57.120 have a point about being ready to fight day one now again carlo is prorogued so that whole thing

02:36:01.200 might be out the window but he's made a solid point there um it'd be very interesting to see 0.97

02:36:06.640 less than lewis and the media try and say that the conservatives are all a bunch of racist white old 0.75

02:36:10.640 men uh when leslie lewis is the leader that that again you know just from that point alone it would

02:36:15.840 be spectacular to have her win um aside from the fact that she's super qualified and then derek is

02:36:20.560 he's taken a lot of positions i think that a lot of the others haven't so i've been um and he's

02:36:25.200 been firm about them he's been very tough on china a couple other things um i've been excited to see

02:36:29.040 that overall you know the only thing i was telling my wife just before the only thing that i never 1.00

02:36:33.760 like about these uh races is the delays because if you're someone who wants to you know make a bit of

02:36:39.600 a theory about what might have happened what's causing these delays if you get one two three

02:36:43.440 four delays and the race is really tight it doesn't necessarily look so good for the party

02:36:48.240 and again for people who want to spin stories it makes it that much easier so you know i'm sure

02:36:52.640 we'll be pleasantly surprised i hope uh we have some uh some spicy memes ready to go for whoever

02:36:57.600 wins and i'm just looking forward to the show well you are the meme maker in chief so if i mean if

02:37:02.480 you're not out of the meme factory i don't know what you expect from us sam you know that idea

02:37:07.440 of bypassing the mainstream media, Aaron, I know you do a lot of work that has to involve getting

02:37:13.600 your message out, and I know you do a lot of it yourself on your platforms, and I know you've

02:37:17.440 also been interviewed by the mainstream media. Do you find that conservatives can do what Candice

02:37:22.720 suggested, which is just, you know, avoid it altogether, or do you think that there still

02:37:27.200 has to be a playing within that system, so to speak, to some extent? I think you have to play

02:37:33.760 in that system but you don't have to play by their rules that's how i is how i would put it you can

02:37:39.520 uh if you have if they're misrepresenting the facts if they're i think it was pointed out

02:37:45.280 earlier if they're if they're skewing the premise of the question i think that has to be called out

02:37:50.880 now i think uh in fairness with all these cameras pointed at you and the mainstream media and the

02:37:56.080 24 hour news cycle it's going to take somebody with a lot of guts to stand up to them on over

02:38:02.880 and over and over again on a consistent basis so we will see if the leader the new leader of the

02:38:08.240 Conservative Party will find out uh tonight uh has that kind of guts to do that over the the medium

02:38:14.640 and long term and I think that's that's to be seen I mean I'm I I hope that they do but um

02:38:20.800 talk is cheap in politics as in life that's interesting I'm just seeing some interesting

02:38:26.560 numbers here this is the final number of endorsements uh for each Conservative Party

02:38:31.600 leadership candidate before the vote. So Peter McKay had 176 endorsements, Erin O'Toole had 97,

02:38:39.200 Leslie Lewis had 28, and Derek Sloan had six. And so what you're really seeing from the sort

02:38:45.840 of establishment of the Conservative Party is a rallying around Peter McKay. You know,

02:38:51.920 something that we've talked about on this program since beginning is that, you know,

02:38:55.200 he's sort of seen as a front runner. I think, Erin, you sort of said that he was assumed to be

02:39:00.720 the heir apparent or sorry maybe sam said that one of you guys just said that um but but but

02:39:06.400 but from what uh andrew just reported you know it seems like uh they're now doing damage control and

02:39:12.080 that erin o'tool is looking like he might be the winner again this is just from speculation but

02:39:17.040 less than lewis is doing much better than anticipated uh question i want to hear from

02:39:22.240 both aaron and sam on this but what do you think that that would do for party unity if if someone

02:39:28.480 other than Peter McKay wins given that he had the overwhelming majority of support from the caucus.

02:39:34.640 So if the you know conservative members don't actually get the person that they they wanted

02:39:40.080 and the membership chooses someone different could that potentially be another divide again

02:39:44.240 between the sort of establishment part of the party and the more populous base? Sam why don't

02:39:48.800 you answer that first? So I think in that respect a lot of the battleground has been between Peter

02:39:53.280 McKay's campaign and the Erin O'Toole campaign so there's been a lot of sort of maybe friction

02:39:58.080 between those two. Honestly, I think if it's Leslie Lewis, she's totally new to the party.

02:40:02.640 I think that as much as they might dislike or, you know, have some beef with what Aaron did or

02:40:08.220 said during the campaign or vice versa from the McKay side, you know, Leslie Lewis is totally

02:40:12.680 new, totally blank slate. So I think they would have to just fall in line. And ultimately, you

02:40:16.840 know, same thing with Derek Sloan to a certain degree, even though he's a sitting MP. But

02:40:20.860 ultimately, again, they're going to have to come together. If you want to defeat Justin Trudeau

02:40:24.560 in what will probably be a sooner election than later,

02:40:27.460 you're going to have to come together.

02:40:28.660 And I'm sorry, but that's going to all have to go out the window.

02:40:31.200 Very nice that that's in the past.

02:40:32.560 And, you know, sorry, start the page again.

02:40:35.000 I want to actually jump in here because when I spoke with Derek Sloan

02:40:39.340 at the Independent Press Gallery Fireside Chat a couple of weeks ago,

02:40:42.600 this was one of the questions that I put to him.

02:40:45.100 I had some of those numbers that Candace just mentioned.

02:40:47.340 I don't think I said the numbers, but about the caucus

02:40:49.700 and where they were endorsing.

02:40:51.520 And one of the things that was most notable is that Derek Sloan, despite being a sitting

02:40:56.040 member of parliament, had virtually no support for caucus.

02:40:59.540 And quite frankly, a lot of the caucus was trying to kick him out at a certain point.

02:41:03.640 And he had put an interesting thought forward that I want to play in and get all of your

02:41:08.440 thoughts on here, which was basically that the caucus isn't really the driving force

02:41:12.440 and shouldn't be for the party.

02:41:14.600 Let's roll that.

02:41:16.080 You had MPs in your own caucus that, after you had called for Theresa Tam to be fired,

02:41:22.440 wanted you kicked out of caucus in the middle of a leadership race.

02:41:25.460 And you can talk about people's motivations for that,

02:41:28.440 whether they may have had an allegiance to another leadership campaign.

02:41:31.140 But still, there have been people that have spoken up that have said

02:41:33.900 they do not see themselves being able to serve under a Derek Sloan-led caucus.

02:41:39.080 And you can say they're wrong.

02:41:40.680 You can say that they're perhaps having a narrow view of it.

02:41:43.800 But even so, if you are a leader, how do you unite that

02:41:46.760 when you've got people that don't even want you to just not win

02:41:50.160 but don't even want you in the caucus?

02:41:52.540 How do you serve and unify a caucus like that?

02:41:56.100 Some people think the party is about the caucus.

02:41:58.820 The party is about the members.

02:42:00.420 We all serve at the leisure of the members.

02:42:03.000 If I am given the honor of leading this party,

02:42:05.400 it will be because of the members.

02:42:07.160 And so it's up to the caucus to recognize and respect

02:42:10.660 the members who who put them there to begin with and elected the leader that

02:42:15.280 they want to lead the party. So I believe, I firmly believe that the caucus will

02:42:20.480 fall behind anyone who is elected but at the end of the day there is this

02:42:23.920 attitude that it's about the caucus and you know we're in Ottawa and we're

02:42:27.860 important. We're not important. It's the people that put us there and that's why

02:42:32.340 I'm here and I will never betray them.

02:42:40.660 MPs, that included all endorsements, which would also include provincial MLAs and premiers

02:42:47.820 and other people.

02:42:48.820 But I think it's still, the point still stands, which is that the establishment is firmly

02:42:53.420 behind Peter McKay, also not at all behind Derek Sloan, which was the question that Andrew

02:43:00.020 raised in that interview.

02:43:01.580 So Erin, let's put the question to you.

02:43:03.760 Do you think that there is potentially a divide in this party between the establishment and

02:43:09.500 the base?

02:43:11.540 Look, 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.

02:43:18.540 So 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.

02:43:38.780 um and and for sure there could be pitfalls along that along that way because there are significant

02:43:45.320 divides uh in the movement um but uh i think that the one the one thing that they have going for

02:43:52.540 them is that justin trudeau is such a heavily disliked uh liberal prime minister right now

02:43:59.300 that uh i imagine conservative and there's a large portion of canadians that would take

02:44:04.600 pretty much anybody other than him. Let's talk about where a lot of those endorsements really

02:44:12.580 came from, because I was quite, I'll say surprised to see early on in the leadership race, a lot of

02:44:17.780 people that I consider really hardline blue Tories endorsing Peter McKay, including a number of

02:44:24.600 people who had endorsed Aaron O'Toole in 2017 that actually flipped. And I had asked Aaron O'Toole

02:44:29.680 about this and his theory was that a lot of people were basically just parking. They wanted to be

02:44:34.540 on the winning team. And at the beginning, it looked like it was going to be a Peter McKay

02:44:37.800 coronation. Do you guys think, though, that there is a sense of people perhaps wanting to be on the

02:44:45.280 winning team? And that's why they endorsed McKay when everyone thought that was going to be the

02:44:48.920 direction it was going. Or alternatively, do you think that a lot of people who may not even agree

02:44:53.380 with McKay ideologically just think it's his turn? I mean, he's been involved. He's been waiting for

02:44:58.420 this for a while. He's wanted this for a while. And do you think there's a lot of kind of honor?

02:45:02.160 okay harper had his turn now it's the the turn of of peter mckay or something else entirely we'll

02:45:06.960 start with you sam so there's a couple ways to look at it and i think it depends on how

02:45:12.400 you're deciding to vote and it's are you looking at it what's the best candidate that will give us

02:45:17.440 a chance to victory what is the candidate that aligns with my principles what is the candidate

02:45:22.160 that i think will put up the best fight or there's any number of metrics which you can look at it and

02:45:27.040 so there's probably a lot of truth to that i think a lot of people did think that peter mckay had

02:45:31.280 the name recognition he probably still does have the best name recognition across the country

02:45:35.120 but if you're simply going on that alone you're saying well who's got the best name recognition

02:45:38.720 a lot of people go into the polling station and say okay well i don't really know who to vote for

02:45:42.960 but i know this guy's name or i don't like this guy who's the only other guy that kind of sounds

02:45:46.640 familiar or girl um and so they might vote for that person and so name recognition does have a

02:45:50.800 lot of value and so people might have might have indeed parked their vote um it'd be interesting

02:45:54.960 it would be really interesting to go back to some of those people now i mean you know probably

02:45:58.800 probably a lot of people will not want to switch uh so close but it would be very interesting to

02:46:02.560 see what a lot of those people say because again it does make a big difference and people do want

02:46:06.320 to be on the winning uh on the winning team on the bandwagon i mean you know look at any sporting

02:46:10.240 event that has nothing to do with canada or nothing to do with a local team who's jumping

02:46:13.520 all these national teams etc etc you just want to be on the either the underdog or the winner

02:46:21.040 oh sorry go ahead let's go to aaron on that question

02:46:23.280 No, I think I agree. I don't think it should surprise anybody that you might have some

02:46:29.380 politicians that are on the opportunist side of things. And I think that's what was going on here

02:46:35.420 to an extent. People want to back the winning horse to get to spots in cabinet or whatnot.

02:46:41.580 And I do think there is a legitimate argument that at least at the start of this race, Peter

02:46:47.000 McKay certainly looked to be the most electable. So if that's the lens that you were viewing the

02:46:52.000 race through, then that's probably a reason why you ended up parking your endorsement for McKay.

02:47:00.080 I just find that line of thinking incorrect, though. I mean, the fact that he's supposedly

02:47:04.280 the most electable, but yet, you know, we didn't see him anywhere. We didn't do anything. He didn't

02:47:09.320 bother showing up to several of the debates, including the one that the IPG put on. You know,

02:47:14.620 I really didn't get a very clear message from his campaign. He doesn't seem like he has a lot of

02:47:19.180 energy, doesn't seem like he's very excited, he doesn't have an excitement around him. So,

02:47:23.420 you know, even if his name is the most famous out of all of them, I don't think that that necessarily

02:47:27.920 translates into, you know, being electable. Andrew, I wanted to ask you a question,

02:47:33.920 because I've heard from party sources over here, that a lot of gun owners have voted,

02:47:41.480 particularly in Quebec, a place that doesn't traditionally have a large conservative support.

02:47:46.800 we were talking earlier about how the the voting system works how every single riding gets equal

02:47:52.000 weight so even if it's in the riding quebec that never votes conservative at all and never

02:47:56.960 elects a conservative mp um you know they potentially have the same weight as a riding

02:48:02.320 in calgary that gets 80 of the vote but i'm hearing that there were a lot of gun owners who have been

02:48:06.960 very motivated by justin trudeau's gun grab policies and that they showed up in droves uh

02:48:12.720 mostly to support Erin O'Toole. I know you're a gun owner and you're probably the most knowledgeable

02:48:18.460 person I know in Canada about gun issues. Have you heard anything like that? And are you surprised

02:48:24.000 by this? No, not at all surprised. And, you know, gun ownership is really a low-hanging fruit for

02:48:30.640 conservatives because pretty much every conservative MP is a supporter of gun rights.

02:48:37.120 But 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.

02:48:52.220 But 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.

02:49:12.080 So a lot of the gun owners that I know are happy with McKay and O'Toole and Derek Sloan.

02:49:18.240 And Leslyn Lewis is not, I mean, she's a downtown Toronto lawyer.

02:49:21.820 So she's not someone who's been around firearms by her own admission, but she's expressed a

02:49:27.160 willingness to learn about the issue and has said the right things.

02:49:30.900 So in that respect, if you're a gun owner, I don't think there's a candidate that is

02:49:35.960 a bad bet.

02:49:37.280 I think it just goes with familiarity and confidence.

02:49:40.060 And 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.

02:50:05.540 That's interesting because, yeah, I remember when we were putting together questions for

02:50:09.400 the debate, you didn't even want to ask a question about gun rights because you thought

02:50:12.960 that basically all the candidates had the same kinds of answers.

02:50:16.900 Yeah, there wouldn't be much of a debate there.

02:50:19.020 Yeah, so it wouldn't be that interesting.

02:50:20.920 But maybe you can kind of fill in the gap a little more.

02:50:24.360 What is it about Aaron O'Toole and his policy that would make him, it would push him over

02:50:28.980 the edge for so many gun owners if this is the case?

02:50:31.980 Well, 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.

02:50:50.040 And then the most recent one, which was the Bill Blair with the stroke of a pen banning

02:50:55.500 1,500 variants of firearms, all because of an act in Nova Scotia that involved illegally

02:51:02.520 acquired, illegally obtained guns.

02:51:04.440 So rolling back what the Liberals have done, and actually perhaps even further than that,

02:51:10.060 potentially, because when Stephen Harper was in, they did a lot of things that were

02:51:14.020 very good for firearms.

02:51:15.180 they had uh of course the end of the long gun registry but they didn't get at a lot of the

02:51:22.400 regulations that really don't make sense because it's very difficult to explain something that most

02:51:28.060 people in canada don't know uh which is how guns do work and that they are legal and how many gun

02:51:33.800 owners there are more than two million so that i think is where the gun lobby is going right now

02:51:39.060 education which then makes it easier for politicians to take pro-gun positions without

02:51:44.000 being pilloried in the media. And just to put in perspective, in a couple of weeks in Ottawa,

02:51:49.300 there is going to be a very large gun march on September 12th. And, you know, I would love to

02:51:54.080 see the next conservative leader, whoever it is, at that march, marching in it, standing up for

02:51:58.840 gun owners. Well, you know, this is a joke that happened down in the U.S. There was a pro-gun

02:52:04.400 rally, anti-COVID rally, and the media painted them like they were absolute, you know,

02:52:10.780 fear like put the most fear-mongering out and treated them like they were some kind of an armed

02:52:15.580 um militia and then you know a week later when we had the black lives matter

02:52:19.340 uh protest it was like all totally fine and they were cheering on the uh protesters so hopefully

02:52:24.540 that's not what's going to happen ottawa but good good to see you know we've seen a couple

02:52:28.700 different special interest uh groups coming together to put forth their policy of choice

02:52:34.300 We talked to Alyssa Golub earlier with Right Now and talking about the gun rights issue

02:52:40.200 right now.

02:52:41.180 Well, folks, thanks so much for tuning in.

02:52:43.220 I'm hearing now, this is what Susan Delacorte, a writer with the Toronto Star, just wrote.

02:52:48.320 She just posted on Twitter.

02:52:49.600 She said, uh-oh, now it could be a 9 p.m. start.

02:52:52.560 That's start to announce the conservative leadership results.

02:52:56.440 Andrew, what are you hearing?

02:52:57.720 Are we still set to go?

02:52:58.980 Because I thought that they said that they were starting at 7.30.

02:53:01.340 it's now 7 50 here on the east coast in in in the eastern time zone so what what's going on

02:53:08.320 what's the schedule do we do we have any idea yeah at a certain point i think we're gonna have

02:53:12.240 to hand things over to uh aaron gun on the west coast because it'll be like you know four in the

02:53:16.020 morning on eastern time so stand by aaron you're the you're you're the uh the furthest away as far

02:53:20.900 as time zone uh listen i've been watching the uh page that the youtube channel for the conservative

02:53:27.240 Party of Canada is set to go live with the results. And it has a little ticker on it that

02:53:32.660 says live in X number of minutes. And I was watching it because it was supposed to be live

02:53:36.900 at 730. And I kept refreshing and refreshing. And then I noticed that quietly ticked to 9pm.

02:53:42.480 And I thought, you know, maybe it's a typo, or maybe they switched over to Pacific time. And

02:53:46.160 then I saw a couple of tweets from people that are on the ground in Ottawa that are saying very

02:53:50.500 similarly that this is now looking to be even later. And again, that 9 p.m. time is for the

02:53:57.900 start of the results. It's not to say that that's when the winner is going to be announced. So all

02:54:02.800 of a sudden, we're talking about moving out of prime time here. And again, the fact that this

02:54:07.540 has now been bumped back, what, three times suggests that even then you can't necessarily

02:54:11.520 take it for granted. And I'm already seeing a lot of talk about people that before they even hear

02:54:17.340 the result are convinced that it's not going to be worth its salt because of these ripped

02:54:22.100 ballots. They now have said the party, thousands of ballots were ripped by the machines. Supposedly

02:54:27.460 they're trying to count those manually. But what do you guys think it says about, you know,

02:54:32.760 this process? I mean, is this into this category of, listen, things happen, live events are

02:54:38.400 difficult? Or do you think there is a disorganization or dare I say, incompetence that

02:54:42.940 needs to be called into question here? I'll start with you, Candice, and then we'll go to our guests.

02:54:47.340 Yeah, I mean, this is not good for the Conservatives. I just kind of quickly breezing through Twitter

02:54:53.080 here and there's a lot of mockery and a lot of comments saying, you know, you want to

02:54:57.600 run the government. You can't even run your own little leadership race. I don't think

02:55:02.300 it's good. Obviously, it's not a very fair criticism, but I mean, come on. Like I said,

02:55:07.560 the ballots were all due on Friday. They had two full days to put this together. They let

02:55:11.940 us know what 10 minutes before the broadcast was supposed to begin that they were delaying

02:55:17.240 it i think it's pretty unprofessional and again it's the same kind of thing reminds me of this

02:55:23.560 little spat that happened between uh peter mckay and erin o'toole earlier on where they were accusing

02:55:30.280 one one was accusing the other of stealing files through an intern through zoom and and it's like

02:55:35.000 you know we're looking at the liberals and all their ethics scandals and all their issues

02:55:38.840 and the conservatives are supposed to be the people who are you know transparent and open

02:55:44.840 and committed to you know getting the books in order and running the government more like a

02:55:49.560 business just being more responsible and it's like how are we supposed to believe that when you have

02:55:54.120 this weird little petty infighting uh scandals so i i don't think it looks good for the party

02:56:00.200 um at all at the same time obviously you know this stuff does happen and and you got to be

02:56:05.080 be patient with it but you know the whole country is watching right now and they're not really

02:56:09.800 performing very well uh sam what what do you think uh you know this is what i said before deloitte is

02:56:16.680 who's doing the uh the counting deloitte is one of the big four accounting companies so they're one

02:56:21.080 of the largest accounting companies in the world it's a little disappointing to see that this is

02:56:26.120 happening because again if it's a close race between erin o'toole and peter mckay especially

02:56:31.080 if it's a close race and suddenly they had to throw out a bunch of ballots and those ballots

02:56:35.160 can't be counted by the machine doesn't mean you can't eventually count them maybe some of them

02:56:39.080 return maybe you can still piece them back together oh maybe the little pieces that we you

02:56:43.100 know it's kind of like the george bush dimpled chads and all this nonsense maybe that would

02:56:46.940 make a totally different result it just it's not good for building confidence that this party and

02:56:52.340 this this group of people can lead this country look again i think it's an unfair criticism as

02:56:57.440 you said but that's unfortunately what's going to happen and it's not going to help with party

02:57:02.320 unity especially if it's going to be for example a peter mckay and erin o'toole where you know one

02:57:06.480 is up by by a very small handful of votes and it turns out that a thousand of them were ripped

02:57:10.760 and that might have made the difference absolutely what do you think aaron yeah i mean i think it's

02:57:18.680 not uh it's it's not that surprising in the sense that one of the reasons that uh conservatives are

02:57:25.680 those that are right of center are big proponents of small government as we find uh these bureaucratic

02:57:30.320 organizations can't do anything competently. So I think that fits the trend. I will say that

02:57:36.460 the delay, if it's just delayed a little bit, not a big deal, especially if you're out on the West

02:57:41.520 Coast like me. But the ripping of the ballots and the, you know, anything that causes people

02:57:48.220 to lose trust in the electoral process is very concerning because trust in elections, in

02:57:54.080 democracy really leaves on horseback and returns on foot. So I think it's really important that

02:57:59.420 we don't have any controversy. If it's just delayed a little bit, I'm sure we'll all forget

02:58:03.720 about it in a couple of days from now. But if there's any of this ripped ballot where

02:58:06.720 it causes people or some of the campaigns or camps to question the results, then that is

02:58:11.820 very concerning. I think the real winner is whichever company is making the machines that are

02:58:17.900 on their own destroying the ballots, because I think we is placing a bulk order for a bunch

02:58:22.180 of those machines. You know, I'm just looking at some of the news that's coming in here. And again,

02:58:31.860 I mean, a lot of mayhem, people start to read between the lines, people start to raise questions

02:58:35.920 about all of the things that are going on, and basically just the uncertainty now. So we still

02:58:42.040 have the O'Toole campaign being very confident that they're winning. We still have the Peter

02:58:46.840 McKay campaign being kind of reserved and tight-lipped. There's one report that I wanted

02:58:52.000 to share here, and I'm just trying to find it on. This is the problem with live. Things get lost in

02:58:56.760 the hustle. Mackenzie Gray from CTV has said that he has talked to an insider who has seen internal

02:59:03.060 polls from all four candidates. Two of them show O'Toole winning on the third ballot. Now, this is

02:59:09.240 a little bit of hearsay because Mackenzie Gray is citing an unnamed insider who has seen other

02:59:15.360 polls. So he's not reporting that he's seen them. But there does seem to be a trend right now that's

02:59:21.320 going on of people thinking that this is an O'Toole win. But I mean, my whole point on this is that

02:59:26.740 even if O'Toole is leading, if the whole question mark is about ballots that are being destroyed and

02:59:32.000 delays, in the last two leadership races where we've seen significant delays and uncertainty,

02:59:38.320 the Ontario PC leadership race of 2018, and the Conservative Party of Canada leadership race of

02:59:43.920 2017. Those were too close to call. So anyone to be claiming victory would have been very

02:59:50.360 premature. And I fear it's probably the same thing here. So I guess my question on this,

03:00:09.280 And I want to hear from some of our panelists as we talk about this, is what are the real

03:00:16.160 stakes moving forward?

03:00:17.840 So I would like all of us to have a big discussion about where we want to see the conservative

03:00:24.300 leader go forward.

03:00:25.260 And I know it seems like it is a little bit of a challenge for a lot of people to figure

03:00:31.800 out if we're even going to have a conservative leader tonight, and if so, at what time and

03:00:36.880 all of that sort of stuff.

03:00:37.840 But 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.

03:00:56.100 And we've talked about media bias.

03:00:58.860 I want to play a clip, actually, from my fireside chat interview with Aaron O'Toole.

03:01:04.240 This was from a couple of weeks ago.

03:01:06.140 And Aaron O'Toole was actually speaking about media bias and specifically the way that the

03:01:12.140 conservatives can break through that and should break through that.

03:01:15.240 And I know it's been a theme of our discussion tonight.

03:01:17.140 So let me roll that clip now.

03:01:20.180 You've said very clearly that you are pro-choice, you're pro-gay rights.

03:01:25.060 yet you are not going so far as to say that everyone in your party has to be pro-choice,

03:01:30.240 that everyone in your caucus has to be.

03:01:32.360 To a lot of people who criticize social conservatives,

03:01:36.300 that is an indistinguishable position from being a social conservative yourself.

03:01:40.820 And we saw this with Andrew Scheer, for example.

03:01:42.960 He was personally pro-life but had fundamentally the same position as you

03:01:46.660 on the sense that he wasn't going to introduce any legislation,

03:01:50.120 he wasn't going to make any changes to Canadian law on abortion.

03:01:54.420 So how do you fight back against really going down the exact same road that the Conservatives have been down?

03:02:00.920 Because I've been clear in my political life since I was elected.

03:02:03.860 I 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.

03:02:12.580 When I left the military, became a lawyer, and then ran for Parliament, I said I'm running to Parliament to defend Canadians' rights.

03:02:18.420 I'm not here to take away any rights granted by the court under the Charter or rights that go back to the Magna Carta

03:02:24.400 That's why I'm a strong proponent of free speech rights

03:02:28.260 Conscience 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

03:02:35.980 democracy like us you have to

03:02:38.080 Respect all points of view and be willing to defend all rights

03:02:41.880 You know that's what our soldiers have done throughout our history. That's what our Parliament is meant to do

03:02:46.840 that's what Diefenbaker did with the Bill of Rights we have to defend those

03:02:50.800 rights whether it's property rights of Canadians that have seen that right

03:02:54.980 removed with an order of counsel no debate in the middle of a pandemic for

03:02:58.840 firearms owners or whether it's a conservative who wants to express a

03:03:02.740 point of view based on their faith when did religious freedom become a right

03:03:06.600 we're not willing to stand up for in this country I have concerns about what

03:03:10.900 Justin Trudeau is doing to democratic debates political party organization and

03:03:15.800 really Parliament in general, and it fuels me.

03:03:18.920 And what's great, Andrew,

03:03:20.680 Conservatives are a great, passionate,

03:03:22.380 intelligent bunch from coast to coast.

03:03:24.340 We don't have to have the same view on all issues.

03:03:27.300 We have to have respect for one another.

03:03:31.200 And, you know, like, it's so good that finally

03:03:34.140 we hear Conservatives talking about the media bias

03:03:36.240 because it's such an elephant in the room every time.

03:03:38.780 I mean, this has been an ongoing complaint of mine,

03:03:41.780 as viewers of True North know very well,

03:03:44.240 goes all the way back to 2015, when Justin Trudeau was running in the midst of the campaign,

03:03:48.660 he pledged an additional $150 million to the CBC. How can you say that doesn't affect coverage when

03:03:55.080 they're literally one of the parties is offering to massively, massively expand your business and

03:04:01.020 that grant did end up going through the CBC grew by $150 million, created a whole online news

03:04:08.040 division in English language. And then because of that, the newspapers couldn't compete. And so

03:04:12.860 Trudeau gave them a bailout of 600 million dollars so you have this weird situation where

03:04:17.500 you're the government and taxpayers are funding competing media entities and you know the more

03:04:23.020 success one has the more you have to bail out the other how can you say that journalists don't have

03:04:28.380 a conflict of interest you know they all they all have a conflict of interest Sam you're talking

03:04:32.620 about how David Akin tweeted that he doesn't have any skin in the game well maybe global technically

03:04:37.820 hasn't gotten any of the bailout money yet, but surely it's to come. And I think that that is one

03:04:42.900 of the major problems that conservatives, small-state conservatives, which includes us at

03:04:47.360 True North, face in this country. Well, we have an exciting guest that is joining us. You know,

03:04:53.540 again, we have a live show that we're putting together. We thought that we were going to be

03:04:56.820 going to the conservative convention at 6 p.m. It's now 8 p.m. We're here. It might not go till

03:05:01.540 So 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.

03:05:12.120 You 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.

03:05:31.540 Well, 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.

03:05:39.540 So 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.

03:05:45.540 You 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.

03:05:52.540 We didn't really see anyone jump in the race from Western Canada.

03:05:55.540 in Western Canada, some worry that the issues that matter to Albertans

03:05:59.040 haven't really been addressed in this campaign.

03:06:02.540 You know, you're an Albertan, you're a representative of Calgary in Parliament.

03:06:07.540 Do you feel like Alberta's been adequately represented,

03:06:10.540 and are you happy with this batch of potential candidates here?

03:06:14.540 No, I don't. I don't think that the issues Alberta were facing

03:06:18.540 were adequately addressed in the leadership race.

03:06:21.540 I'll be very blunt.

03:06:23.540 And 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.

03:06:44.800 So, you know, this isn't necessarily a slight on the leadership candidates. I think it's just an acknowledgement of reality

03:06:51.440 The reality is is that my constituents are facing

03:06:56.480 Incredible economic turmoil

03:06:58.480 They're facing a downturn in the economy that has been precipitated by detrimental policies put in place by the current liberal government

03:07:06.400 But this is a cyclical problem. This isn't the first time this has happened

03:07:09.920 It's happened many times in in the history of our country

03:07:13.040 and without structural change to enable Western Canada to be an equal

03:07:19.220 participant in Confederation it will continue to happen again so for me it's

03:07:23.100 not enough to say that you know we're gonna repeal some bills or defeat the

03:07:28.500 current Liberal leader we need to be talking about how we're addressing

03:07:34.720 structural change so that Albertans don't have to look at what political

03:07:39.600 party is in power to ensure that their livelihoods are successful that that's not sustainable and I

03:07:45.500 know that I might be you know frankly pissing people off within my own party by saying this

03:07:50.040 but it needs to be said and that's why I was really proud to be behind the Buffalo Declaration

03:07:54.280 because that was something that was designed to spur conversation about how we do this and this

03:07:59.660 is frankly what I'm going to be working on no matter who wins tonight. What would your recommendation

03:08:05.840 be michelle to the the next conservative leader on a way to uh loop in not just the alberta and

03:08:12.880 broader western caucus but also a lot of the the western base that are feeling growing alienation

03:08:19.300 in some cases uh a desire for separation or headed towards that how can the next leader

03:08:24.500 really tell those people that yes you're heard yes you're part of the canadian uh conservative

03:08:30.080 family and and yes i i'm here to represent you even if i'm not from the west well i think step

03:08:35.720 one, Andrew, is acknowledging that there's a problem, right? I think that the next leader has

03:08:41.240 to say, look, this is something this like history is repeating itself, right? So we need to have

03:08:46.600 some sort of plan and be advocating for a plan that will not just fix the current situation,

03:08:52.700 but ensure that it won't happen again. That's step number one is acknowledging that there's

03:08:56.640 a problem. Step number two is acknowledging that advocating for one region of the country or

03:09:03.520 another is normative in canadian politics right it's completely political politically acceptable

03:09:08.880 for the leader of a party to say look here's a policy that's not working for atlantic canada

03:09:12.640 we need to work for atlantic canada or you know what here's some issues with quebec language

03:09:17.360 laws that we need to be advocating for or whatnot why is it all of a sudden not normative for

03:09:22.560 western canadians to be standing up and saying we've got a big problem here and canadian leaders

03:09:28.000 need to address that and i think that there's a propensity in any political party to be like oh

03:09:32.720 well, you know, we don't want to piss off Ontario, we don't want to piss off Quebec,

03:09:36.580 so, you know, we'll just, like, not talk about the Western Canadian stuff.

03:09:39.960 I've experienced that, and that's not going to cut it anymore.

03:09:42.840 And I think that, you know, so, again, just underscoring step number two,

03:09:46.740 it's just acknowledging the Conservative Party of Canada was given a big mandate

03:09:51.480 by Western Canada to be bold on these issues, right?

03:09:54.920 And the next leader has to figure out how to do that

03:09:58.720 while maintaining a national voter coalition.

03:10:00.940 And anybody who is running for the leadership of the party needs to understand that that's what the job description is.

03:10:06.760 And there are going to be caucus colleagues like myself and others who understand this and will be pushing them on the same.

03:10:13.320 And 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.

03:10:19.400 Well, and conservatives do so well in Alberta because they trust the conservative party to speak up for them and to stand up for them.

03:10:26.280 Michelle, I want to get your thoughts on just the very turbulent few weeks that you've had in Ottawa with the Trudeau government.

03:10:35.200 I mean, it's just been one thing after the other.

03:10:37.260 The 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.

03:10:47.060 Then all of a sudden you had Bill Morneau sort of bizarrely resigning, pretending it had nothing to do with this whole scandal.

03:10:52.300 And Chrystia Freeland jump in.

03:10:54.220 And, you know, she's from Alberta technically, 0.98

03:10:56.260 although I don't think she's lived in Canada much

03:10:58.080 since she was a teenager.

03:10:59.800 And she said something about, you know,

03:11:02.000 the economic restart to COVID has to be based

03:11:04.540 on decarbonization, whatever the heck that means.

03:11:07.700 You know, what is your take on this current

03:11:10.000 corrupt liberal government?

03:11:11.700 And do you think that they even have a mandate

03:11:13.800 at this point?

03:11:14.640 Do you think that it's time to go to another election?

03:11:17.340 What are your thoughts on all that?

03:11:19.620 Sure, I do think Justin Trudeau has lost

03:11:22.120 the moral authority to govern.

03:11:23.340 somebody voted liberal in the last election they should be asking why he is still the leader of

03:11:27.980 the party but i digress i i think that um we're gonna even start on this here's my bold prediction

03:11:35.500 here's my punditry um you know when you think about trudeau's father pierre elliot uh he needed

03:11:41.820 a national unity crisis to change the channel on a lot of his failures and what i predict is that

03:11:48.060 that Justin Trudeau will impose a very punitive budget

03:11:52.920 that's punitive towards Western Canada.

03:11:55.080 I think it's just gonna go for broke

03:11:56.780 on the energy sector, shutting it down.

03:11:59.220 And what he is going to try and do with that

03:12:01.400 is deflect from the corruption of the wee scandal.

03:12:03.960 And you know that there's gonna be more, Candace.

03:12:06.660 Like, I mean, there's how many hundreds of billions

03:12:09.040 of dollars that happened without parliamentary oversight?

03:12:11.360 There's going to be more.

03:12:12.860 He's gonna try and deflect from that

03:12:14.640 by getting conservatives to fight internally

03:12:17.300 over the question of Western Canada

03:12:19.260 and just hope that we separate and let them get a pass.

03:12:23.800 And so the needle that the new leader

03:12:26.820 is going to have to thread is to say,

03:12:28.960 look, the issue of Western alienation is real.

03:12:32.020 It has to be addressed in a real way,

03:12:33.920 but we're not gonna let Canadians give Trudeau

03:12:36.540 a free pass on these other issues, right?

03:12:39.460 So, to me, you can see that this is where they're going.

03:12:43.580 So we need to be smarter than that.

03:12:44.920 We need to be ahead of them.

03:12:45.920 And I'm confident of the ability of our party to do this.

03:12:48.860 So, yeah, I just think it's something that we all need to be aware of.

03:12:54.040 Your name, Michelle, was one of the early ones that was put forward by a lot of people as a potential candidate in this race.

03:13:00.280 And you obviously opted not to step forward.

03:13:03.280 But 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.

03:13:14.860 why did you not feel or perhaps you did feel that you know it wasn't your time to step forward even

03:13:20.940 if those issues weren't having a voice in the race um i guess i'll just be very blunt with you

03:13:28.860 my first concern is to my constituents at this point in time like the the economic crisis that

03:13:33.660 we're going through right now the number of people that are out of work is is something like that has

03:13:37.900 to be my first and primary concern as an elected representative it's it's situation critical here

03:13:43.100 and um i feel like yes i do have a voice yes i do have reach and um i felt in my heart that

03:13:52.060 it was more important for me to use that reach to be an unapologetic advocate for western canadians

03:13:59.020 and the reality is is that the way that the conservative party's primary system is set up

03:14:03.260 is that i could not do both i could not run through the leadership of the party and do

03:14:07.500 things like the buffalo declaration do things like saying i don't care who wins tonight i'm going to

03:14:12.540 ensure that western canadian interests are put forward and you know that does make me sad um

03:14:18.700 but there are moments in our history where you have to realize what your your role and your

03:14:24.140 calling is and i can't look at the 70 mandate that i got from the people of my writing from people

03:14:29.900 that even that typically don't vote conservative and they're like you have to vote for you have

03:14:33.660 to fight for us and sometimes you have to put self and ego aside and and and do what you've been

03:14:40.380 given a mandate to do so

03:14:42.900 You know again, I I'm at the point in my political career and in my life is I you know

03:14:49.120 I just turned 40 where I'm only doing this

03:14:52.380 At this point in time to make sure that my constituents and the people that I represent get a fair shake

03:14:57.340 And if that means putting pressure on my own party so be it, but it certainly means

03:15:02.040 Pushing back against the agenda that we're seeing from the Liberal government as well

03:15:05.820 I am optimistic that our party is going to get it right

03:15:08.720 but they might need a shot in the right direction and that's what my job is going to be.

03:15:13.360 Well that's a great initiative. Michelle, maybe for viewers that aren't too familiar with the

03:15:18.000 Buffalo Declaration and what exactly it entails, you could sort of walk through, you know, you don't

03:15:23.120 have to give a comprehensive presentation or anything, but maybe you can just point out some

03:15:27.360 of the highlights and what what the goals and objectives of the Declaration are. Sure, so in

03:15:32.560 In February, myself and three other colleagues released a comprehensive, very thorough document

03:15:40.480 that outlined the systemic problems that Western Canada, specifically Alberta and Saskatchewan,

03:15:45.740 have faced from confederation, that we've never been an equal participant, that we've

03:15:50.140 always been a colony towards other parts of Canada, and that the problems that we're

03:15:56.080 facing are cyclical in nature, that they're not, you know, this isn't the first time this

03:16:00.940 is happening and we proposed a series of recommendations that could be used as a

03:16:09.780 starting point to talk about how we fix these things how we fix confederation

03:16:13.980 you know it was a very controversial document I knew it would be anytime that

03:16:18.980 you talk about these things it's gonna piss everybody off I know it piss

03:16:23.260 people off within my own party but I'm at the point where I just don't care

03:16:26.200 because you have to we have to say things we have to if you're not if you

03:16:30.340 can't fix a problem if you don't acknowledge that it exists so yeah you

03:16:34.540 know I encourage people to read it buffalodeclaration.ca I stand by it and

03:16:39.400 you know what I hope that it did I actually hope that it would inform some

03:16:43.840 of the leadership conversations that it would allow some of our leadership

03:16:47.620 candidates to talk about the things that were in there and say I agree with this

03:16:50.380 I don't agree with this I acknowledge that here's some issues with Western

03:16:53.260 Canada here's how I would fix it and frankly we didn't see I'm not saying

03:16:57.580 that you know they have to talk about the buffalo declaration per se i don't have that type of an

03:17:01.340 ego but i don't think that we address those issues and um what i'm hoping is that whoever wins tonight

03:17:07.500 will um will start addressing that i do have to jump off candace i'm getting the uh the signal

03:17:13.100 from the back here but um i just again i want i want to thank i want to thank you and andrew for

03:17:18.860 for doing this and and if for those who are watching i do think that what you guys are doing

03:17:23.740 here tonight will be considered the future of media and it's nice to see pundits and other

03:17:31.180 media gaining prominence and different voices in our country so congratulations to you.

03:17:36.540 Well Michelle thank you so much for taking the time and it was super last minute but

03:17:40.140 one of the things we talked about was that there wasn't enough policy in this last

03:17:44.220 leadership debate so hopefully you'll be at the forefront in leading policy discussions

03:17:48.780 for the party and in the conservative movement for a long time to come.

03:17:51.500 thank you have a good evening you too thanks very much Michelle you know one of the things I was

03:17:57.840 actually hoping to chat with Michelle about we ran out of time was immigration which is an issue

03:18:02.860 she's been doing a lot on and we actually haven't talked about immigration all that much tonight so

03:18:08.240 let's start now because I would say that there wasn't a huge amount of immigration talk during

03:18:14.420 the leadership there was some certainly everyone seemed to be united on wanting to close Roxham

03:18:19.580 Road. We had a news story this week that True North actually broke. It was an exclusive story

03:18:24.220 that the government has put out a call for a vendor to transport asylum seekers near the Quebec

03:18:31.060 border up to 150 a day. So clearly the government's not making good on its whole closing Roxham Road

03:18:37.100 promise as of late. So you've got Derek Sloan who wants to decrease immigration. You've got

03:18:43.140 Aaron O'Toole that wants to do the steady increase, that very Harper and Kenny approach to immigration.

03:18:49.100 But 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?

03:19:02.960 Yeah, 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.

03:19:16.300 So 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.

03:19:35.520 Same 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.

03:19:45.940 It became a big pressing issue.

03:19:48.100 Whereas 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.

03:19:57.200 I don't think that's happened at all in recent history.

03:20:00.120 now of course we know that the numbers aren't exactly true that even though the trudeau

03:20:04.360 government says the border is closed we've still had a million odd people come and and more people

03:20:09.000 who've entered canada have not been citizens so we are still accepting immigrants uh some of the

03:20:14.040 big uh covet outbreaks have happened with temporary foreign workers coming from uh mexico and other

03:20:20.200 countries and so you know despite the fact that that they say the borders closed it is still open

03:20:25.400 and it is causing some issues in terms of COVID and public safety. I would have liked to hear a

03:20:31.480 little bit more about immigration from each of the candidates, but I think we're in an interesting

03:20:36.360 time in Canada in our history right now. I've written about this in the past, and I'll just

03:20:41.560 really quickly say it again. If you look at Canada's historic immigration figures dating back

03:20:45.800 150 years, there have always been peaks and valleys in admittance. So we've always had

03:20:51.000 time periods where we've just let in lots and lots of people pretty much open the floodgates

03:20:55.320 and then a couple of years later we close them and allow a break of one to five to ten years

03:21:00.720 where you essentially just like let everyone settle let the people who are here integrate

03:21:05.880 and become Canadian and then you say okay let's open up again and have another wave

03:21:10.440 we haven't had that you know we've had sustained high numbers of immigration getting higher and

03:21:15.300 higher and higher every year for the past 25 years I don't think it's necessarily been good 1.00

03:21:20.160 the country actually it's been bad for the country there's parts of vancouver where i grew up where

03:21:24.560 you don't see any english speakers there's no english signs people have no incentive to learn

03:21:28.800 english because no one around them speaks english um and and you're also seeing lots of tensions in

03:21:33.520 and around toronto with so many new people coming and not being able to settle so i think it's good

03:21:38.160 for the country to just take a pause on immigration altogether and the fact that's sort of what's

03:21:42.480 happening because of the situation i i we don't know what the immigration levels will be for 2020

03:21:47.760 the government hasn't announced them and i've been trying to dig into them and find them but i think

03:21:52.000 once we do learn they'll be significantly lower than where they were i think the conservatives

03:21:56.400 would be wise to just maintain that for a few years until covid gets under control until the

03:22:01.120 economy recovers and then we can open up again but i i hope that all the conservative leadership

03:22:06.240 candidates take this as as an opportunity um to really push that pause button on immigration and

03:22:11.760 have some kind of a moratorium. Aaron, I know you and I have talked about the immigration issue

03:22:17.600 before and you're not in Vancouver but you're on the west coast where there is a large population 1.00

03:22:23.280 of people that come but don't necessarily bother to learn English and don't really integrate.

03:22:28.000 I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this issue. Well I think the big point to be made with COVID

03:22:35.920 and the unemployment as high as it is right now is the economic rationale for opening the flood

03:22:41.120 gates on immigration simply isn't there anymore um i think in addition to all the the points that

03:22:46.880 you made i think we also need to uh pump the brakes on immigration a bit to to allow more

03:22:53.240 housing spots to open up in cities like vancouver victoria and toronto where there's a lot of stress

03:22:58.620 on the market so i think that's another point to be made but my big thing with immigration 1.00

03:23:02.400 that bugs me is with justin trudeau right now you have this arbitrarily high number of immigrants

03:23:09.720 and refugees. And if you want one less than that, you're basically a racist. And I think 0.96

03:23:14.740 all I want is a common sense, open debate about immigration and the economic effects and the

03:23:20.760 cultural effects. And to be honest, I think a lot of Canadians have those conversations around the

03:23:25.600 water coolers and the barbecues during summer. But it'd be nice to actually have those conversations

03:23:29.960 at the forefront in forums like this. And one of the downsides is we didn't see that

03:23:36.800 in the leadership race, which would have been nice.

03:23:41.920 Yeah, I totally agree.

03:23:43.100 Again, it's one of the disconnects that this is how, you know,

03:23:45.660 everyday Canadians talk about these issues,

03:23:47.280 but politicians are so afraid of being called the dreaded R-word racist

03:23:52.400 that they don't want to talk about immigration.

03:23:54.760 Sam, what's your perspective on this?

03:23:56.980 Well, I actually want to take it in a bit of a different direction,

03:23:58.860 and that is to bring the economy into it,

03:24:02.380 because immigration and the economy are very closely tied together.

03:24:05.440 You bring people into this country or to any country because by growing your population

03:24:09.160 base, you grow the size of your market, you grow your labor force, and obviously that's

03:24:12.420 one of the main drivers of the economy.

03:24:14.320 But with the Trudeau government going to bring in, and I firmly believe that they're going

03:24:18.240 to try and bring in some sort of universal basic income, and remember that Eric Hoskins,

03:24:23.440 who was the Ontario health minister for a number of years, that he's gone to Ottawa

03:24:26.900 to help them with the national pharma care strategy.

03:24:29.080 So you have a potential on the horizon of pharma care strategy and a universal basic

03:24:32.680 income. How is that going to affect the need and demand for labor? What are the changes in the

03:24:38.400 economy with people that are coming in? Is everyone going to suddenly qualify for this

03:24:42.020 universal basic income? So people who just arrived yesterday, what's going to be the

03:24:45.960 criterion? Are you going to be allowed to work, make more money? There's going to be a lot of

03:24:49.280 effects and immigration is now a piece of that discussion. And I think that's an interesting

03:24:53.460 one going forward for whoever the new conservative leader is going to be, because it's not just

03:24:57.740 about universal basic income or about immigration or about any of these things, because they're all

03:25:02.320 tied together and I'm curious what you guys think as well actually. Yeah it's a really good point

03:25:05.960 because one of the things you often hear almost as a cliche is that you can't have open borders

03:25:09.980 and you know social socialist programs or a socialist welfare state. Canada seems to be

03:25:16.800 the exception to that because we do have these socialist programs like we already this is one 0.97

03:25:21.040 of the arguments you hear conservatives making in the U.S. like well these Democrats are so crazy

03:25:25.140 they want open borders but they also want Medicare for all. It's like well yeah it's basically what

03:25:30.320 our policy is in canada already and it hasn't bankrupted the system yet but surely it could

03:25:35.440 potentially be a problem and you know for me i've someone who's worked inside the immigration

03:25:38.960 department i see i saw that there were a number of scams and a number of people who aren't coming

03:25:44.160 with good intentions to canada they're not coming because they want to join the canadian family or

03:25:48.400 because they love canada believe in the canadian ideal no they're coming because they want to take

03:25:52.880 advantage of our generous our generosity uh essentially and i think that the more that you

03:25:57.360 expand that welfare state sam it's a really excellent point the more that you're going to

03:26:01.440 attract the wrong kind of people which is so unfair uh to the canadian fabric to the canadian family

03:26:07.760 but also to the canadian taxpayer and and people who you know potentially could be displaced in a

03:26:12.880 hospital uh in an emergency room setting in an intensive care setting um because someone else

03:26:19.280 who has no connection to canada that didn't live here five minutes ago uh showed up and and got

03:26:24.640 ahead of them and that's just the nature of uh you know rationed health care but it could

03:26:29.340 apply to any number of other programs that justin trudeau and his liberals uh pull out uh you know

03:26:35.240 as we're expecting in this next uh throne speech this is the true north conservative leadership

03:26:42.740 results show candace malcolm and andrew lawton hosting we also have joining us right now aaron

03:26:48.240 gunn and true north fellow sam eskenazi uh just before we go back to the panel i want to report

03:26:53.660 on some of the details that are coming in.

03:26:56.540 If you're just tuning in right now

03:26:57.840 because you thought you'd skip to the end

03:26:59.140 and get the results,

03:27:00.000 well, do we have some bad news for you?

03:27:01.540 The results are nowhere near

03:27:03.400 where they're supposed to be right now.

03:27:05.160 This was originally promised to start at 6 p.m.

03:27:08.380 with results coming in at 6.30.

03:27:10.060 It's now 8.30.

03:27:11.640 The latest is that 97% of the ballots,

03:27:14.800 according to the Conservative Party of Canada,

03:27:16.720 have been counted.

03:27:18.040 3% of them, which is several thousand,

03:27:20.720 were ripped by machines.

03:27:21.920 Now, just to put this in context,

03:27:23.660 there were about 172,000 ballots, which means that if 3% of them were ripped, that is about

03:27:30.680 5,000 ballots that we're talking about here. So a significant number that have been ripped and

03:27:38.000 they're being counted manually. That's been the main cause of the delay. The Conservative Party

03:27:44.020 says it's going to start its program at 8.30, which is coming up any moment now. And there's

03:27:50.940 going to be a break at 9 p.m. And then the results will start coming in the first ballot at 10 p.m.

03:27:57.440 Now, this is all Eastern time. So it's important to keep that in mind. But we're looking now at

03:28:02.480 potentially the Conservative Party of Canada starting its show at 830. Now, I've actually

03:28:06.880 just got some breaking. I don't know if it's breaking news, but no one else has this yet.

03:28:11.580 Andrew Scheer is going to be speaking in about 15 minutes. So the Conservative Party, it seems

03:28:17.020 like is committed to starting its show in some form soon. And we'll obviously throw to them

03:28:21.920 live to hear the latest. So just with apologies to our panelists, if we have to cut you off too

03:28:27.200 quickly, that's why, because we want to go to the main event, but it sounds like we'll be back for

03:28:32.500 at least an hour at 9pm when the party breaks to finish its counting. So again, I mean, this is

03:28:39.920 as far as what you can have, if you're trying to present that you can capably and competently

03:28:45.140 hit the ground running and go after Justin Trudeau in the next election, this isn't exactly the

03:28:49.660 message that you want to be sharing. But let me go to you on this, Sam. I mean, what do you think

03:28:56.120 needs to be the Conservative Party leader's top priority, assuming there is a leader tonight,

03:29:00.960 when they start their first full day in that job tomorrow? I mean, what does the election

03:29:05.540 readiness plan look like or what should it look like for the Conservatives?

03:29:15.140 oh sorry um top priority honestly make sure you've got party unity all set um make sure

03:29:22.480 you guys with me still uh make sure you've got party unity all set that's going to be super

03:29:26.460 critical yeah keep going sam all right so yeah so party unity is going to be super critical but

03:29:33.660 that's going to be just like a day one kind of thing maybe the first week just make sure you

03:29:37.180 know you make all the phone calls you need to make mend all the fences that you need to mend

03:29:40.280 and then make sure you've got the machinery ready to go because justin trudeau is basically sitting

03:29:44.600 on the trigger yes it's a minority government but big question that i've posed before is the

03:29:49.340 ndp do they have enough money are they ready to fight this election and that's really i think for

03:29:53.300 them that's what's going to be keeping this government propped up so you've got to be ready

03:29:57.040 at a moment's notice to fight an election you've got to make sure you've got the machinery in place

03:30:01.120 and then you worry about the messaging that that can take you know again depends on what the ballot

03:30:05.760 question or what the what track the liberals are going to take you can obviously come back from

03:30:09.160 that but uh first step again mend your fences second step make sure the machinery is ready

03:30:14.020 third step work on your messaging and keep it simple.

03:30:18.100 That's a really good point. I think just quickly to pick up on one thing you said

03:30:22.180 with Jagmeet Singh and the NDP. I mean to me it seems really obvious

03:30:26.180 that we need to have an election aside from whatever the health

03:30:28.820 concerns may be with COVID and the concerns around that.

03:30:32.020 But one of the kind of sticking issues is the NDP and how much

03:30:36.100 debt they have and how poorly they perform under Jagmeet Singh.

03:30:40.100 So you have this awkward situation where you could have a political party

03:30:43.940 that's, you know, propping up another party, not because of any principle or any shared belief,

03:30:48.980 but simply because of their own sort of opportunistic situation. Aaron, I'll bring

03:30:55.020 you in on this. You know, British Columbia is sort of the NDP heartland and Jagmeet Singh's

03:31:00.780 from out there. What do you make of that party right now? And do you think that they would be

03:31:06.840 willing to prop up the Trudeau government, even if it meant like, you know, further demise of our

03:31:11.720 country? I think so. I think that, I mean, maybe in fairness to the NDP,

03:31:18.560 Justin Trudeau's Liberals have moved so far to the left now that it probably

03:31:23.420 makes a degree of ideological sense to prop them up. It's all the, a lot of the

03:31:29.720 crazy policies that we might have affiliated with the NDP party of massive

03:31:35.240 deficits, completely out of control spending, mindless and rudderless foreign

03:31:41.000 policy, all these things, political correctness, identity politics. Trudeau has adopted all those

03:31:46.740 as his own. So I do think there is a, at least in the inner city NDP, I think that does make

03:31:55.060 a lot of sense. But what I'm curious is there seems to me two kinds of NDP voters, especially

03:31:59.900 here in British Columbia. You still have kind of the common sense, a lot of times union worker,

03:32:06.520 NDP voter, a lot of rural areas here in Vancouver Island, a lot of forestry workers.

03:32:11.000 And I don't think the NDP party federally under Jagmeet Singh is a,

03:32:15.100 is a party they can identify with. And I think though, hang on,

03:32:19.400 I'm sorry to interrupt there,

03:32:20.980 but we have the live event at the conservative party broadcast headquarters in

03:32:26.880 Ottawa starting up. Are we good to throw to that now? All right,

03:32:31.680 we'll, we'll go to that live.

03:32:41.000 ready to cut you off there all good all good i think you made your point

03:32:50.360 yeah it was good stuff oh my gosh he's not all right i think we can probably let you guys loose

03:32:58.920 because this is going to be about half an hour we might uh stand by your phones though we might

03:33:04.020 bring you back on later yeah let me know i'll be rocking the baby all right thanks a lot for

03:33:09.020 everything, guys. Yeah, thanks so much, guys. Hey, uh, Cordy-

03:33:39.020 de l'énergie et le talent de nos bénévoles leadership races are a time of renewal thousands

03:33:46.220 of volunteers have given their time to support a candidate adding to the energy and excitement of

03:33:50.780 this extraordinary leadership race we wouldn't be here tonight for this announcement without

03:33:55.980 our volunteers who began arriving before 5 a.m this morning to open count and record tens of

03:34:02.700 thousands of ballots that we received over the past several weeks i'd also like to say a very

03:34:08.300 special thank you to the Conservative Party of Canada staff who have pulled together and worked

03:34:13.340 tirelessly long hours often through adversity to ensure that we could elect our next leader

03:34:19.180 in spite of a global pandemic. Your resourcefulness and dedication to the Conservative Party and its

03:34:24.860 goals have carried us through the challenges of the past months and we thank you.

03:34:38.300 Here's a little peek of how all of this came together.

03:35:02.300 To the volunteers who made the 2020 Conservative Leadership election possible, thank you.

03:35:08.300 With a record participation across the country, the logistics of the health course to help

03:35:14.300 to get a little bit difficult.

03:35:17.300 Thanks to our amazing volunteers, we were able to make this race a massive success,

03:35:22.300 even during a pandemic.

03:35:24.300 Thanks to everyone who gave their time. We would not have been able to get there without you.

03:35:29.300 Here are just a few of the milestones we were able to accomplish thanks to the dedication of our volunteers.

03:35:38.300 And thank you to all of the campaigns and their volunteers for helping us.

03:36:08.280 to help build conservative momentum right across the country.

03:36:20.280 Thank you.

03:36:21.280 And now I'd like to introduce our president of the party,

03:36:25.280 not president de l'executive national du Parti conservateur du Canada, Scott Lamb.

03:36:31.280 Without Jamie, and I want to say without Jamie Girard stepping forward last December

03:36:39.940 to take the role as our Executive Director, the success of this leadership race in setting

03:36:45.320 a record for ballots and votes cast could not have occurred.

03:36:49.780 You've done so much for our party and we are in a debt of gratitude to you and your

03:36:54.080 team.

03:36:55.080 It is my honour to say thank you on behalf of the Conservative Party of Canada to our

03:37:00.660 our leader, Andrew Scheer, for his years of service to our party and our country.

03:37:21.040 As many of you know, Andrew's remarkable career commenced in 2004 when at the political novice

03:37:28.040 age of 24, he contested the riding of Regina Capel for our party against Lorne Nystrom

03:37:34.480 of the NDP, a political legend who was a 25-year veteran of the House of Commons. Not only

03:37:41.680 did Andrew beat Lorne Nystrom in 2004, he went on with that seat to win it a further

03:37:47.800 five consecutive times. Andrew served as the youngest ever Speaker of the House of Commons

03:37:53.860 in the Harper government, securing his place as a great parliamentarian.

03:37:59.620 When Stephen Harper stepped down as our leader in 2015, I often caution people we are a relatively

03:38:06.460 young party formed out of two predecessor parties.

03:38:10.100 It was a little bit like a start-up company with a very successful founding leader who

03:38:14.400 suddenly exits the company.

03:38:16.860 Often start-up companies fail at this stage.

03:38:20.420 Our party had only known one leader for 12 years and we have been in government for over

03:38:24.960 nine of those years.

03:38:26.940 Like any startup company transitioning to a new leader, this was a daunting task to

03:38:31.180 take on as the role of our new leader of our party.

03:38:35.120 It required focus on party unity and moving our party back into contention to form government

03:38:41.640 once again.

03:38:43.600 On his election as leader, Andrew Scheer did just that.

03:38:48.040 Shearer focused on fighting for all Canadians and not just the favored few by the Liberals.

03:38:53.800 You saw this in Andrew Shearer's campaign against Trudeau's massive tax hike on small business,

03:39:00.120 forcing the Liberal government to back down from many of their changes. Andrew Shearer kept

03:39:05.960 the party unified. He has listened to and understood all points of view in our big

03:39:12.520 conservative tent. He built momentum to put our party into contention to win

03:39:17.680 government again. Winning key by-elections that we had not won in a generation,

03:39:22.600 building our party's lead in fundraising, and welcoming Liberals to join our party

03:39:27.940 like Member of Parliament Leona Asalev who crossed the floor of the House of

03:39:31.900 Commons from the Liberals to join our party. In the 2019 election, Andrew Scheer

03:39:37.960 took on Justin Trudeau's Liberals, who the media said after 2015 would hold majority

03:39:43.240 governments not just for four years, but as much as 12 years. In that election, Andrew

03:39:49.980 Scheer led our party to reducing the Trudeau Liberals to a minority government. Our party

03:39:55.520 won the popular vote and formed the strongest official opposition in Canadian history with

03:40:01.280 121 Conservatives elected. Throughout his leadership and years as a

03:40:07.160 Parliamentarian, Andrew Scheer has always demonstrated fairness, decency and

03:40:12.980 intelligence. He's a dedicated family man and a friend to all. Andrew, you kept us

03:40:20.780 united and focused on fighting for all Canadians. With you, we took a large step

03:40:26.900 once again to forming a Conservative government.

03:40:30.980 We thank you.

03:40:32.220 We wish you and your family all the best.

03:40:34.880 And we look for many years in the future of your service

03:40:37.700 as a Member of Parliament for our party.

03:40:40.520 Thank you.

03:40:42.240 Honourable Leader of the Opposition. 0.98

03:40:44.300 It's so gross and disgusting that this Prime Minister 0.98

03:40:47.160 keeps using the pandemic as an excuse for his corruption. 0.97

03:40:51.700 They will stop and take the time to reward their friends.

03:40:55.260 That is the essence of this Liberal Party. 0.99

03:40:57.880 It's just disgusting. 0.91

03:40:59.380 Justin Trudeau only pretends to stand up for Canada. 1.00

03:41:02.460 Mr. Trudeau, you are a phony and you are a fraud 1.00

03:41:04.880 and you do not deserve to govern this country. 1.00

03:41:07.380 That was the weakest response to a national crisis in Canada.

03:41:12.460 Now, I listened to the Prime Minister's word salad.

03:41:15.920 The actions of these radical activists are illegal.

03:41:19.160 Put an end to the illegal blockades and get our economy back on track.

03:41:23.180 But I don't blame the Prime Minister for not getting up off the mat.

03:41:27.140 And we know that he'd rather be sitting there signing autographs.

03:41:31.880 If he likes to sign his name so much, maybe he can take out his checkbook

03:41:35.040 and sign a check paying back taxpayers for the money.

03:41:38.200 He told Donald Trump that if he didn't get rid of tariffs, there'd be no photo op.

03:41:42.600 Well, that Donald called his bluff.

03:41:44.920 He knew that the Prime Minister couldn't resist another photo being taken.

03:41:47.800 And there he was signing along with the rest of the leaders.

03:41:49.860 Now, for taking his picture with Donald Trump,

03:41:51.880 Did he get an end to a steel and aluminum journey?

03:41:54.880 Even the Australians can't understand why we're buying their old planes.

03:41:57.880 If the Prime Minister is so keen on buying fixer uppers, will he come over?

03:42:01.880 Because I've got an old minivan I'd love to show up.

03:42:03.880 Meanwhile, families across the country are suffering because of their lack of action and their incompetence.

03:42:10.880 When will the Prime Minister take responsibility for his decision and stop trying to blame other people?

03:42:15.880 It is fashionable today to look down on the past.

03:42:18.880 that is a luxury that we enjoy from heights built by those who preceded us in this chamber.

03:42:25.920 If you look back at our rich history and study the leading figures in its telling and see only

03:42:31.440 the blemishes, then you are missing out on the beautiful story of a country constantly bettering

03:42:36.880 itself and consistently offering refuge to so many people. This country has bestowed such fortune

03:42:47.520 and opportunity on my family that i stand before you running to be the next prime minister one

03:42:55.840 generation removed from having nine kids in a two-bedroom bungalow along a dirt road

03:43:00.960 that right there is canada ladies and gentlemen and it's worth fighting to protect canada must be

03:43:07.040 a place where no ambition is too big where no dream is out of reach and where no government

03:43:13.200 will stand in the way of people working hard to get ahead.

03:43:17.360 Conservatives have put Justin Trudeau on notice.

03:43:19.920 When your government falls,

03:43:21.200 Conservatives will be ready and we will win.

03:43:24.460 Tonight we have accomplished

03:43:25.540 what only two parties have ever done before,

03:43:27.620 by holding a first-term majority government to a minority.

03:43:31.480 This is how it starts.

03:43:32.760 This is the first step.

03:43:34.720 And now we are heading back to Ottawa

03:43:36.220 with a much bigger team,

03:43:37.940 with more support from coast to coast,

03:43:40.420 and with an endorsement from the Canadian people

03:43:42.540 that we are the government-in-waiting.

03:43:55.160 Folks, the Honourable Andrew Scheer.

03:44:06.560 Well, thank you very much, Scott.

03:44:08.820 Thanks, Lisa.

03:44:09.940 Thanks, Dan.

03:44:10.640 Good evening, everyone. What an incredible three years.

03:44:15.640 I have been so honoured to serve as leader of the Conservative Party of Canada

03:44:20.640 and as leader of the official opposition in the House of Commons, leading our amazing team.

03:44:36.640 Looking back on where we started in 2017,

03:44:39.640 In 2017 and all that we have accomplished together, I am struck by the determination, strength and resilience of our party.

03:44:47.640 In 2017, no one thought we could win the next election.

03:44:52.640 The media establishment was predicting that Justin Trudeau would easily win two or maybe even three majority governments.

03:44:59.640 He would be Prime Minister for as long as he wanted.

03:45:02.640 But we rolled up our sleeves and reminded voters that Conservatives are the only party fighting for hard-working Canadians.

03:45:12.040 The fact that anyone even considered the 2019 election winnable is because of the incredible success of our entire team.

03:45:20.440 And 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.

03:45:32.640 There are so many people I would like to thank.

03:45:36.400 First off, my House leadership, shadow cabinet and caucus teams.

03:45:40.880 Merci pour vos conseils et votre soutien pendant mon mandat.

03:45:48.300 One of the most frustrating parts of not forming government is stopping to think about what

03:45:53.340 a great group of ministers we would have had if we had won.

03:45:57.880 I know that Canadians would have been far better served during this pandemic had there

03:46:01.980 been a conservative government in power and I look forward to the many great things that

03:46:07.020 our next conservative team will accomplish.

03:46:09.660 I would also like to thank Joan Bayless, Hamish Marshall, Kenzie Potter, Marc-André Leclerc

03:46:19.340 and all the teams who encouraged me to present myself as a chef and who stayed on my side.

03:46:26.500 This has sometimes been difficult, but I can't imagine a better group of people to do it.

03:46:35.180 To the Office of the Leader of the Opposition and Party Headquarter Teams,

03:46:39.460 thank you for all your hard work over the past three years and throughout this leadership race.

03:46:44.700 I know that the new leader will be in good hands with all of you.

03:46:48.780 I'd also like to thank our entire Conservative Caucus,

03:46:52.180 National Council, Party President Scott Lamb,

03:46:55.280 and all of our thousands and thousands

03:46:57.240 of party members and volunteers.

03:46:59.860 Each of you contribute so much to our movement

03:47:03.140 and are vital to our success.

03:47:07.060 But most of all, I would like to thank my incredible wife,

03:47:10.460 Jill, for her love and support,

03:47:13.100 without which none of this would have been possible.

03:47:16.760 Jill, I love you so much.

03:47:18.540 thank you for all the sacrifices that you and the kids made over the past few years.

03:47:26.060 I can honestly say that I have never been prouder to be a conservative

03:47:29.980 or to be a Canadian.

03:47:31.020 La pandémie nous a mis au défi, mais elle a aussi montré le meilleur côté des Canadiens

03:47:38.300 partout au pays. Les voisins cédant les unes et les autres, les entreprises trouvant des façons

03:47:45.340 We 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.

03:48:15.340 As we look forward to the recovery, Canadians will be faced with a fundamental choice.

03:48:21.900 You see, the left is offering the same failed policies that they always do.

03:48:26.780 Bigger government, more government intervention and less individual freedom.

03:48:31.980 The lie of the left is that the very people they claim they want to help are hurt the

03:48:46.220 most by their policies.

03:48:48.720 They pretend to be motivated by compassion, but there is nothing compassionate about big

03:48:54.400 government intervention.

03:48:56.760 Over-increasing intervention in the marketplace rewards big corporations who can afford expensive

03:49:02.860 government relations experts.

03:49:04.940 New rules and laws make labour costs so expensive that low-income workers and new entrants into

03:49:09.640 the workforce lose their jobs first.

03:49:13.520 And little by little, fundamental rights and freedoms are eroded.

03:49:17.760 In the 1980s, the Soviet bloc and Eastern European countries all had the same rhetoric.

03:49:23.240 Their policies were supposed to help the poor and promote equality.

03:49:27.620 The exact same rhetoric that the left is using today.

03:49:30.480 But all it caused was misery.

03:49:32.660 The challenge for conservatives today is that many people do not understand the free market economy,

03:49:41.760 individual freedom, a limited government, and more individual choice.

03:49:48.600 voters didn't grow up. Many of today's voters didn't grow up watching the wall

03:49:52.320 come down or looking at the bread lines in East Berlin. So we as a party need to

03:49:58.260 constantly be looking for new ways to make the case for the core conservative

03:50:02.760 principles we all believe in. Freedom, limited government, and unlimited

03:50:07.840 potential. Our values and ideals have stood the test of time. For generations

03:50:13.920 they have guided Canadians through adversity and they will once again. You see, the Liberals are

03:50:20.240 all candy before supper. They make superficial promises and hope you don't blame them for the

03:50:26.240 consequences. Then, all you're left with is a stomach ache and a serious case of buyer's remorse.

03:50:33.920 Conservatives, on the other hand, we believe in a balanced meal. We

03:50:37.360 look at the whole picture and we seem we see the harm

03:50:50.960 we are your voice but the biggest risk to freedom and liberty is when people empower government to

03:50:57.520 do more and more for them it may be tempting to use the government to address the challenges

03:51:04.320 society often faces. But once invited inside, the government is a terrible houseguest. It

03:51:10.260 may feel good to vote in a party that is going to overstep the limits of government in order

03:51:15.560 to do something you agree with. However, that invitation is quickly used to justify all

03:51:21.240 sorts of actions you might never have considered. It is far better to keep government within

03:51:26.660 strictly defined limits and leave the rest of society to fulfill its proper role. That

03:51:33.880 is why Conservatives put their faith in people.

03:51:37.960 We know that there is more to society than just government, and that free people, within

03:51:42.120 a free market, working hard and enjoying the fruits of their labour, free to express themselves

03:51:47.400 and live their lives the way they want, that is the recipe for success every single place

03:51:55.440 it's been tried.

03:51:57.140 When given a choice between societies where governments control more and more of their

03:52:01.080 citizens lives and those where freedom and opportunity are protected people

03:52:05.760 always choose freedom after all no one ever got shot trying to jump the wall

03:52:11.080 to get into East Berlin or paddle the raft to get to Cuba we don't even have

03:52:16.700 to go back into the past to see these examples we just need to look at the

03:52:20.580 mess happening right now in Venezuela and all the tragedy that it is causing

03:52:26.320 You know, it's to the Conservatives to transmit this message.

03:52:32.320 For us, a guaranteed election does not exist.

03:52:38.320 At a time when the establishment elites are doing everything they can to defeat us,

03:52:43.320 at a time when dozens of groups like Lead Now and Unifor pay millions of dollars

03:52:48.320 to run ads against us and bash our policies,

03:52:51.320 policies, at a time when the mainstream media bias in this country has never been more clear.

03:53:00.420 In times like this, it is up to the Conservative Party to unite Canadians instead of allowing

03:53:07.400 the left to divide Canadians.

03:53:12.180 At a time when our kids, when young people, have never been taught the value of those

03:53:17.900 free market principles, where they've actually been taught that there's something wrong

03:53:22.560 with free markets and individual liberty.

03:53:27.260 In times like these, it is even more important for every single Conservative to stay united

03:53:34.480 and do everything you can to work together to spread our message of hope.

03:53:40.300 So it doesn't matter what kind of Conservative you are, our party needs all of you, and we

03:53:45.160 We need you to go out and find more people who share our beliefs.

03:53:49.840 Please stay involved.

03:53:50.900 Be bold.

03:53:51.900 Think.

03:53:52.900 Challenge the mainstream media.

03:53:54.220 Don't take their narrative as fact.

03:53:56.360 Check out smart, independent, objective organizations that are growing all the time, like the Post

03:54:02.040 Millennial or True North.

03:54:04.240 There are other places to get information.

03:54:06.840 Let's stop being the silent majority.

03:54:09.280 Don't be afraid to challenge leftist professors or public figures.

03:54:13.280 Millions of Canadians share our Conservative values, they just don't all know it yet.

03:54:20.880 Now, I know that we can win the next election.

03:54:26.400 Quand je suis devenu chef du parti en 2017, nous avions quatre-vingt-dix-neuf sièges.

03:54:34.280 Today, I am leaving the next leader with 121 amazing MPs from coast to coast.

03:54:43.080 In 2015, we won around 31% of the vote.

03:54:46.120 In 2019, we won 34.4%, won the popular vote, and formed the strongest opposition in Canadian

03:54:54.220 history.

03:54:55.220 I'm also proud to say tonight that the Conservative Party of Canada is officially debt-free.

03:55:05.480 We are in an excellent position, but we cannot be complacent.

03:55:09.400 Our party's unity has been tested in the past and media love nothing more than writing

03:55:13.720 about disgruntled Conservatives.

03:55:15.700 So we cannot give them that opportunity.

03:55:18.600 For the last few months, the different candidates and their supporters have been highlighting

03:55:22.460 the differences between them.

03:55:25.900 After tonight, let's all come together and focus on the things that unite us.

03:55:32.080 We must stay squarely concentrated on working together and focusing on the many things we

03:55:38.640 that we share in common.

03:55:58.400 Where they will use the pandemic as an excuse to reward their friends,

03:56:01.600 Conservatives will clean up their corruption.

03:56:04.560 Where they will play the politics of envy,

03:56:06.640 will spread a message of hope and opportunity. Where they will attack our energy sector, we will

03:56:13.040 champion it and celebrate the prosperity it creates for all Canadians. Where they will demonize people

03:56:18.880 for having different views on issues facing Canadians, we will not attack people for their

03:56:23.440 deeply held positions, but instead look to find the common ground.

03:56:27.680 And when they let Canadians down, as they always do, we will be ready to offer them

03:56:45.720 a conservative government that puts people first.

03:56:49.720 And after tonight, let's all rally behind the new leader and do everything we can to

03:56:55.140 make sure that the next leader of the Conservative Party becomes the next

03:56:59.760 Prime Minister of this great country. Serving in this role has been the

03:57:04.920 greatest honour of my professional life. I want to thank all the members, all the

03:57:09.420 volunteers, the member of our fantastic team so much. This has been such an honour.

03:57:13.560 Thank you very much. Thank you so much for all the support that you've given to

03:57:19.020 me and my family and we will get them in the next election. Thank you very much.

03:57:24.580 Thank you leader. Okay, so I know that you are all anxious to hear the ballot results

03:57:47.460 and we are almost there. I am now pleased to turn things over to our co-chairs for this evening,

03:57:53.460 the Honourable Lisa Raitt and Dan Nolan for the news that I know everyone is waiting for.

03:58:00.740 Thank you, Jamie. We'll start with a short explanation of the process that brought us here today.

03:58:04.740 At the limit of the election of May 15, our conservative party counted a record number of 269,469 members.

03:58:14.580 Voting was by preferential ballot and members could rank one, two, three or all four candidates in order.

03:58:30.580 Members 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.

03:58:43.300 starting back on july 20th we began processing ballots as they were received and over the last

03:58:48.180 month we succeeded in processing a record number of ballots for a canadian leadership race

03:58:52.980 174 849 ballots were verified once the validity of the memberships and the identification was

03:59:01.300 confirmed the ballots which remained in their secrecy envelopes were set aside in sealed bins

03:59:07.700 this morning these bins were opened and we counted the ballots using tabulators certified and

03:59:13.940 supplied by dominion voting services from the tabulators dominion voting services will produce

03:59:20.260 the first ballot results which are then verified by deloitte and then approved by the chief

03:59:25.460 returning officer if subsequent balance are required the same process will be followed

03:59:30.900 Each 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.

03:59:42.600 To win, a leadership candidate must receive 16,901 points, which is 50% plus one of the 33,800 points available.

03:59:56.400 At every step of the process, we have assured a total transparency to the candidates and to their team.

04:00:04.400 The prosecutors have been present during the manipulation of voting documents,

04:00:09.400 and everything is done under the attentive regard and with the useful advice of Deloitte.

04:00:15.400 Speaking of watchful eyes, many members also turned into our live 24-hour webcams

04:00:21.400 cams that monitored the ballots and processing centers from the moment it opened until this

04:00:26.040 morning. This was all done to ensure a process that was accurate, transparent, efficient and

04:00:31.480 fair for our leadership candidates and for the members of our party. We'd like to recognize

04:00:37.400 the members of Leadership Election Organizing Committee and thank them for their service.

04:00:42.360 Valérie Asoulin from Quebec, Scheer Barsley from Ontario, Jay Batty from Ontario, Lois Brown,

04:00:49.560 former MP from Ontario, David Connolly from the North, Tanya Corbett from British Columbia,

04:00:55.560 Stephen Dolansky from Alberta, the Honourable Diane Finlay who Lisa will be talking about

04:01:00.520 further from Ontario, Macaulieu Fortin from Quebec, the Honourable Linda Frum from Ontario, Marie-Josée

04:01:07.080 Garrett from Quebec, Scott Lamb the President from British Columbia, Sam Magnus from Saskatchewan,

04:01:13.800 Judy Manning from Newfoundland, the Honourable Don Plett from Manitoba, and Kevin Price from

04:01:18.920 beautiful New Brunswick. Lisa. Dan I don't think the people at home know that you did not have the

04:01:24.760 provinces next to the names that you just listed out so I'm very impressed with the fact that you

04:01:29.240 know where everybody is from and I know that everybody likes to know representation across

04:01:33.960 the country. Now before we walk you through how this night is going to unfold in terms of the

04:01:38.840 election results I want to take a minute to pay tribute to a dear friend and a colleague of mine

04:01:45.240 who has just announced she will not be running as a Conservative candidate in the next election.

04:01:51.400 The Honourable Diane Finley from Haldeman Norfolk, who, as you just heard, is also on the Leadership

04:01:57.160 Election Committee, has been our rock in the Conservative caucus since 2004. She's been a

04:02:05.080 loyal friend to many, a strong mentor to caucus and staff alike, and she's always equipped with

04:02:11.160 the dry, witty joke to brighten the mood. When Stephen Harper formed government in 2006,

04:02:17.920 he entrusted Diane to run several senior portfolios where she developed the universal childcare

04:02:23.560 benefit, retired and replaced the aging Sea King helicopters, and secured citizenship

04:02:30.140 for thousands of lost Canadians who came here after World War II. I can tell you from experience

04:02:37.280 that Diane was always well-briefed and prepared at the Cabinet table, and her staff and officials

04:02:43.100 and some of my Cabinet colleagues can tell you that briefing notes and memos always came

04:02:48.120 back filled with commentary, further questions, and the occasional grammatical edit. 0.89

04:02:54.860 Diane was also the first person to send a care package to every new female MP that was 0.75

04:03:01.580 elected to our caucus, containing little practical items to help make the job easier.

04:03:08.380 Now, I'd be remiss if I didn't thank Diane for sharing her late husband as well, Senator Doug

04:03:13.980 Finley, with our party for so many years. Diane was Doug's rock, and he tirelessly planned and

04:03:21.500 implemented victorious conservative campaigns in 2006, 2008, and 2011. Diane applied some of

04:03:30.780 the lessons that she learned from Doug over the last five years as she conducted election reviews

04:03:36.060 across the country, served as our party caucus liaison, and was a vital member of the last two

04:03:42.700 leadership election organization committees. Diane, thank you for your service to our country,

04:03:50.380 to our party, and to Haldim and Norfolk. We're really going to miss you in Parliament.

04:03:55.100 Yes, thank you, Diane, from our part as well. Okay, so we've lined up an impressive

04:04:00.700 group of high-profile Canadiens conservatives from across the country to help us make tonight's

04:04:05.420 announcements. They'll be coming to us from their home provinces and will read out the

04:04:09.100 unofficial ballot results by province for each candidate in ballot order.

04:04:30.700 but no, the candidates have received the vote vote.

04:04:33.200 Now obviously, Dan, they're not going to be giving us the results right away

04:04:37.200 because we're still going to be waiting for the last of the processing to happen for us in the votes.

04:04:42.200 But when they are ready to give us the votes, they're going to be getting a call from the auditors at Deloitte

04:04:49.200 and those results will then be read out to the rest of us.

04:04:53.200 Yes, it's true. They will receive a Deloitte call, which is in the meeting room, where the results are displayed.

04:05:12.200 The candidates and you all will hear the results for the first time. Thank you.

04:05:19.200 Lisa?

04:05:20.200 Yes.

04:05:23.200 As I said, these folks are going to receive a phone call from our Deloitte auditors in

04:05:28.500 the results room where the ballot results will be pulled later.

04:05:32.240 The candidates and you will be hearing these results for the first time right here together.

04:05:40.660 We'll be checking in with the candidates when Dan and I announce the official national

04:05:43.980 results at the end of the provincial results.

04:05:46.800 If we go to multiple ballots, we may do this three times.

04:05:51.600 And we will announce the total points for each candidate only, official writing by writing

04:05:56.240 votes.

04:05:57.240 Votes and percentage will be posted immediately on the party website once they are announced

04:06:01.640 to comply with our constitutional requirements.

04:06:04.240 We will only announce the points obtained by each candidate, but the points, votes and

04:06:10.120 the percentage for each circumcision will be published on the website of the party

04:06:15.520 dès leur annonce.

04:06:45.520 Let's take a look and see who we have gathered from across the country.

04:06:49.520 And Dan, let's start with BC.

04:06:52.520 James Moore is a senior business advisor at the multinational law firm Dentons

04:06:57.520 and a public policy advisor at the global firm Edelman.

04:07:00.520 He served as Member of Parliament for Port Moody, Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam for 15 years

04:07:05.520 and served as a member of Stephen Harper's Cabinet.

04:07:09.520 James 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.

04:07:19.520 He 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.

04:07:27.520 Joining James today is Cathy McLeod. Cathy McLeod has served as the member of Parliament for the riding of Kamloops Thompson Caribou since 2008.

04:07:36.520 She is the current Shadow Minister for Natural Resources, Forestry and Mining.

04:07:40.520 Cathy McLeod is Deputy of Kamloops Thompson Caribou at the Chambre des Communes since 2008.

04:07:46.520 She currently occupies the Minister of the Phantom Cabinet for Natural Resources.

04:07:52.520 So let's check in with you there. James and Cathy, how are you?

04:07:56.520 So Lisa, Dan, it's certainly a delight to join you here tonight.

04:08:00.520 And of course, we're in beautiful BC where we still are also enjoying some sunshine.

04:08:05.520 advantage to have pacific standard time today and typically in an election night for british

04:08:11.840 colombians we turn on the tv when our ballots have closed and the results are already over

04:08:18.080 i am so pleased tonight that british columbia is going to get to go first and so it won't be

04:08:22.720 a fait accompli by the time we're announcing the results so again very pleased to join you tonight

04:08:28.240 and looking forward to a great evening it's great to be with you kathy as well and dan

04:08:34.240 And Lisa, thank you for your leadership on this, like everybody else, looking forward to the results.

04:08:38.420 We are ready for the results of the first vote for our leadership course of the Conservative Party,

04:08:45.120 because we are sure that the next leader will certainly be the Prime Minister of Canada.

04:08:49.420 So we are going, we are waiting for the results, and I am very happy with our meeting today and tonight.

04:08:57.000 Thank you very much, Dan. Thank you very much, James. Sorry, I was going to talk to Dan X.

04:09:00.800 Now, it's good to mention to everybody that out there in British Columbia, we hold 17 out of 42 of those seats.

04:09:07.640 In fact, we're the largest federal party in British Columbia.

04:09:10.720 And we're about to go to Newfoundland, which is nine hours in the air away in four and a half time zones.

04:09:16.380 And interestingly, flat Australia is only 15 hours, so it's a remarkably big country.

04:09:21.580 Over in Newfoundland, we have Judy Manning.

04:09:24.340 Judy Manning practices law in historic downtown St. John's, a founding partner of the Manning-Bradbury firm.

04:09:29.940 She is a former Minister of Justice and Public Safety and the Attorney General for the province

04:09:34.240 of Newfoundland and Labrador.

04:09:36.480 Judy Manning is the founder of Manning-Bradbury and practices the rights of the historical

04:09:41.540 city of St. John's.

04:09:42.740 She has been the Minister of Justice and the Public Security and the General of the province

04:09:47.860 of Tarn-Neuve and Labrador.

04:09:50.140 Sharon Voelke has served as the Executive Director of the Newfoundland and Labrador PC

04:09:54.820 Party.

04:09:55.820 currently President of the Bonavista-Burin-Trinity Federal Riding, where she is also the current

04:10:00.920 Conservative candidate of record.

04:10:02.920 Sharon Vokey has been the General Director of the Conservative Party of Terre-Neuve-Labrador.

04:10:07.420 She is the President of the Bonavista-Burin-Trinity Circonscription and is also the President of the Conservative Party of the Conservative Party.

04:10:17.920 Welcome, Conservative friends, from Canada's youngest province, Newfoundland and Labrador,

04:10:22.920 specifically St. John's, the far east of the western world. Judy Manning here and I am delighted

04:10:29.080 to join you as we usher in our new conservative leader to right this ship that is our great nation.

04:10:36.920 It's been a privilege to serve on the leadership election organizing committee. Now I'm very eager

04:10:43.000 to shed this neutrality and get back into campaign mode with our new leader at the helm.

04:10:48.600 I am joined tonight by another ardent campaigner, my friend Sharon Vokey, from the village of Trinity on Newfoundland's northeast coast.

04:10:59.240 During our last federal campaign, Sharon hopped aboard her RV, combing every corner of the riding of Bonavista-Burin-Trinity,

04:11:08.600 in excess of 16,800 square kilometers, rallying enough votes to double our share of the vote.

04:11:17.680 How's that RV fueled up and ready to go, Sharon?

04:11:22.980 Thank you, Judy.

04:11:24.500 And yes, I'm just waiting for the call.

04:11:27.500 And I'm so pleased to have this opportunity to work with you again.

04:11:31.760 And like you, I am absolutely thrilled to be a part of the 2020 Conservative Leadership Race.

04:11:40.980 You know, from coast to coast to coast, all across our beautiful country, our conservative

04:11:49.440 family are all excited and united.

04:11:53.320 There's a lot of work to be done, but we know, given the caliber of our four outstanding

04:11:58.340 candidates, that the country is going to be in good hands.

04:12:02.920 And I'm just very pleased to be a part of all of this this evening.

04:12:08.100 Thank you very much.

04:12:09.100 Appreciate that.

04:12:10.100 Sharon thanks Judy so just as a reminder to folks when we're getting into the results as we are

04:12:15.780 putting up the provincial results we're not going to actually be providing the tally that's for you

04:12:20.020 and I to disclose at the very end of hearing what's happening across in the provinces yep so

04:12:25.540 everybody's going to get their pens and paper and calculators out just to keep track of what's going

04:12:29.140 on but we will have the results hopefully soon that's right we're going to move now to Alberta

04:12:35.380 much like Newfoundland does go to Alberta an awful lot that's exactly what we're going to follow in

04:12:39.300 this one we're so delighted to have minister sonja savage sonja savage was elected as the mla for

04:12:45.860 calgary northwest in 2019 for the united conservative party she has lived in alberta

04:12:51.460 all her life and been involved in the conservative movement for over 30 years and as i

04:13:01.060 to those who have been watching from the get-go and earlier on in the show

04:13:04.180 to true north live this is the conservative leadership results show i'm andrew lawton

04:13:08.660 joined by my friend and colleague candace malcolm as we uh count down to the conservative party of

04:13:14.900 canada leadership results that were supposed to be in about uh three hours ago but are still uh

04:13:20.020 promised to us soon as we just heard from lisa rate and dan nolan the co-chairs of leoc which

04:13:27.140 is the leadership election organizing committee for the party which has been responsible for the

04:13:31.780 rules and procedure of this race uh right now what's happening is they're introducing some of

04:13:36.660 the the dignitaries that are going to be involved in reading the provincial results from coast to

04:13:41.460 coast to coast and and just because it gets a bit repetitive and we're going to be hearing from these

04:13:45.140 people later uh we're going to go away from that and and cut back in when they have results or

04:13:50.340 something else but if you see in your screen uh you'll still see what's happening there and we're

04:13:54.660 monitoring it our team is on it so if something starts happening we'll switch back to that

04:13:58.580 immediately so do uh stay tuned but i want to talk i don't know about you candace but i want

04:14:02.740 to talk about that speech from andrew sheer a lot of good stuff in there that i think we need to pay

04:14:08.260 attention to but one in particular that we'd be remiss to not pay attention and this race is

04:14:12.740 which was a line that i'm going to read directly verbatim challenge the mainstream don't take their

04:14:20.420 narrative as fact check out smart independent objective organizations that are growing all the

04:14:25.380 time like the post-millennial or true north these there are other places to get information quite

04:14:31.620 an endorsement and something that obviously we're grateful for in the national spotlight honestly

04:14:37.620 i that was surprising to me and i was very pleased to hear andrew you know i was watching the speech

04:14:42.420 and i was thinking yeah this is pretty good thinking of coming back and being a little

04:14:46.980 bit critical though and hitting him back on uh you know things that he was saying now that he

04:14:51.220 wasn't saying in the campaign or anything well then you know as soon as he said something nice

04:14:54.740 about true north i just uh that's what it takes to buy your support in this particular case

04:15:01.540 exactly i'm kidding of course because of course all of the uh mean girls as ezra likes to call

04:15:06.980 them in the mainstream media were very quick to tweet out uh you know their their dismay at the

04:15:12.180 idea that the conservative uh outgoing leader would give props to organizations like true north

04:15:18.260 and post-millennial we are i guess the sworn enemy of the mainstream media at this point so you can

04:15:22.900 see them all sort of you know tweeting angrily coming across as being a little bit jealous but

04:15:29.380 no of course we'll still be critical of politicians even if they say nice things to us. I think that

04:15:35.060 Andrew Scheer did a good job though all in all. You know whenever I hear him give these speeches

04:15:40.340 he sounds very ideological and very very conservative and I wish we had seen more of

04:15:44.420 that on the campaign trail. Andrew what was your takeaway aside from you know his nice remarks about

04:15:49.940 true north what did you think about that well to be honest the one thing that really jumped out

04:15:53.700 before the the true north shout out was the comment he made about people always choosing

04:15:57.860 freedom and he had said in very vivid imagery that no one was shot climbing the berlin wall into

04:16:03.300 east germany that no one dies paddling a raft made of javex bottles towards cuba that people

04:16:09.620 are fleeing these regimes so why should any country any society any civilization want to emulate the

04:16:15.860 the failed policies of the unfree world. And I thought that was quite a beautiful analogy and 0.99

04:16:22.880 something that, again, really cuts at what we needed to see from Andrew Scheer up until this

04:16:27.400 point, which is really driving why conservatism doesn't need to be diluted to be sold, why

04:16:32.820 conservatism is the answer to the problems that face societies and the problems that face

04:16:37.960 governments. And that was so important. And it's an ideological position. It's somewhat

04:16:42.500 philosophical. But that idea of standing up for freedom was not something we heard from him during

04:16:47.900 the election. And it was really, I'd say, refreshing, albeit, yes, you could say a bit

04:16:52.240 belated to hear him talk about why unequivocal conservatism is what the Conservative Party and

04:16:58.680 what the Conservative movement needs to be striving towards. Oh, I absolutely agree. And we talked

04:17:03.180 about a little bit earlier with our panel with Aaron and Sam about how the Conservatives need

04:17:07.820 to just put forth something fresh, something new,

04:17:11.120 a positive image of what conservatism can be.

04:17:15.720 I think Aaron Gunn mentioned something about how,

04:17:19.060 we need a bold vision for a conservative leader,

04:17:21.180 something like John A. MacDonald and National Plan,

04:17:23.980 something that can unite all Canadians.

04:17:25.820 And again, it is a little unfortunate

04:17:28.060 because when you look back to the 2019 campaign,

04:17:31.560 I don't even really know

04:17:32.880 what Andrew Scheer's platform was based on.

04:17:35.380 It was sort of a, hey, look,

04:17:36.940 not the liberals they're corrupt uh look at the snc lavallon scandal and you know more or less the

04:17:42.300 same kind of stuff that we had in canada under the harper conservatives where i think that a lot of

04:17:47.340 conservatives would have wanted something new something fresh and you know again andrew sure

04:17:52.540 did bring up some some great points um you know where he said it's not compassionate to be a

04:17:57.820 leftist the left thinks it's compassionate to always have bigger government i mean government

04:18:02.060 doesn't necessarily help people i i completely agree that that the more compassionate worldview

04:18:06.700 is conservatism because it seeks to unlock the uh the powers of of individuals and their freedom to

04:18:13.180 to do things and have more opportunities you know and even if it is helping out our fellow

04:18:18.860 man it's through private charity and churches as opposed to these big bureaucracies and government

04:18:23.580 programs i don't think there's anything you know uh great about what uh big government does because

04:18:30.220 it's not very generous and as we see in real life oftentimes it turns into things like the

04:18:34.380 we scandal where even though it's supposed to be a charity and it's supposed to be about getting

04:18:38.860 young people to volunteer it's really more about uh organizations driving their own self-interest

04:18:44.380 so i wish that uh andrew sheer had been more of that sort of genuine conservative point uh creating

04:18:51.660 a big picture idea i i also want to say one other thing andrew which is that i think i think it's

04:18:57.580 unfortunate that the Conservatives really did a really good job in the last election. They won

04:19:02.060 the popular vote, Andrew Scheer gained seats in every region of the country, you know he had a

04:19:07.020 very good showing and I think it's sort of bad precedent for the party that if you lose one

04:19:12.220 election you're gone and it would have been great for continuity, you know Canadians are now more

04:19:17.020 familiar with Andrew Scheer, we could have gotten to know him more, we could have encouraged him to

04:19:20.940 come out of his shell more, talk more about his Conservative beliefs, his philosophy, maybe he'd

04:19:25.580 be more comfortable maybe doing it a second time he would have done a lot better and he was to say

04:19:29.980 if we really are going into a fall election as some people are speculating again we'll have a

04:19:34.780 new candidate that doesn't have the same kind of name recognition to canadian so i'll just put that

04:19:39.900 out there there's nothing you can do about it now but it is a bit of an unfortunate precedent

04:19:43.740 uh that if you lose one election you know you're kicked to the curb and the next guy comes in well

04:19:48.540 you know what if that happens again then at some point you're just constantly rebuilding internally

04:19:54.380 and you're not really gaining grounds in the country yeah and when i sat down with andrew

04:19:59.580 sheer for an exit interview of sorts a couple of weeks ago there was a very candid moment where he

04:20:04.940 had said and i don't know if conceded is the right word but he had said that you know he really felt

04:20:09.500 in retrospect that his personality didn't shine through in the last election and and i think that

04:20:15.340 in this particular speech he was being authentic and one of the explanations he gave for that in

04:20:20.700 in our interview was that, you know, at a certain point, you have nothing to lose. And he thinks

04:20:24.000 perhaps there's a bit of a lesson in that, that you should be a lot more authentic when you're

04:20:28.440 running. And it's interesting to your point, Candice, about would he have reached that

04:20:32.400 conclusion had he not stepped down? And that's the whole thing. Is he only this version of himself

04:20:37.300 because he has nothing to lose? Or would he have kind of come to terms with the fact that the best

04:20:41.780 path forward was to be himself if he had stuck around as leader and was gearing up for an

04:20:46.200 election. And we'll never know. It's academic in many respects. But I will say on the note of his

04:20:51.780 shout out to us and beyond just the fact that we were mentioned and we like it, I think his point

04:20:58.620 about the mainstream media is proven by the mainstream media's response to that. So David

04:21:03.540 Akin has gotten upset with it. Justin Ling has gotten upset with it. Dale Smith, who's in the

04:21:09.160 parliamentary press gallery, has gotten upset with it. All of these mainstream media reporters

04:21:12.320 are tweeting out very snarky things about that, which proves the point that they aren't there for

04:21:17.620 conservatives. And let me just say, I found out from Paul Vieira, who I believe is with the Wall

04:21:22.320 Street Journal, that CBC is cutting away from its coverage of the leadership results to go to a

04:21:28.660 hockey game. And I realize hockey is important to Canadians, but I would say that for the most part,

04:21:34.160 conservative Canadians don't feel that the mainstream media is really interested in covering

04:21:39.060 their stories, which is why alternative media is important. And I think it's why Andrew Scheer

04:21:43.700 realizes that conservative media or alternative media is the only path to conservatives really

04:21:50.340 getting a fair shake in the future. And I have been very critical of Andrew Scheer, as have you.

04:21:55.300 So this is not about being sycophants. He knows that we've been critical of him. It's that we've

04:21:59.900 also given him a fair shake, which is something that the mainstream media doesn't do always.

04:22:05.140 Absolutely. And I mean, to the point about going to hockey, I mean, look, there's private TV

04:22:11.540 stations that cover these hockey games. You can go watch hockey on any channel. The whole idea,

04:22:16.740 we have a state broadcaster, is to tell Canadian stories and is to provide Canadians a voice and

04:22:22.900 a mirror of what's happening in society. The fact that they can't even be bothered to show

04:22:27.460 the Conservative leadership race, a person who very well likely will be the next Prime Minister,

04:22:32.820 is exactly what is wrong with that institution and as far as all those snarky journalists i'll

04:22:38.580 just point out that they're all in the parliamentary press gallery all of those people

04:22:42.500 that you just named and here they are not only you know being snarky about the fact that andrew

04:22:48.500 andrew sheer mentioned us uh but calling us names uh belittling us mocking us i mean that's not

04:22:54.980 really what you expect so-called objective reporters to be doing you know they're they're

04:23:00.260 there to report the facts find tweet out that he that andrew sure said you know go watch true north

04:23:05.700 uh but but you don't have to be snarky and bitter about it and again i think that that's just

04:23:10.980 they they see the writing on the wall they know that they are not seen as legitimate by so many

04:23:16.580 canadians particularly by conservative leading canadians who who struggle to understand how

04:23:21.860 these journalists have the uh authority when they're actually paid for essentially by the

04:23:28.580 Trudeau Liberals by the government in their various bailouts and various payments and forms.

04:23:34.180 So I think that this is not a good night for those mainstream media journalists, especially

04:23:39.460 the ones who work for CBC that can't even be bothered to play the leadership election results.

04:23:45.220 It's a pretty telling sign and pretty embarrassing for those networks.

04:23:50.420 Yeah, it really is. And I mean, this is a point that I've raised and it's a point that came up

04:23:54.660 in the independent press gallery fireside chats that the next conservative leader

04:23:59.940 is someone who needs to embrace independent media and i've been by and large very happy

04:24:05.780 that three of the four candidates have my hope is that the fourth will uh if he's successful in it

04:24:10.900 but but my goodness i mean i look at this and and say that there is a story and i look at our

04:24:16.100 coverage right now i mean we've been getting more views by my count than a lot of other mainstream

04:24:20.900 media, and it's not just about view count, obviously, but I do think there has to be a

04:24:24.840 recognition that conservatives have, in a lot of cases, tried to filter their experience through

04:24:31.220 the mainstream media lens. I mean, how many times have we seen stories where a conservative insider

04:24:35.740 has leaked some story to the Toronto Star, to CBC? I'm saying, if you want to leak a story,

04:24:40.820 why are you not leaking to the media that are not going to embrace it because of the salaciousness,

04:24:45.060 but rather because they want to advance a certain policy or advance a discussion

04:24:49.100 about a policy. And I think that's the problem with some of the more establishment people in

04:24:54.760 the Conservative Party is that, you know, the people who run some of these campaigns are

04:24:58.580 populated by lobbyists who live in downtown Toronto. And they just happen to have friends

04:25:03.140 who work at the Toronto Star and the CBC because they run in the same social circles. And so they

04:25:08.020 pass the stories on to their friends over at those networks. I've been very critical of this practice.

04:25:13.560 actually spoken to a couple of mps and conservative leadership hopefuls about this and you know they

04:25:19.400 all kind of agree that it's a problem that that conservative voters don't go to the toronto star

04:25:24.440 or the cbc for their news so there's no real point in giving news stories to them to those outlets

04:25:30.280 when they're going to kind of torque whatever it is and put a spin an anti-conservative spin

04:25:34.280 much better off coming to journalists that at least have the same philosophical basing um and

04:25:40.200 and beliefs and they're not gonna twerk your words

04:25:44.420 and try to paint you as being something that you're not.

04:25:47.460 So I think that organizations like True North

04:25:50.440 are gaining a lot of ground.

04:25:51.880 And I guess we'll stop tweeting our own horn here,

04:25:57.220 but it was nice to hear a shout out from Andrew Scheer.

04:26:01.840 So Andrew, what do we expect here?

04:26:04.600 So we're still going through and hearing

04:26:06.820 from all of the various people across the country

04:26:09.800 who are going to be announcing the results.

04:26:12.940 I believe Lisa Raitt said

04:26:14.160 that they are not going to give us the tallies as they go.

04:26:17.560 We're gonna have to wait to the end.

04:26:18.980 Do we have any kind of a timeline

04:26:20.320 for when we're expecting to hear the news

04:26:23.540 of who won at this point?

04:26:25.240 I think one thing this evening has told us

04:26:27.220 is that we can't expect a timeline for anything.

04:26:29.540 All I'm grateful for is that we don't have a country

04:26:31.920 with 50 states.

04:26:32.820 So the time it takes to go through 10 provinces

04:26:35.720 is easier than the time it would take

04:26:37.420 to go through it in an American system.

04:26:39.660 Right now, I believe that's Randy Hoback, I see, which means they're on Saskatchewan,

04:26:43.680 although that doesn't help me because I don't know where they are in the overall order.

04:26:47.360 And that's Kelly Block right now, who is there.

04:26:50.580 I don't know if she's a sitting MP, certainly a former MP.

04:26:54.860 She may be still there.

04:26:56.300 My encyclopedic knowledge of who's in the caucus has not been updated in a few years.

04:27:02.540 So you'll have to forgive me there.

04:27:03.980 But the one thing I will say is that it seems like the party is on track to announce a leader

04:27:09.840 tonight. So it's not, I think the nightmare scenario, which is where they would have to

04:27:13.900 just completely hold things off and delay. Right now, I'm trying to kind of keep tabs on a number

04:27:19.420 of sources and it sounds like the party is hoping to have results in at 10. The process, as Lisa

04:27:25.020 Raid has said, is that they're going to announce each province's overall score in order and then

04:27:29.920 go back to Lisa and Dan, who are the co-chairs of LEOC for a national result. And I know we have

04:27:38.140 a couple of guests lined up. We'll work on getting some of them into the mix here. But in the meantime,

04:27:42.980 I want to throw to one particular clip that had jumped out at us when we were going through our

04:27:49.720 archives and talking about the issues and themes that have really emerged here. And I just want to

04:27:56.940 preface this by saying, I know we're playing a lot of the independent press gallery clips and

04:28:01.900 other things like that. This one's from the official party debate where they talked a bit

04:28:07.340 about immigration and Derek Sloan had brought up his plan to lower immigration levels, which is

04:28:13.340 unique because he's the only leadership candidate that has done that, that made that pledge. And we

04:28:18.580 have a clip of Derek Sloan addressing why he wants to lower immigration levels. And I want to play

04:28:23.960 this and talk about it after because it sets him apart from his party. And I want to discuss whether

04:28:28.940 that is because, as Candace mentioned earlier, there's a bit of a fear there or if it's just

04:28:33.820 because the party thinks immigration is a bit of a different animal than how Derek Sloan is

04:28:39.040 describing it. But let's let's roll that. Follow up. On immigration, you've pushed for an overall

04:28:45.260 reduction. The Stephen Harper government had a manageable and steady increase in immigration

04:28:50.780 numbers and i don't think you've said or i certainly haven't heard you say that that was

04:28:54.860 something that overtaxed canada so i guess the question would be if you can do smart immigration

04:28:59.980 prioritize economic immigration uh vet people as you've talked about why does the number have to

04:29:05.580 go down if you're vetting as you mentioned a few moments ago individual immigrants well i so

04:29:13.580 i don't believe there's any reason to be very rigid on numbers i mean we can we can i believe

04:29:18.940 right now that lowering the level to what i said would be best for the country but obviously you

04:29:22.220 monitor it and you change things if things need to be changed but i do believe that that the

04:29:27.740 immigration levels that we have and the numbers of people that are settling for example in toronto

04:29:31.980 year after year are just many more than the the new housing units that we have and i looked at

04:29:37.260 these stats earlier today and we had roughly last year about 150 000 people settling in the uh the

04:29:44.460 census area for for the GTA and we had 27,000 new housing units come online so

04:29:50.340 obviously more than one person can fit into a house but you can see that the

04:29:54.960 the supply or the demand rather is greater than than the supply and that's

04:29:59.520 that's part of the issue but I just believe our rise in housing prices over

04:30:04.800 the last decade or so is has been a natural and it's it's not allowing our

04:30:09.000 families that live in the GTA in other areas to afford to buy houses and I

04:30:12.880 think that's a problem

04:30:14.460 and andrew i mentioned this a little earlier when we were doing our panel but one of the things i

04:30:20.540 thought was so refreshing about derek so even though he's a sitting mp and two of the other

04:30:24.700 leadership candidates are not he comes across not as a polished politician i say that in a very

04:30:31.340 good way uh he's very authentic he sort of just says what he believes and doesn't worry too much

04:30:36.860 about you know whether or not that's politically correct or whether or not that's been poll tested

04:30:40.940 one of the things that that really irks me is how polished so many of these politicians are it's like

04:30:46.140 when they answer a question it's not necessarily what they believe it's not based on their

04:30:49.580 convictions it's not based on their worldview instead it's just based on you know whatever

04:30:54.380 the latest poll is told them or whatever a campaign aid is whispering into their ear and

04:31:00.380 it just doesn't feel authentic whereas derek sloan was not that way at all and and and i really

04:31:05.100 appreciate him you know with with any other criticisms i might have about him just his

04:31:09.580 frankness and his openness in discussing the issues. And immigration was certainly an example

04:31:14.880 of that. I think he was really the only one who mentioned something different about immigration,

04:31:19.480 who said he would do something different, even at a time like this, where it's so obvious that a lot

04:31:23.980 of the economic justifications surrounding immigration, you know, the idea that we needed

04:31:28.660 to boost our economy at a time when unemployment rate is at a record high as it is, it doesn't

04:31:33.420 really make sense to be importing people from other parts of the world. So anyway, it was just

04:31:38.560 a bit refreshing to hear that. And I was grateful to have Derek Sloan as one of the candidates in

04:31:43.860 this race, because he was one of the ones that was really pushing for a more honest and robust

04:31:48.380 debate on the issues. Yeah, for sure. And just to give you a heads up, everyone, on where we are

04:31:54.120 right now, we are still watching the Conservative leadership stream right now. They're still going

04:31:58.480 through the dignitaries and notable figures from the various provinces. So the second we have

04:32:03.720 results or something else in the program, we will go back to it. But in the meantime,

04:32:06.920 we're continuing our analysis commentary breaking everything down and we have another guest joining

04:32:12.640 us candace why don't you uh introduce our next player in this great discussion yeah sure so as

04:32:17.420 everyone watching knows we've just sort of thrown this show together we're now in our third hour of

04:32:21.500 trim earth live and we're only expecting to do about 25 minutes sorry this is our fourth hour

04:32:26.980 we started at 5 30 oh yeah you're right i can't even keep back the time now but uh yeah we were

04:32:33.300 initially expecting to do a little bit of a show and now we've got a solid four hours of content

04:32:38.820 and so we brought on another one of our friends, Vitor Marciano, who is out in Alberta. He's a

04:32:44.500 longtime conservative activist and worked on many, many campaigns in many different

04:32:50.100 roles. So, Vitor, thank you so much for joining us here tonight.

04:32:54.580 It's my pleasure to be part of, I guess, the chaos that this evening has become.

04:32:59.540 Right. Well, and we sort of found ourselves sort of the center of the chaos, not just because we're

04:33:05.140 putting together this live broadcast, but because Andrew Scheer gave us a little bit of a shout out

04:33:09.620 during his speech and that made all the mainstream media journalists on Twitter very angry. So that's

04:33:14.980 been fun too. There were heads exploding all over Canada. They now have another reason to hate Andrew

04:33:23.780 Right and to hate True North if they didn't already. Well Vitor you've worked on a lot of

04:33:29.540 campaigns and you've really been an insider and so I'm hoping you can give us some perspective

04:33:34.420 on a campaign strategy. I know you know this has been a very different kind of campaign just because

04:33:40.740 of COVID and the inability to travel and do live events so you know coming from that perspective

04:33:45.460 of running a campaign you know what kind of insights can you give us about how this this

04:33:50.980 campaign is my apologies i have a very yappy little dog that's having an issue we'll solve

04:33:57.300 that they're upset the results aren't in yet too yeah totally totally he's uh he's whining a little

04:34:01.780 bit about it too i have no idea what he's barking at i'll close the doors all right uh in the

04:34:08.340 meantime we'll uh we'll just let you all know uh again that we are continuing uh we're joined by

04:34:12.740 vitor marciano oh there we go he's back already all right i know it just took a second um these

04:34:18.500 campaigns are really interesting because it ends up being 300 and some campaigns um you essentially

04:34:24.740 have to organize provincially but then organize almost riding by riding and frankly because of

04:34:33.220 the way the system is built the weaker writings become really really important um in in a writing

04:34:41.780 that's only got 60 or 70 members you know impressing 20 people really matters and you can

04:34:49.220 so this becomes an exercise in building really strong teams and working really hard to

04:34:58.900 be good everywhere in the country so you know as an albertan sometimes i get frustrated with

04:35:04.740 the fact that it's not one member one vote but for everybody who always made the argument that

04:35:09.860 all writings being equal puts a premium on the winner having a good strong national organization

04:35:17.640 well it's true um you everybody ends up chasing you know northern quebec writings with 23 members

04:35:25.160 and uh writings in the north and it becomes important and you end up doing different types

04:35:30.020 of campaigns so in you know rural ontario or rural alberta where you have thousands of members

04:35:36.180 per riding it becomes a finding a way to do a mass conversation with the actual members but in

04:35:44.100 yukon and nunavut and nunavik and you know uh mount royal in in montreal it becomes an exercise

04:35:54.980 in finding those 65 people who are the the the members and really connecting with them at a

04:36:01.000 personal lever so that you can maximize your points out of that writing. We spoke earlier in

04:36:06.940 the show to Lisa Raid, and one of the points that she had made in this campaign is that because

04:36:11.500 everything was moved for most of the campaign online, a lot of Zoom events, virtual campaigning,

04:36:18.160 phone banking, not coffee houses, not travel, it almost served as a bit of an equalizer,

04:36:23.260 whereas candidates that are lesser known that don't have the fundraising capacity as Aaron O'Toole

04:36:27.340 and Peter McKay do, and in Leslie Lewis and Derek Sloan, they were almost able to run the same type

04:36:33.400 of campaign, which was from a, you know, a hunkered down location. And I'm curious for you as a campaign

04:36:38.760 guy, how would you feel if you had a lesser known candidate or a candidate that didn't have as much

04:36:44.760 of a leg up on fundraising, and the pandemic hand was the one you were dealt? Well, I have to tell

04:36:50.440 you that you know if if the candidate's attractive if the candidate has an ability to connect with

04:36:57.780 the members it's an incredible opportunity and i think what that's what you've seen with leslin

04:37:02.280 lewis she's got an interesting message she is a non-traditional delivery device for that message

04:37:11.320 so she gets everybody's attention it's like you know a black immigrant woman from toronto okay

04:37:17.000 I 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.

04:37:40.060 I 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.

04:38:00.260 but um i you know this is one of the really neat things about uh about politics in canada and then

04:38:08.120 this time one of the really neat things about running a campaign in the middle of a pandemic

04:38:12.500 that equalized a whole bunch of things it's a really great point and i'm glad you raised it i

04:38:19.480 was going to ask you who you were sort of most impressed by and who you thought ran the best

04:38:23.840 campaign and you kind of alluded that less than lewis did did such a great job so i'll ask you

04:38:28.540 that question you can answer Vitor but on top of that I also want to ask you

04:38:31.900 you know you're you're as connected as it gets to the grassroots of the party

04:38:35.140 and you know a lot of people in sort of what's the conservative heartland in

04:38:38.560 Alberta but also around the country traveled a lot and campaigned a lot you

04:38:42.880 know if conservative Canadians can't trust the mainstream media and

04:38:46.240 increasingly they can't where are they getting their their news where are they

04:38:49.780 getting their information is it straight from the candidates is it through

04:38:53.620 mediums like like true north or where do you think Canadians are really going

04:38:58.520 when grassroots conservative Canadians are going to get their news?

04:39:02.400 Let me start with the second question first.

04:39:05.220 More and more, they're getting their information from alternative media, the new media, True

04:39:10.500 North, other sources like that.

04:39:13.660 Still not enough.

04:39:17.600 You know, Candace, I think this is really sad, but I'm willing to bet that less than

04:39:23.220 one third of Conservative Party of Canada members know that True North exists.

04:39:27.020 and we need to change that over time, frankly, less than one-third of Conservative Party of

04:39:32.680 Canada members probably could name any member of the alternative or the new media.

04:39:39.120 So oftentimes they're not really getting information, but they've trained themselves

04:39:46.180 to be very, very skeptical of the mainstream sources. So they oftentimes look at what CBC

04:39:52.820 says or post media or global or ctv and they go okay if they say it i better take it with a grain

04:40:01.300 of of salt and so you get a very convoluted situation um but the other thing that's happening

04:40:08.640 is that i think as a whole the membership across the country the the grassroots members as opposed

04:40:18.340 to say the hardcore activist um they probably found this race to be very frustrating um it was

04:40:28.340 it was hard to stay on top of the race unless you were actively working at it every single day

04:40:35.620 because kovid made it a telephone telephone town hall email race as opposed to a

04:40:43.220 both of the frontrunners or all four of the candidates are going to come to my town

04:40:49.100 and I'm going to get to go to a breakfast or a lunch and see them speak.

04:40:52.760 So the fact that we couldn't do these communal things made things very complicated.

04:40:58.220 And the truth is for the average grassroots member,

04:41:02.320 these face-to-face events are really important because they end up being able to sort of figure

04:41:10.380 out who's on which team and who's backing which horse and oftentimes the opinions of activists

04:41:18.940 and key opinion leaders are are like a shorthand that different members of the grassroots say well

04:41:25.180 if so-and-so likes that candidate i can feel good about being with that candidate this was much

04:41:30.700 harder to do and so transitioning over to your first question you actually get something very

04:41:37.340 odd. I think Leslie Lewis was incredibly successful. She massively exceeded expectations

04:41:45.180 in raising money. I don't think her campaign was all that great. I think she could have done with

04:41:53.640 a little bit more prep time and a little bit more writing talent in her group. And you were just

04:42:00.200 having this conversation a moment ago about the authenticity of scripted versus unscripted

04:42:05.140 candidates. It's always important that a candidate be authentic, but it's even better when they're

04:42:13.780 authentic and well-scripted in the context of they've sat down with the people who help them

04:42:19.020 write and get speeches ready for things. They've poured out their heart to a small group of people

04:42:24.120 who do a bunch of the preparatory writing, and then they can appear in places and they can

04:42:30.100 you know, flip to their notes and their notes reflect who they are, but they're also a wonderful

04:42:35.280 aid memoir so that they can put themselves out there at their best. And there were moments where

04:42:41.140 Leslie Lewis came across as not quite ready for prime time. But there were also moments where she

04:42:47.320 came across as honest and authentic, serious, committed conservative, completely what a lot

04:42:55.340 of conservatives weren't expecting. And the party as a whole, the grassroots especially, are

04:43:00.880 incredibly generous. And I think they found her a very interesting candidate. So I think she's

04:43:05.940 going to exceed expectations. I still don't think she's going to win, but I think she's going to be

04:43:10.560 one of the big stories out of this. And I think, you know, three, four years from now, the story

04:43:16.380 will be the person that won and how this was Leslie Lewis's coming out party. Let me ask you

04:43:23.400 about a topic we covered earlier on in the show, Vitor,

04:43:26.260 but I know you're very involved in not just politics in Canada,

04:43:29.840 but specifically the Alberta discussions that are going on.

04:43:32.380 In fact, I ran into you last in Calgary a few weeks ago

04:43:35.420 at the event where Alberta alienation

04:43:38.160 and independence was being discussed.

04:43:39.960 And we've had some discussions on this show

04:43:42.540 and throughout the campaign of the fact

04:43:44.100 that not a single leadership candidate hails from Alberta.

04:43:47.240 You've got some that are still, I think,

04:43:49.360 more aligned with the Alberta sensibility than others are.

04:43:52.600 But 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?

04:44:11.820 I'm really nervous about that.

04:44:15.000 I think. 0.61

04:44:18.000 I think Alberta is on a knife edge.

04:44:22.600 um lots of albertans are feeling like the rest of canada wants to push us out of confederation

04:44:31.400 and it's going to be a tough exercise for mckay or o'tool to capture

04:44:40.120 the interest of those people and demonstrate that they get what's going on um

04:44:45.480 Um, right now, you know, Alberta is the economic driver of Canada and has been for, for quite

04:44:52.660 a while.

04:44:53.600 Um, and you know, our, we, we drive Canada's biggest export industry, which has been energy.

04:45:01.300 Um, we have Canada's biggest taxpaying industry, which is energy.

04:45:06.740 We have Canada's biggest industry in terms of being able to percolate out across the

04:45:12.160 rest of the country, which is energy.

04:45:13.600 So much of what happens in the Alberta energy market comes from other provinces, either with workers or with manufacturing that sustains the Canadian energy.

04:45:22.700 And 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.

04:45:35.860 Well, that's a really big problem.

04:45:38.400 Over and above that, Albertans feel like they're landlocked inside Canada.

04:45:46.300 And 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.

04:46:01.720 Because as a province, we can't do anything about the rest of Canada treating us badly.

04:46:05.240 but as an independent country, we could be really nasty to the rest of Canada and put ourselves in

04:46:11.020 a better negotiating position. That attitude is becoming very, very common in Alberta. I'm not

04:46:19.000 saying that it's the majority attitude right now, but it's a very important attitude. I will say

04:46:25.560 that you can poll Albertans on the question of, is Canada broken? And 80% of conservatives will

04:46:33.220 tell you that Canada is broken in Alberta. But the part that blows my mind is 40 to 50% of new

04:46:40.020 Democrats, Alberta new Democrats will tell you that Canada is broken. So when you get this

04:46:45.680 perception that the country's in trouble, and it percolates at different levels of intensity

04:46:51.620 across the political spectrum, that's a big deal. And, you know,

04:46:56.120 i'm not sure it would make for great politics for peter mckay or erin o'till to talk about

04:47:04.820 that on the national stage but should they script themselves and come up with a message

04:47:11.200 that works for canada and form government that becomes probably the unspoken thing from the

04:47:18.440 campaign that becomes the instant top priority of a new government.

04:47:22.460 Because if we get a conservative national government and it doesn't do anything to

04:47:29.660 waylay this sense of alienation in Alberta, that's going to be a huge problem.

04:47:35.900 So there's, there are, this is not the immediate problem facing whoever wins

04:47:41.940 tonight, but this is probably the biggest potential problem.

04:47:47.040 and the one that will be attached to their name

04:47:50.360 25 years from now when the history of the 2020s is written.

04:47:55.420 You raised so many good points, Vitor,

04:47:57.020 and unfortunately, these are the conversations

04:47:58.920 that haven't really happened in the mainstream media,

04:48:01.500 in the discussion around this conservative leadership race.

04:48:05.320 One of the things I worry about when people say,

04:48:07.640 you know, we've got Peter McKay, he's electable,

04:48:10.020 he's moderate, whatever that means,

04:48:12.240 and maybe he'll pick up some seats in Atlantic Canada,

04:48:15.360 maybe some more in and around Toronto,

04:48:18.120 but at what expense?

04:48:19.580 And will that come as a result of further alienation

04:48:23.880 among Canadians in Western Canada,

04:48:26.460 specifically Albertans, of course Canada is broken. 0.97

04:48:28.660 I mean, how can you say it isn't?

04:48:30.660 We spent the first month of the year

04:48:32.800 without a ability to get rail,

04:48:36.140 anything moved by rail.

04:48:37.680 We don't have any pipelines going,

04:48:39.120 so we're moving oil by rail.

04:48:42.300 And then all of a sudden, the country shuts down.

04:48:45.360 Keep 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.

04:49:02.040 Just looking at our live chat on our YouTube here, you know, you keep seeing Wexit every few posts.

04:49:08.040 So certainly a lot of people are talking about it.

04:49:10.920 And 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.

04:49:22.260 It's right now, the liberals are the only truly national party.

04:49:28.780 And 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.

04:49:45.320 There is actually quite intense uniformity of opinion and worldview inside the liberal party as you cross the country.

04:49:54.260 But 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.

04:50:07.100 And there are very intense, distinct worldviews amongst those parties.

04:50:14.860 And 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.

04:50:29.900 Or 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.

04:50:46.200 In 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.

04:51:13.360 Now, I think that's a very key point. And I guess the one thing I'd ask you, Vitor, is,

04:51:19.900 you know, is it possible to take on that national unity role and to win over the support of

04:51:27.320 disenfranchised Albertans and Westerners without alienating people in other parts of the country?

04:51:33.960 I believe so, but it's going to require incredible courage. I think the way you do it

04:51:41.980 is to head back into the late 1980s early 1990s and reopen the constitution and i think it involves

04:51:51.500 discussions about you know supply management which is going to offend a whole bunch of conservatives

04:51:58.380 but that is a trade-off uh relative to protecting seasonal workers which offends a whole bunch of

04:52:05.900 conservatives but drives political decisions in the maritimes relative to not landlocking alberta

04:52:14.300 and saskatchewan which offends a whole bunch of conservatives in british columbia um there are some

04:52:22.460 difficult complicated issues facing this and i think ultimately to hold the country together

04:52:29.340 We either need to accidentally stumble into a global boom and then everybody

04:52:34.340 is rich and maybe they stop complaining about things, but that's very,

04:52:38.340 very unlikely post COVID or we need to reformulate the country,

04:52:45.340 probably a little bit closer back to the model in the terms of union.

04:52:49.340 Like you almost have to go back to pre-confederation, the, the, you know,

04:52:53.340 the, the meetings in Charlottetown, the terms of union, the,

04:52:56.340 Union, the agreement that got Upper Canada and Lower Canada together, that then got them

04:53:01.900 together with the Maritimes in BC, which was the suggestion that Canada was a business

04:53:08.580 arrangement. We were all going to go into business together and we all agreed that by

04:53:13.900 being together, we'd be stronger than if we were apart and we weren't going to do anything

04:53:18.700 together that damaged each of the parts singularly. Part of the terms of Union was, you know,

04:53:26.120 By uniting, we weren't going to screw over any of the sub parts of Canada and

04:53:30.200 close off their access to their markets.

04:53:33.500 And right now what we have in Canada is that, you know, the federal government

04:53:39.260 won't allow Western Canadian energy to go east.

04:53:43.980 BC won't allow Western Canadian energy to get to, um, tidewater on the Pacific

04:53:50.840 coast, which means we can't sell to Korea or Japan or China or India or

04:53:55.060 Indonesia or Vietnam, all people who want to buy our heavy oil,

04:53:59.540 which is incredibly useful in the world.

04:54:01.000 Heavy oil is what everybody wants. We have it,

04:54:05.440 but we can only sell it to the Americans.

04:54:07.780 They're the only people who are allowed to buy our heavy oil. We,

04:54:10.660 we sell our heavy oil to the Americans and we sell a little bit to Eastern

04:54:16.540 Canada by shipping it through the United States.

04:54:19.540 We are one crazy court decision in Michigan away from

04:54:26.540 Ontario and Quebec having oil shortages because they can't get Alberta oil

04:54:33.540 because a democratic politician or a crazy judge made a weird decision in

04:54:38.540 Michigan and cut off line three or line six or line five.

04:54:43.540 That's nuts.

04:54:44.540 But that's what we're talking about.

04:54:46.540 or line five that's nuts but that's the country we live in that is not so maybe that would serve

04:54:53.240 as a something like a wake-up call vitor to folks in ontario who just don't hear about these issues

04:54:58.060 i don't know about them i know we at true north we produced a documentary a couple of months ago

04:55:02.980 we released called calgary in crisis i flew out to calgary and did a whole bunch of interviews

04:55:07.460 not just with sort of politicians and leaders but just with everyday people who were telling

04:55:13.020 these stories about how they lost their jobs I felt like it was eye-opening for me and look I

04:55:17.620 used to live in Alberta I went to university there I have a lot of friends and a lot of

04:55:21.220 connections to Alberta but I didn't know the extent to which the problem was and I think so

04:55:25.980 many other Canadians don't so maybe it would take a crisis like that Vitor not saying that that's

04:55:31.640 what we want and it really does show the deep problems it's great that you've thought them

04:55:36.840 through and that you have you have ideas but I'll just have to say that I think a lot of Canadians

04:55:41.060 are just not even tuned into these issues at all.

04:55:44.200 And that's definitely a major problem.

04:55:46.740 And it is.

04:55:47.840 And kudos to True North.

04:55:50.840 Kudos to the new media and the alternative media

04:55:53.080 for starting these discussions.

04:55:55.100 Because nobody at CTV, nobody at CBC,

04:55:58.940 nobody at global television is actually talking about that.

04:56:02.860 You know, where Ontario does not realize

04:56:06.080 that it gets its Canadian oil,

04:56:07.640 but that Sarnia is fed through the United States.

04:56:11.060 and these were political decisions made in the 1950s you know we had the pipeline debates in

04:56:18.100 the 1950s where we rushed through a natural gas pipeline uh north of the great lakes so that

04:56:24.980 alberta natural gas could power and and heat the rest of canada and then because that pipe

04:56:32.580 line debate was so painful the liberal government at the time said

04:56:36.660 yeah we're not doing that again we'll just ship stuff through the states well

04:56:41.060 It'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.

04:57:03.960 well absolutely that's been a theme throughout our show tonight uh just wondering about what post uh

04:57:10.440 you know post new leader will look like what the unity question will look like uh vitor we thank

04:57:15.320 you so much for your time and your insight really it's great to talk to someone from alberta just

04:57:19.960 just one final question do you have any uh any predictions for tonight

04:57:23.640 i think it's going to be ridiculously close um i expect peter mckay to get between 43 and 45

04:57:36.260 on the first ballot i think he has a maximum of eight percent growth so 43 45 eight percent growth

04:57:46.740 he wins um if he's at 41 8 growth he doesn't win um i think if peter mckay doesn't win

04:57:56.300 then it's erin o'toole's for sure to win unless something odd happens and that is that

04:58:02.500 you know sloan outperforms and his people all go to leslin lewis and leslin lewis somehow manages

04:58:08.660 to bump o'toole and then at that point that opens the door to possibly peter mckay doing something

04:58:16.420 odd. Because I think that unlike the O'Toole activists, the O'Toole voters, probably an awful

04:58:24.000 lot of them have Peter McKay as their second choice. I mean, realistically, for the non-activist

04:58:28.480 members of the party, there's not too much difference between the two of them. So I think,

04:58:35.900 you know, I think McKay is the odds-on leader to win tonight. But there's three or four models

04:58:42.100 that could see him losing well interesting i have to say vitor we've asked like everyone else tonight

04:58:49.300 about predictions and they all go oh i don't know it's going to be a good night you don't just give

04:58:53.140 a prediction you give percentages which means you are the most precise tonight you might be the most

04:58:57.540 wrong you might be the most right but i appreciate that you took a swing at it in a true political

04:59:01.860 campaigner way so thank you i was neutral in this race so i could actually run the numbers and put

04:59:07.540 out what i want thank you so much for having me on it's been a real pleasure keep up the great work

04:59:12.100 Thanks very much. And I will just say we have a standing by or not standing by, but we're

04:59:18.540 awaiting to dial in a couple of people that we've spoken to earlier in the show, but obviously things

04:59:23.880 have changed a fair bit in the last five hours. We'll be speaking with someone from Leslie Lewis's

04:59:28.600 campaign very shortly and also Aaron O'Toole's campaign. I think we are also going to have

04:59:33.600 someone from Derek Sloan's campaign on as well. So we'll try to get as many of these voices on

04:59:40.580 as we can uh just to give you a little bit of context here the official conservative party

04:59:47.620 is uh not well the the party stream is still standing by and waiting for results apparently

04:59:54.180 there are still a thousand or several thousands left to be counted so this is the the infamous

04:59:59.780 ripped ballot problem that the party is dealing with here and just to give you a little bit of

05:00:05.300 context and background in this, the party is still saying that we're going to have a result

05:00:10.340 tonight. So with all the changes and delays, they're still saying we're going to have a result

05:00:14.900 tonight. I'm looking at some of the latest details. They're now up to 98% of ballots counted

05:00:20.120 and they're still going to go through the same announcing by province. So they're not deviating

05:00:25.460 from that plan to do just one dump. And I should also tell people that the party is going to have

05:00:31.400 a press conference after the leader is announced. They're going to be announced. They're going to

05:00:36.080 give a speech. And then there's an optional press conference. And this is something that the

05:00:40.220 Conservative Party of Canada, a communications person had said to me, is not a guarantee. They

05:00:45.540 don't have to do it. They might not do it. So I don't know if that was just being cautious or if

05:00:50.160 that was because one or more candidates said, we don't want to do a post-event presser. But now

05:00:54.820 that we're already at 10 p.m. Eastern time, the idea that we could even have a leader, let alone

05:00:59.820 an acceptance speech and a resulting press conference seems a little bit unlikely.

05:01:05.400 Candace, I mean, just as this goes on more, do you think that there's anything to read

05:01:11.620 into this about the closeness of it?

05:01:13.420 Or do you think it is just about ensuring that every ballot is counted?

05:01:17.040 Well, I think that they want to be extra careful at this point.

05:01:20.500 They don't want anyone contesting that the results aren't completely accurate.

05:01:24.140 And, you know, it's really going to come down to the wire, especially in terms of the,

05:01:28.620 you know, if we get into second and third ballots there. So I think they're just trying to be as

05:01:35.180 careful as possible. But I can't imagine them wanting to drag it on much, much longer. I mean,

05:01:41.320 it's already 10 p.m. here in Toronto later over on the East Coast. And, you know, again, this is

05:01:48.300 their evening. They're in the spotlight, the Conservative Party, everyone's watching. You've

05:01:53.000 got all the mainstream media people there making comments and paying attention. And I think that

05:01:58.180 the longer that this thing goes on,

05:01:59.720 just the more embarrassing it gets.

05:02:01.600 I mean, come on, we want to find out

05:02:02.740 who's the leader of the party.

05:02:03.980 We want to, tomorrow's Monday morning,

05:02:05.560 we want to get going, you know,

05:02:07.740 be able to start fresh with a new week.

05:02:10.660 And obviously whoever the leader is,

05:02:12.300 it's going to want to hit the ground running.

05:02:13.800 So, you know, I think that they're in a tough position

05:02:16.620 because everyone wants to know

05:02:17.600 people are going to start tuning off soon

05:02:19.880 and going to bed or going to do something else.

05:02:22.140 And I think if they don't come up with something soon,

05:02:25.180 it's not going to be good for the party.

05:02:27.460 what do you think, Andrew? Yeah, I mean, I'm kind of getting flashbacks to the 2016 US election when

05:02:33.060 John Podesta comes out at like 3.30 in the morning and says, you know, we're still, you know, going

05:02:39.060 to wait and see, come back tomorrow and we'll have a position. I mean, in that case, it was a campaign

05:02:43.500 that didn't want to accept that it had lost, even though there was a result. I'm looking at now the

05:02:48.280 fact that it seems like leadership races are just never going to be as smooth and clear cut as

05:02:54.780 they're supposed to be, because this race is not all that distinct from the Ontario leadership

05:03:00.120 race in 2018 or the Conservative Party federal leadership race in 2017. Although I will add

05:03:06.660 that the 2018 Ontario PC leadership race was a lot better because they were planning on announcing

05:03:12.340 a lot earlier in the day. So when they eventually announced later, at least it wasn't, you know,

05:03:16.500 to the point that we're at now. So I'm just looking at a couple of the, you know, the things

05:03:22.900 that are coming across on Twitter. And a lot of people just again, just want to get down and deal

05:03:28.440 with it. I think there are some people that obviously want the result. But I do think to

05:03:32.440 your point, Candace, that everyone understands that there is a reason that they aren't announcing.

05:03:36.820 So I don't think people want them to jump the gun and just end it early. Because again, if you have

05:03:42.060 all of a sudden, a party making a determination that a couple of 1000 ballots aren't needed,

05:03:46.880 you create other problems. So whether it was avoidable or not, I don't know. I do think that

05:03:52.240 there is a timing issue here, in part because the Conservative Party is bound, and I'm going to get

05:03:57.920 a bit geeky here, so I apologize, bound by its constitution to have mail-in votes. So other

05:04:04.000 parties have done things that are a lot more streamlined and a lot easier, but the Conservative

05:04:08.620 Party of Canada has to have a mail-in ballot. So the idea of doing online voting just wasn't

05:04:14.640 available to them. But I do think when we talk about that term earlier, Candice, modernizing

05:04:20.360 the party, perhaps a constitutional amendment that opens up different types of voting might be

05:04:24.920 permissible. Yeah, I mean, it's interesting, just given, you know, the different dynamics of the

05:04:31.620 campaign, the fact that, you know, we had COVID, you couldn't really go and do these kind of live

05:04:36.680 events. And now with voting, you know, trying to just figure out exactly how to make sure that

05:04:42.000 everyone's vote is counted. It's really kind of interesting. And Andrew, I wanted to get your

05:04:48.220 your quick take on you know we just had that interesting conversation with Vitor you know he

05:04:53.580 was much more uh open about the issue of how divided Canada is and we talked about it a little

05:04:59.340 bit throughout the show about how you know there aren't anyone any candidates from Western Canada

05:05:05.020 the issues that are really important to Alberta are so different than the issues that are important

05:05:09.980 uh to the media and and to folks in Toronto and across Ontario uh you know do you think that he

05:05:17.100 he was on to something when he talked about how divided Canada is and how we really need to have

05:05:21.340 a complete restructuring? Or do you think that that's sort of an overstatement?

05:05:25.660 I think it's a bit of both. I do think that we are at a pivotal point where

05:05:30.380 when a lot of the West is saying they want out of Canada, that also means they want out

05:05:35.020 of the Conservative Party of Canada. So if the Conservative Party of Canada is still

05:05:39.820 fixated on this vision that we need to stand up for the whole country, which is a valid one,

05:05:45.020 and that is at odds with what a lot of alberta conservatives want there's going to be a big

05:05:49.420 problem so i think there needs to be a unity challenge not just within the party you know

05:05:54.140 whether you were on the mckay campaign or the o'toole campaign or the sloan campaign or the

05:05:57.580 lewis campaign but the different regions of the party i mean aaron o'toole is one example had

05:06:02.540 a quebec specific platform he didn't have an alberta specific platform so i mean these are

05:06:07.660 some of the challenges absolutely absolutely well i think we've got another guest i'm very pleased

05:06:13.820 to welcome our friend Steve Outhouse. Steve Outhouse has been involved in working on the

05:06:19.100 Leslyn Lewis campaign. So, Steve, welcome and thanks for joining us. Hey, thanks for having me,

05:06:23.900 Candice. So, can we just get your quick take on the sort of chaos of the evening? I mean,

05:06:29.420 it's now 10 p.m. Andrew and I started our live broadcast at 5.30, thinking that we were going

05:06:34.620 to be on for, you know, 15 minutes or so, and we're now in hour four, hour five. Stay hydrated.

05:06:40.940 yeah we're trying so so what's going on from your perspective and uh you know how come this

05:06:46.300 is happening like this yeah well none of us none of our plans have worked out the way that we

05:06:50.700 thought they were going to this evening we uh we were also expecting a bit more of a brief evening

05:06:55.500 and now i'm here and holding a phone up in my hotel room to speak to you uh because i can't

05:07:00.620 even get my my computer to work it's been that type of night here for me so uh yeah we're just

05:07:05.660 you know look we're being as patient as we can be you know we would obviously love to have the

05:07:11.820 results come out as soon as possible but I do think I mean you and I know you know people who

05:07:18.700 have been around this a while it's more important that it get done properly than it be rushed

05:07:23.180 because people need to have confidence in the in the results and know that it was done well so

05:07:28.700 we just we're just waiting we don't have a lot of updates for what's what's going on but

05:07:34.700 we hope to start to hear results we've heard it could be as early well i was gonna say as early

05:07:39.580 as 10 p.m but it's 10 07 so and be a specific time perhaps no andrew i i will ask you steve

05:07:49.740 because we've been hearing for the last several hours rumors about oh this candidate's doing well

05:07:54.060 that candidate's not doing well is there any way that these rumors have a source in the ballot room

05:08:00.460 or are they just that baseless rumors i i would see them as baseless rumors frankly i mean there's

05:08:05.660 no way that anyone so the only time there was an exit of of scrutineers uh would have been around

05:08:11.580 noon or so when i mean the the exercise was literally removing the ballots from the the

05:08:17.660 envelopes and putting them in piles so the machines could count them if someone thinks that they're

05:08:22.140 going to be able to kind of stand at one sorting table and get a picture of what's going on in 338

05:08:27.820 ridings across the country i more power to them but i don't think that that's really realistic so

05:08:33.580 of course you know at the beginning you know it was a pretty clear explanation from the party that

05:08:39.340 you know it was due to these slice ballots and then sure enough sort of as hour by hour went by

05:08:44.460 and time needed to be filled and people had time to speculate about every conspiracy theory we're

05:08:50.220 now hearing every rumor imaginable that someone's won someone's lost there's legal challenges there's

05:08:56.380 There's not legal challenges.

05:08:57.700 And so, you know, we have no way to communicate with our scrutineers in there.

05:09:01.940 So for anyone to claim that they have, you know, credible information, I mean, if they

05:09:06.620 did, that would be a clear violation of the rules.

05:09:08.980 And that starts at a minimum fine of $100,000 from their security deposit or their compliance

05:09:14.560 deposit.

05:09:15.180 So if you have information, turn that in.

05:09:18.920 Interesting.

05:09:19.460 That's a good point.

05:09:20.000 Now, this is a little bit of an insider baseball question here, Steve.

05:09:23.620 but you know the the deadline for ballots was friday evening you know it's now sunday night

05:09:29.620 the broadcast was supposed to start at 6 p.m we didn't hear word of the delay until what 5 45 or

05:09:35.460 something like that wouldn't they have known in advance uh i just don't really understand why

05:09:40.580 they didn't let us know this you know on friday evening or saturday or even earlier in the day

05:09:44.980 on sunday why did it come down to the wire like that yeah so i mean that's a great question and

05:09:49.060 and maybe I can clarify that a little bit.

05:09:50.900 So it was interesting because from what we've been told,

05:09:54.320 it's not actually an issue that there's too many ballots

05:09:56.840 or anything like that.

05:09:57.660 It was what happened was on Friday,

05:09:59.800 they stayed until a late Friday evening

05:10:01.760 and they were actually done opening all the ballots.

05:10:04.800 There was nothing.

05:10:05.440 Originally, they had told all the scrutineers,

05:10:07.800 so we had all our people on standby to be in

05:10:10.160 for the normal processing.

05:10:12.460 So the first way,

05:10:13.360 if we're going to go inside baseball,

05:10:15.040 let's go ahead and we'll get into all the details

05:10:16.600 so people know.

05:10:17.780 I mean, the way it works is that

05:10:19.060 You 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.

05:10:43.520 so now bob's and bob's ballot who we don't know who bob voted for because it's still in the secrecy

05:10:49.200 envelope goes into this pile here uh and any any ballots that they couldn't tell like sometimes

05:10:55.120 people would stuff all of their id and everything into the secrecy ballot so they would have to then

05:11:00.160 escalate those open them up with scrutineers watching to see if um in fact the id was in

05:11:06.800 there and the attestation was signed and if they're if they were then it would go in for

05:11:11.440 counting if it wasn't then it would have to be shredded and their ballot would be would be spoiled

05:11:16.720 so as a friday night all of the ballots the 174 000 plus or whatever the number was uh were

05:11:24.960 opened like from the the outside envelope the id was checked and all of the ballots that were to

05:11:30.640 be counted on sunday were all put in the vault and ready to go and so then what the issue happened

05:11:37.040 today was the first process when you go to count these ballots is you have to physically remove

05:11:42.240 them from the secrecy envelope so they're slicing there's a machine that's there to slice the the

05:11:46.800 envelope open and for whatever reason and we've heard things from like oh the paper was too thin

05:11:52.400 or they're trying to make it a little bit lighter so it'd meet all the canada posts you know

05:11:56.240 guidelines and it wouldn't have to pay extra postage um when they were slicing them it sliced

05:12:02.080 it appears to be and i've only heard this number in the media i haven't heard it directly from the

05:12:05.760 party of three to four thousand ballots and so that only would have happened today which is why

05:12:11.920 they would only have had that information today so maybe that answers a little bit about that

05:12:16.320 question no thank you i appreciate the insight just because we haven't had anyone uh explain

05:12:20.960 that thoroughly to us so uh we appreciate it although it was a little technical but that does

05:12:25.600 help kind of clarify what why it is that we're going so late so one of the things that we've

05:12:30.480 talked about one of the stories a big stories of this campaign has really been the ascent

05:12:34.560 of Leslyn Lewis. She was relatively unknown or completely unknown to most Canadians just a few

05:12:39.440 months ago. And now she's got this huge star power, lots of momentum. You know, even if she doesn't

05:12:44.000 win tonight, she's still one of the big, big stories of the campaign and could potentially 0.97

05:12:48.560 finish a lot higher than people expect. So I just want to ask you, what initially connected you to

05:12:53.680 her? What did you see about her campaign that excited you and got you involved in the first

05:12:58.080 place? Yeah, so I had originally, my wife and I had talked it over and we've had enough, you know,

05:13:03.680 we've been involved with a lot of campaigns and she'd said you know maybe we could sit this one

05:13:07.840 out 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

05:13:14.960 good friend it was a few months later and i was still on the sidelines as a political person you

05:13:19.440 get a little bit twitchy you kind of want to want to be engaged and uh i had a friend of mine say

05:13:24.480 that uh you know it was um sorry the uh you know you should really talk to talk to dr lewis like

05:13:31.760 she's the real deal and i think you would you would connect with her well and i had some

05:13:36.960 conversations with her and i have to say it was it was she was very impressive for myself i am a

05:13:42.560 pro-life individual i guess i fall into the social conservative camp and i i have a real drive to

05:13:51.680 help social conservatives put forward positions in particular on the pro-life issue that are

05:13:57.440 respectful and and reasonable and you know I believe that it's important that we continue

05:14:03.540 to have this debate in our country and whether whether people agree with me or not I think it's

05:14:08.840 an important debate to have and so that was primarily kind of the first thing that that

05:14:14.360 drew me to to her was just that this is something that's important to her but it wasn't something

05:14:19.680 that she was looking to kind of you know drive a hidden agenda or force people to believe what she

05:14:24.360 believed and I really resonated with her approach and so when she kind of put out the no hidden

05:14:28.620 agenda approach of here's the four things I would do you know I really was glad to have the chance

05:14:34.180 to work with her on that so that was kind of at the core what drew me to her but overall I mean

05:14:39.840 just her I found her to be a very very strong candidate who I thought could do a good job

05:14:46.640 leading both the party and the country and that I wanted to help out. You and I spoke earlier in

05:14:52.000 day, Steve, when we were both so young and full of hope that we'd all be in bed right now.

05:14:56.400 But the one thing I have to ask you about, because you and I spoke a little while back,

05:15:03.760 of course, with the independent press gallery debate in which Lesley Lewis was ill and couldn't

05:15:09.280 make it. And you were very gracious and trying to make it work. And you were there. And we heard

05:15:13.920 tonight from Andrew Shearer, a real support for independent media. We've heard talk from

05:15:18.720 a number of the candidates about the importance of independent media and i guess no matter what

05:15:23.040 happens to you do you think there's a hope that the conservatives can really turn a page and and

05:15:27.120 start pushing back a bit against the mainstream media after tonight i i hope so i mean i hope

05:15:33.120 like i i think and i i've shared this i think with both of you you know just in personal

05:15:37.280 conversations like i think there's a whole new media landscape forming in canada and i think

05:15:41.520 it's a good thing i think more competition and more ideas uh and people being able to kind of

05:15:46.880 have access to different platforms that want to you know provide conservative ideals and also I

05:15:53.920 think on the left like you know with press progress and others I think there's room for all of this

05:15:58.560 out there and that we shouldn't be boxed in to sort of kind of what's been the more traditional

05:16:02.320 media and so I think you know I'm working with Dr. Lewis I mean I know she's very much into

05:16:07.760 both you know free speech and debate and I do think that we need to be more comfortable just

05:16:13.040 when people sort of, you know, try to put us on our heels on these things and say, no, like

05:16:17.480 conservative principles are solid. They're, they're sensible and they make sense. And yeah,

05:16:22.700 let's have this discussion about it instead of just seeing someone being able to just, uh, you

05:16:26.580 know, point at you and call you a name and everyone kind of back away in fear that you're going to get

05:16:33.080 called another mean name. It's like, so yeah, I hope that that's sort of where we're getting to

05:16:37.740 this place. I think, I think some of that movement in particular on the left, um, it's starting to

05:16:43.020 go too far. And even people who might even naturally sympathize towards, you know, kind of

05:16:48.700 leftist views, even, you know, some of my friends who are on the far more left side of the spectrum

05:16:54.520 are starting to really kind of question it and say, whoa, you know, where does this make sense?

05:17:00.560 So I think that they're probably kind of overshooting and it's starting to kind of create

05:17:04.320 a, I think there's a bit more of an appetiting candidate to just respectfully push back on some

05:17:09.680 these things well there certainly is a credibility issue uh you know i have critiques of the cbc that

05:17:15.280 go at so many different levels it's not just about their editorial position being left-wing i mean

05:17:19.760 one of the stories that we broke at true north last week was the fact that kamala harris who's

05:17:24.800 running to be the second place you know the deputy the vice president uh for a party in another

05:17:29.440 country got 500 more headlines than leslie lewis did who's running to essentially be prime minister

05:17:36.240 in canada and so it's such a disconnect that you see it so much where the cbc is supposed to be

05:17:40.880 covering canadian news and telling canadian stories but instead you know they're they're

05:17:45.840 obsessing over what's happening in the united states or tonight we're told that they're playing

05:17:50.560 uh hockey games instead of covering the conservative convention here so it's it's like

05:17:55.840 you know they're not even doing what their mandate is is to do steve we really appreciate your time

05:18:01.120 and thank you for joining us i don't know if andrew asked you this uh before in your interview

05:18:05.040 i can't remember but i'll just ask you quickly do you have any predictions for the rest of the

05:18:08.560 night or how do you think this is all going to play out no i have zero predictions i i uh anything

05:18:14.320 i felt i knew at the beginning of the day as we've gone on and played this waiting game i

05:18:18.400 i have no confidence in anything no i just think he hasn't changed his non-prediction from earlier

05:18:26.240 fair enough fair enough well thank you so much steven hopefully uh hopefully eventually this uh

05:18:30.960 we learned some news and we can all get to bed at something like a reasonable

05:18:34.800 hour. So thanks so much for joining us. Great.

05:18:36.800 Thanks to you both for the job you're doing. Take care.

05:18:39.120 Thank you. That was Steve Outhouse, campaign manager for Leslyn Lewis.

05:18:42.960 And since we're revisiting the highlights from earlier in the show, some,

05:18:46.080 I don't know, seven hours ago or so,

05:18:48.400 very pleased to welcome back Tanya Granik-Allen,

05:18:51.600 who's moved indoors now because that beautiful natural light you had earlier

05:18:54.960 is no longer there. We are past 10 PM now,

05:18:58.240 still awaiting results from the Conservative leadership race.

05:19:02.040 Tanya Granik-Allen, not officially on Derek Sloan's team,

05:19:05.020 but as I mentioned earlier, did her due diligence,

05:19:07.540 interviewed, vetted the candidates, and ended up endorsing Derek

05:19:10.400 and was doing some get-out-the-vote stuff with him in the past week.

05:19:14.820 Tanya, thanks for coming back on.

05:19:17.020 I'm sorry I have to be back on.

05:19:18.940 We should be in bed by now.

05:19:20.100 Oh, we're having some trouble with your audio there, Tanya,

05:19:23.540 so we'll try to get that resolved.

05:19:25.640 Hopefully we could hear you only very faintly.

05:19:28.420 So I don't know if the issue is that you're muted

05:19:30.900 or the microphone isn't fully connected,

05:19:32.620 but we'll try to get you back on there.

05:19:36.480 I hear it clicking, so that could be a good sign.

05:19:39.580 No, unfortunately not.

05:19:42.020 We'll try to get that resolved there.

05:19:43.980 The reason I think it's important to talk

05:19:46.060 to the Derek Sloan campaign

05:19:49.060 and Tonya Granik-Allen from that campaign specifically here

05:19:52.120 is because one of the dominating themes

05:19:55.700 of certainly my coverage

05:19:57.500 and a lot of the coverage

05:19:58.600 when you look at the system of voting

05:20:00.100 is the down ballot support.

05:20:02.540 So if Aaron O'Toole is running

05:20:04.580 as being the most sympathetic

05:20:06.160 to social conservatives,

05:20:08.260 then that means that when you have two people

05:20:10.440 that are running on a socially conservative platform

05:20:12.540 in Leslyn Lewis and Derek Sloan,

05:20:14.660 if they do really well,

05:20:16.220 they bring in a lot of new members.

05:20:17.940 That support is more likely to go to Aaron O'Toole

05:20:20.720 than Peter McKay.

05:20:22.120 And this is how we get that scenario that a lot of people have theorized about, that

05:20:26.340 Peter McKay could be in first place on round one and even round two.

05:20:31.160 But, you know, if a lot of that support from other candidates goes towards Aaron O'Toole,

05:20:36.700 Aaron O'Toole is the winner.

05:20:37.760 Or if it works in other ways as well, I don't want to predestine the final outcome here.

05:20:43.880 But I guess I'll ask you, Candace, while we're waiting and troubleshooting with Tanya there,

05:20:47.780 do you think that the social conservative vote will be the determining factor in that race or

05:20:54.080 do you think it's too simplistic in some respects? Well I don't know if it will be the determining

05:20:59.000 factor Andrew but it certainly does have a big impact and we saw that back when Andrew Scheer

05:21:04.460 was elected I think we mentioned it on the show a little earlier that Maxime Bernier had the you

05:21:10.120 know number one slot throughout the whole every ballot he was he was number one he was number one

05:21:14.380 number one and i think that ultimately a lot of the votes went to andrew sheer mostly you know

05:21:19.420 partially because he's a nice guy and he's not objectionable he doesn't like you know he's kind

05:21:23.660 of a middle of the road kind of person um but but of course you know he he did come across and many

05:21:28.940 many people did perceive him as being um pro-life and and more of a social conservative so that

05:21:34.940 certainly helped him and i think that that could have an impact but you know thinking back to what

05:21:39.820 Vitor Marciano said earlier he's the only one who really gave us a very detailed prediction of what

05:21:45.740 he thought and you know his idea was basically that Peter McKay is going to come in first on the

05:21:50.940 first ballot but that he won't get any of the lower ballots so he won't get any support from

05:21:57.500 Derek Sloan and Lesley Lewis which is a presumption on that they will come in fourth and

05:22:01.980 third and therefore that would all go towards Erin O'Toole and give him enough momentum to

05:22:07.100 bump forward and i think that that would definitely be based on peter mckay's positions

05:22:11.900 not just on social issues but a number of the stuff that we've been talking about throughout

05:22:15.580 the whole program andrew his his lack of ability to connect with the base his sort of fear of of

05:22:21.740 coming and doing interviews with conservative media outlets um his lack of appeal and lack of

05:22:27.900 energy especially in western canada and this perception that he is sort of part of the um

05:22:33.180 laurentian elite establishment and that he's not really among the the grassroots conservatives so

05:22:39.260 i think all those uh things would would go against him again that's just based on on vitor's

05:22:44.380 prediction and vitor could be completely wrong um but i do think that there is something to that

05:22:49.420 theory and that kind of does seem like the way that we are the direction we're headed right now

05:22:53.900 yeah and there's a tweet from elias here he says social conservative feels like a bad word in

05:22:58.540 Canada. It could be why we once had the PC party at the federal level. I do think a lot of that

05:23:03.980 perception comes down to when there are candidates who have socially conservative views, they tend to

05:23:09.620 equivocate about them and not own up to them. So they get hammered on the media for being socially

05:23:14.860 conservative and they get hammered by social conservatives for not being socially conservative.

05:23:19.020 And this was one of the prevailing criticisms against Andrew Scheer is that people who were

05:23:23.080 pro-life were saying, hey, you're selling us out. And people who weren't, didn't like him that

05:23:27.380 because he was pro-life. So this is the, I think, I think in many respects, the, if you feel that

05:23:33.860 way, own up to it and hope that your authenticity will carry you. I think we have Tanya Granik-Allen

05:23:40.280 back on. Let's see if we can fix that. Tanya, can you hear us? I can hear you. Can you hear me? 1.00

05:23:45.900 We can hear you as well. Thank you very much for coming in. You're a little bit quiet. So if you

05:23:50.600 could speak up, it would be very much appreciated. I mentioned earlier that you did a pretty

05:23:55.640 extensive vetting of the candidates and i i want to note for people this isn't you as a campaign

05:24:01.320 manager this is you as an advocate as an activist why did you do this and and what was your vetting

05:24:07.240 process like well i suppose because i ran in the 2018 ontario conservative leadership that

05:24:14.600 you know i guess i established myself as a voice of conservatives in canada and i feel i guess an

05:24:20.920 obligation or a responsibility to that effect and you know different candidates call me at all times

05:24:25.480 asking for my support or endorsement and you know three out of the four leadership candidates reached

05:24:30.200 out to me and i thought it's important to ask them you know what i like to call the tough questions

05:24:34.520 on issues that i think are important for canadians yes fiscal issues yes energy issues but also

05:24:41.000 things that affect the family that sometimes gets swept under the rug or as some people will relegate

05:24:45.560 as social issues and they're not as important but in fact they really are important to canadian

05:24:49.960 families.

05:24:50.960 Tonya, one of the things that always sort of bugs me is that, you know, the word social

05:24:56.060 conservative, like Andrew just said, kind of gets considered to be a bad word.

05:24:59.800 But, you know, really what we're talking about is just policies that put the family at the

05:25:04.200 center of public life.

05:25:05.960 You know, I spent a bunch of time in the U.S., and it seems like the issues that define Canadian

05:25:10.680 conservatives as being social conservatives, they're just kind of like mainstream conservative

05:25:14.560 values in the U.S.

05:25:16.920 So why do you think that these ideas have become considered like so toxic in Canada

05:25:22.420 when really they're not and so many Canadians agree with the issues, but why do you think

05:25:27.240 that the concept around them has become so negative?

05:25:31.380 Well, I don't think that they should be considered toxic and I don't think actually, although

05:25:36.240 I don't necessarily like that moniker, social conservatives, I don't think it should be

05:25:40.740 received with toxicity.

05:25:42.160 I sometimes think that we do that to ourselves and when I say we I mean conservatives that we

05:25:48.160 relegate social conservatives or that phrase social issues to the side and say oh those are

05:25:52.760 not as important they are second tier issues let's not talk about them but when we start a

05:25:58.440 censoring and applying our own filter on issues that grassroots conservatives feel are important

05:26:03.000 then I think we're doing a disservice to the movement I think rather we should embrace all

05:26:08.360 these issues and say, hey, you know what? Clearly this is impacting Canadian lives. These are issues

05:26:14.540 which matter. If you look at the past several leaderships, the 2017 federal conservative

05:26:19.240 leadership, look at the 2018 provincial Ontario leadership, even look at the Jason Kenney leadership,

05:26:24.260 it's very clear that time and time again, it is these, again, quote unquote, social conservative

05:26:29.880 voters who determine the leader and the outcome of these leaderships. So I don't think it's

05:26:36.240 appropriate to relegate a big chunk of the base and some people suggest it's

05:26:40.320 up to 40% of the Conservative Party federally their base to the sidelines

05:26:44.520 and rather we should embrace these issues say hey clearly these matter to

05:26:47.700 the grassroots they must matter to Canadians

05:26:53.420 oh Andrew I think you're muted here but I think thank you I went the whole night

05:26:57.260 without doing this and then I ended up doing the thing that we expected we'd

05:27:01.200 have to tell the guests to not do sorry about that you know I think it's an

05:27:04.280 important point when you talk about the grassroots because oftentimes there is

05:27:07.400 this huge divide Tanya between what the grassroots members and grassroots

05:27:12.800 Canadians feel and also what the members are told are acceptable positions by the

05:27:21.200 media by the party elite other other stuff like that so so I do think this is

05:27:26.040 an important aspect I guess the question is how do we break through that how do

05:27:30.980 do we as grassroots or how do we I mean how do we as you know free-thinking people break through

05:27:36.840 that divide when you have a portion of the party of the country of the movement that's being told

05:27:42.620 their views don't deserve to be entertained well anytime someone has told me that my view doesn't

05:27:47.760 deserve to be entertained I usually double down so what I would encourage grassroots members of

05:27:52.120 the party to do is if there's an issue that's important to you be it pipelines in Alberta or

05:27:56.580 social issues double down and get out and raise those issues at policy conventions and in nominations

05:28:03.780 I think it's important again that we elect candidates or leaders that respect the

05:28:08.980 grassroots and reflect the positions that we elect them to have which is through our policy process

05:28:15.460 and it's important that our leaders of our party respect the policy process and adopt those

05:28:21.060 policies as their own because that's what party leadership is about it's about respecting the

05:28:25.700 grassroots and listening to their will and advocating for them and i think the sooner that

05:28:30.740 we stop apologizing for being conservative for uh you know stop this this weakness and just embrace

05:28:37.300 our values and embrace the conservative freedoms then we will be miles ahead of the opposition

05:28:44.820 that's a good point we've been talking about this a little bit on the show too this sort of

05:28:48.420 what seems like a gaping divide an increasing divide in all of our society but it's also

05:28:53.940 evident within the Conservative Party between the sort of elites or the experts or the establishment

05:28:59.780 and then on the other side you kind of have everyone else and you know you see the rise of

05:29:02.980 populism but also just sort of grassroots surge. So I'm curious just in the context of this specific

05:29:10.980 leadership race, Sonia, have you felt like grassroots voices were included? Were you happy

05:29:17.540 with the way that the candidates discussed issues? I know you know you ended up supporting and

05:29:22.580 endorsing uh derek sloan do you think he was given a fair shake and what's your take on this sort of

05:29:27.700 divide between the sort of establishment elites and and everyone else well i'm perhaps i'm a huge

05:29:34.100 softy at heart but i believe maybe in a utopian idea of of what a leadership should be but i

05:29:40.020 believe truly that every candidate should have had the opportunity to run and you know richard

05:29:45.140 de cutty was was denied running obviously jim carahalios had that happen it was twice uh

05:29:50.820 prevented from running and and and some encountered financial barriers to entering into the leadership

05:29:56.820 race like rudy husney and marilyn gladu i think the more the merrier that's what a big tent is about

05:30:02.260 so i do think that the addition of all of those voices would have uh improved the race i i think

05:30:09.140 it was a fine field the way it is obviously there's a candidate that i felt strongly enough

05:30:13.700 to endorse that i felt his positions were excellent i did not like it when there were

05:30:18.820 the rumblings that perhaps caucus was considering derek sloan's uh participation within their

05:30:24.020 caucus again we're conservatives we we love our grassroots democracy we want our members to

05:30:30.980 to make those so i think there's always room for improvement was this process perfect no

05:30:36.260 was the room for improvement absolutely and i hope that there will always be lessons learned but

05:30:41.780 again you know i think we're gonna have to wait to see what the outcome is of this of this leadership

05:30:46.420 and see who the leader is and how well they're going to be able to unite all people within the

05:30:51.300 party including those who were not able to have their preferred candidate even put on appearing

05:30:56.580 on the ballot very well said tanya granick allen former ontario pc leadership candidate the

05:31:04.500 president of parents as first educators and supporter of derek sloan in this race tanya

05:31:09.780 thanks so much for coming back on really appreciate it thank you and hopefully we'll be over soon

05:31:14.420 enough yes we can only hope and and on that note i should share with those of you who are tuning

05:31:19.960 into the live conservative results show here on true north at the party is now saying first round

05:31:26.420 results will come in at 10 30 p.m eastern time which is particularly significant because it's

05:31:32.720 now 10 31 eastern time and uh so far the uh the conservative party of canada's official feed is

05:31:39.400 still the starting soon so we'll uh continue along with our coverage and analysis bringing

05:31:43.880 in some of the people from the conservative movement and also the Conservative Party of

05:31:48.140 Canada Leadership race. And I can bring in, I believe, Fred DeLore. I don't know if we have

05:31:53.960 Fred on the line. I see a headshot. I don't know if we can get him on video there. But Fred DeLore,

05:31:58.420 we spoke to earlier in the show. He is the campaign manager for Aaron O'Toole. And we

05:32:03.320 chatted with him this afternoon when we thought we were doing just a little 30-minute pre-show.

05:32:07.420 and now here we are several hours into this five hours since we started Fred good to have you thanks

05:32:14.700 very much oh we've got a black screen for Fred all right we'll we'll get to Fred once oh there

05:32:21.600 we go Fred thanks very much for coming back on I know it's been a long day turned into a long night

05:32:27.120 so it's good to have you with us right now well I'm used to these long nights remember 2018 I

05:32:33.060 campaign manager when we were very delayed in that process as well. So becoming used to this.

05:32:40.340 We spoke about this earlier in the evening with Steve Outhouse from the Leslyn Lewis campaign.

05:32:44.740 Obviously, we've had different rumors that have been circulating about which candidates are up

05:32:50.340 and which candidates down. And the question I'll put to you, are these just rumors or is there

05:32:55.300 actually information that's coming out of the ballot room from scrutineers or from other sources?

05:33:03.060 Oh, we've lost Fred there. So we'll get Fred back on the line. And if you are still standing with

05:33:10.640 us, we managed to make it through the first four and a half hours without any tech glitches. So

05:33:14.300 I hope you'll indulge these in the last few moments here. A lot of moving parts to the

05:33:20.240 coverage tonight. I will ask you, Candice, I mean, do you find that because in politics,

05:33:24.160 there seems to be the two major currencies, money and rumours. So do you find that just people in

05:33:30.100 politics need to believe in a rumor just to be doing something because that's the fear here when

05:33:35.420 you start talking about all these different scenarios and they may or may not be rooted

05:33:39.560 in reality but we have to to fill our headspace in the absence of official numbers with something

05:33:44.220 yeah there might be a little bit of like confirmation bias as well because if you if

05:33:49.540 you are someone who you know wants less than lewis to do really well and wants to see a strong showing

05:33:54.380 for her, then you're definitely more likely to believe the rumors that, you know, she's doing

05:34:00.100 much better than expected. But I think to Steve Outhouse's point, you know, no one's left the room

05:34:05.020 since noon today. So anything that we are hearing can't necessarily be true, although who knows,

05:34:11.780 because there are always are leaks, as we know from our profession in the media. But certainly,

05:34:17.280 you know, this kind of program where you have pundits and journalists filling up hours and

05:34:22.720 hours of air time on election night it's just pure speculation you know the

05:34:27.460 morning comes and you wish that you could take back all the things that you

05:34:30.040 predicted because they never they never come true I've certainly made predictions

05:34:33.820 I thought that Stephen Harper was gonna win in the 2015 election I didn't think

05:34:37.600 Justin Trudeau stood a chance and then boy was I wrong I remember watching the

05:34:41.920 2016 results come in it down in the US I was actually in San Francisco at the

05:34:47.920 time and you know i definitely no one was expecting donald trump to win uh so we we've been wrong

05:34:54.560 many many many times and uh that's why i'm avoiding making any any predictions tonight but certainly

05:35:00.480 rumors are are part of uh you know what what keeps what keeps pundits and journalists uh busy on

05:35:07.120 nights like this is just talking about things that they hear and speculating into that andrew

05:35:11.760 so it looks like we had or have fred back on if the video is not working well i will talk to you

05:35:18.080 by audio fred because i am curious to hear if you're okay no apparently we're having a bit of

05:35:23.680 an internet issue there so we'll uh uh we'll deal with that uh and get fred back on when we can so

05:35:28.800 we we thank you very much for for sticking with us it is live this is what live media is all about

05:35:34.240 and this is what independent media is all about and i i do think it would be uh incumbent upon

05:35:39.280 us right now, and I'll actually hand over to Candice for this, to tell people how they

05:35:44.280 can support us because I've seen a few messages come in of people that are fans of True North

05:35:49.700 that like what we're doing and also people that came because they heard from Andrew Scheer

05:35:53.640 about True North. Well, gee, that's really nice. And to anyone who's watching, for the

05:35:58.980 first time, welcome. Just to tell you a little bit about True North. I started the organization

05:36:03.940 back in 2016. I write for the Toronto Sun. I'm a columnist over there and I've been doing that

05:36:09.460 for a while. And initially when I started True North, the idea was that we're going to do

05:36:14.040 research and look into the immigration issue, national security, immigration, terrorism,

05:36:19.100 an issue that's really, really under explored and discussed in Canada, but increasingly

05:36:24.040 important. One of the things that we found, you know, we're entirely grassroots driven,

05:36:29.160 and meaning that our income comes entirely

05:36:32.380 just from supporters like you Canadians

05:36:35.440 who watch our programming, enjoy what we do,

05:36:38.440 appreciate what we contribute to the media landscape.

05:36:42.320 You know, they encourage us to do more and more

05:36:44.100 of the journalism side, more investigative journalism,

05:36:46.540 more reporting, more digging.

05:36:48.440 We brought on Andrew Lawton,

05:36:49.620 who's a very well-known conservative commentator

05:36:52.680 and longtime radio host from London, Ontario.

05:36:56.400 And since then we've sort of pivoted more and more

05:36:58.900 towards journalism more and more towards original reporting.

05:37:01.680 I think that's where the demand is.

05:37:03.940 And so here we are now as a full-fledged media company.

05:37:08.340 We employ journalists across the country.

05:37:10.860 We give you scoops, breaking news.

05:37:12.900 We have podcasts and videos that come out every day.

05:37:15.820 Andrew and I do a live show every Friday afternoon.

05:37:19.020 Andrew also does his own podcast radio show

05:37:22.360 on Mondays and Wednesdays.

05:37:24.220 We produce a lot of contents.

05:37:25.380 We produce documentaries.

05:37:27.340 we're really busy and we do a lot of great stuff.

05:37:30.520 And so again, we're funded entirely through donations.

05:37:35.160 And I think that's really the new business model for media.

05:37:38.760 Traditionally, media always relied on advertising

05:37:42.120 that made the media landscape kind of more neutral

05:37:45.720 and more boring.

05:37:47.020 Canadian media is very traditional, it's very boring.

05:37:49.600 Everyone has the same opinions.

05:37:51.220 And the idea when you're backed by advertisers

05:37:54.760 is you can't upset anyone.

05:37:56.020 So you have to remain kind of in the middle

05:37:58.680 and you can't really have too many people outside.

05:38:02.520 I think that model is gone.

05:38:03.840 And what you're seeing now is more of a niche media

05:38:07.240 driven towards people who want to see stories

05:38:10.940 that sort of reflect their experience,

05:38:12.680 want to hear from voices that reflect

05:38:14.740 what their worldview is.

05:38:15.940 And so we try to offer something

05:38:17.540 that's just totally different from the mainstream media.

05:38:19.500 We're much more connected

05:38:21.660 to the small C conservative base in Canada.

05:38:25.280 That's sort of the worldview that many of us present.

05:38:27.820 We're non-partisan.

05:38:28.860 We're not at all affiliated with the Conservative Party.

05:38:31.780 In fact, we do interviews all the time

05:38:34.260 with other politicians.

05:38:35.520 I sat down with Maxime Bernier a couple of weeks ago.

05:38:38.600 Andrew, you had Salim Mansour, you've spoken with him

05:38:42.280 and did a profile of him during the last election.

05:38:45.000 We reach out to politicians of all stripes.

05:38:47.940 Andrew tried and failed many times to get interviews

05:38:51.560 with Liberal campaigns and MPs during the last campaign.

05:38:56.660 All that's just to say,

05:38:58.240 you know, we try to provide something different

05:39:00.720 and where our finances come from

05:39:04.180 and how we fund our entire operation

05:39:06.420 is just from the support of Canadians

05:39:08.900 who appreciate what we do.

05:39:09.860 So, you know, if you're new, welcome.

05:39:11.680 We invite you to check out our programming.

05:39:14.260 TNC.news is our website.

05:39:15.920 We have lots of new content all the time.

05:39:18.000 And if you're so inclined

05:39:18.940 and you appreciate what we're doing,

05:39:20.940 really do encourage you to chip in even if you're just donating something really small five ten

05:39:26.220 dollars that's really what drives our organization and helps us to you know hire young reporters

05:39:32.300 hire journalists create all this content you know we have producers we have videographers

05:39:38.060 um you know we try to keep our budget down obviously we're not the cbc we're not spending

05:39:42.860 money uh left right and center we're really a startup mentality and we and we we keep things

05:39:48.780 tight um but you know the the fact that we have donors from all over the country we have hundreds

05:39:54.700 or i think thousands of canadians that give us money every month uh it really shows that you know

05:40:00.620 what we're doing is good we listen to the feedback from our audience we listen to uh what people say

05:40:05.980 we read every email that comes in we try to respond we don't always respond to every email

05:40:10.860 and every message but we read them all and we sort of provide the content that canadians want

05:40:15.740 So I think we're much more connected with our audience and with our base

05:40:19.500 than the mainstream media is why they're so out of touch.

05:40:22.340 So, you know, it was great to have that shout out from Andrew Scheer.

05:40:26.420 We did an interview earlier with Vitor Marciano and he he sort of said, you know,

05:40:30.980 I think that probably a lot of conservative activists know about True North and know who you guys are.

05:40:36.020 But of the party membership and of the people who are members of the Conservative Party,

05:40:40.140 which is hundreds of thousands of Canadians, he said probably only about a third

05:40:43.860 actually knew about true north and knew who we were so you know we've got our work cut out for

05:40:48.380 us still andrew we've got a lot to a room to grow and a lot more work to do to try to reach our

05:40:53.820 audience our audience isn't just conservative members as well we i get emails every day from

05:40:58.760 people who who say you know i disagree with you about politics candace but i appreciate the

05:41:03.180 reporting that you do or i appreciate you know the way that you stand up for yourself and the way

05:41:07.200 that you stand up for the organization or the way that you expose the mainstream media so again we're

05:41:13.260 just limited to people who share our exact same worldview and we don't even all share the same

05:41:18.060 worldview we disagree on issues uh amongst you know the fellows all the time but um that's just

05:41:23.580 you know part of the media landscape so all that's just to say you know we're really excited about

05:41:27.420 the work that we're doing at true north we invite you uh to to take part to to watch to donate if

05:41:32.460 you can to join our insider club which gives you all kinds of different content um and ability to

05:41:38.300 to connect with us uh you know we we do uh what kind of content do we offer andrew for insiders

05:41:44.220 we've got we've got some sort of we we used to try to do live events but can't really do that

05:41:49.420 anymore well we plan to do live events at some point in the future i i know we've also talked

05:41:55.340 about really revamping the clubs and trying to build a community there and have opportunities to

05:42:00.300 you know kick back with with you and i and and talk on on zoom and that's stuff we've uh we've

05:42:05.100 wanted to put into effect. And I think after the conservative leadership race, we'll be rolling

05:42:10.500 potentially into an election mode. So there will be a lot of opportunities for, you know, bonus

05:42:14.940 content, I think, along the way. But, you know, the one thing that I would really say that is

05:42:19.500 important is that the people that support the work that we're doing, it's they're doing it because

05:42:24.260 we don't paywall our content, which I think is really great for people. They're doing it not

05:42:29.000 because they want to buy access to this story or that story, but simply because they like it and

05:42:33.620 want to keep it open and accessible and I really like that that's a big part of our vision I mean

05:42:37.460 I know of outlets that and I don't begrudge anyone for coming up with their own business model but

05:42:41.900 I've been outlets that have all this great content and it's it's not accessible to people unless they

05:42:46.100 pay whereas I love that you know my show's out there and your show's out there and all our

05:42:50.040 stories are out there I think that's so important because we're not trying to to speak just to an

05:42:55.100 echo chamber we're trying to speak to Canadians speak to Canadians but also I think again just

05:43:01.940 try to provide something different i think that the issue with the mainstream media we're talking

05:43:06.420 about this a little bit earlier when we're interviewing steve outhouse with leslie lewis

05:43:09.860 campaign you know it's not just a problem that the mainstream media is too left-wing there's

05:43:15.380 just there's so many there's so many issues about them the way that they're funded um the way that

05:43:19.780 they that they produce the news the way they're not transparent about their own biases like

05:43:25.380 we're supposed to believe that they're just completely neutral uh you know people whereas

05:43:30.500 you know, we know they don't vote conservative. We know that they probably don't have any

05:43:33.540 conservative friends. And if they do, you know, they're resentful because they came from a

05:43:36.860 conservative family and don't like them. We know all these things about journalists and they're

05:43:41.860 not open about it themselves. They pretend to stand up there and be neutral and pretend that

05:43:45.980 they didn't all vote for Justin Trudeau or Jagmeet Singh. Well, we know that's not the case. And

05:43:51.560 again, with the CBC, part of the main problem with them is that they are supposed to be there

05:43:56.720 to cover canadian stories and to reflect the canadian experience uh but we know we turn on

05:44:01.840 the national and half the time the top two three stories are all about donald trump and joe biden

05:44:06.560 and and us stories it's like well why are we paying our taxpayer dollars to hear more and

05:44:12.480 more fawning over kamala harris when they're completely ignoring the phenomenon that is

05:44:17.440 leslie lewis is happening in their own backyard um and so part of what true north tries to do is

05:44:23.200 just be different than that we we stand up to the cancel culture mindset uh we stand up to the the

05:44:28.880 idea that you know every story has to come back towards like oh look at how evil Donald Trump is

05:44:34.560 it's like no there's a whole bunch of Canadians out there that have a different perspective

05:44:38.320 we're unapologetic about the fact that we do have a small c conservative outlook at least I do um and

05:44:44.640 Andrew I think you do too and so we try to provide the news from that perspective more honest about

05:44:51.040 it i don't try to lie and pretend that i'm completely neutral and apolitical say you

05:44:56.240 know i don't have a membership in the conservative party um but i am a small c conservative and i

05:45:01.360 brought the support what the conservatives are doing and at least we're transparent about that

05:45:06.240 yeah i think that that's very important and we'll pick back this uh conversation up on the other

05:45:10.560 end of this i believe we do have uh once and for all fred delori joining us uh by phone we don't

05:45:15.600 get to see his his uh smiling face after hours and hours in a ballroom but we will talk to fred

05:45:21.440 about uh where things stand now fred thanks for your patience on this maybe i spoke too soon

05:45:32.400 oh there we go yeah sorry can you hear me now yes we have you at long last right

05:45:38.640 thanks very much for sticking with us here so let me ask you uh without having any information

05:45:44.080 coming out of the room here, has the confidence that you expressed earlier changed one way or

05:45:49.580 another? Because you said unequivocally, you're thinking a third ballot victory for Aaron O'Toole.

05:45:54.920 Is that still the direction that you're headed? Yeah, nothing's changed. So we were exit polling

05:46:00.360 throughout this campaign. We did a tremendous amount of polling and research, something that's

05:46:04.340 never really been done before in a leadership race from my experience or my knowledge. We really put

05:46:09.280 a lot of effort on that in this campaign, and we could really sense where the membership was going

05:46:12.880 and who they were supporting uh and uh you know i'm very confident in our numbers that we're going

05:46:19.300 to be first place in the first ballot and we'll lead all the way through and aaron will become

05:46:23.180 leader of our party tonight well that that's a bold prediction and so one of the things we heard

05:46:32.740 from one of the other can uh campaigns fred is that uh you know it's not really possible to know

05:46:38.660 at this point who's winning because everyone's been uh stuck and locked away so so you know are

05:46:43.780 the leaks that we're hearing and the rumors online is is there anything to that or is that sort of

05:46:47.460 just speculation no what's going on inside it's it's pure speculation what what we're basing our

05:46:53.620 our predictions on or my my bold prediction as you say is our exit polling right so every day

05:46:58.500 the conservative party would give us a list who has voted yesterday so we can knock it off

05:47:02.500 our lists for get out to vote purposes so what we've done is we pulled that list every day for

05:47:07.540 for the last 20 plus days.

05:47:09.580 And that's where our numbers come from.

05:47:11.700 We don't have a real insight of what we were hearing

05:47:14.300 dribs and drabs, you get a bit of information

05:47:16.000 what's going on inside the room,

05:47:17.840 but nothing's been counted yet or it's about,

05:47:20.900 or it's being counted as we speak right now,

05:47:22.760 it's being put through the machines.

05:47:25.020 So we don't know the actual result,

05:47:26.700 but we're, again, our exit polling,

05:47:29.760 we have over 51,000 members of the Conservative Party

05:47:32.600 tell us who they voted for.

05:47:34.240 um so we we have a we have a good sense from that when you say 51 000 that is uh you know

05:47:41.580 basically out of i think 172 000 ballots cast you've got a little over a third of the entire

05:47:49.080 uh sample then that's right that's right so usually when you pull a riding if you're trying

05:47:53.360 to get a sense you want one to three percent we are around 30 percent uh so it's a massive massive

05:47:59.420 sample and that's where a lot of our confidence is based in um and uh so you know we we feel very

05:48:04.940 good uh of course you never know we're we're sitting here we're waiting like everyone else

05:48:10.380 uh we'll see what the results are but we we do feel we're in a good spot

05:48:15.660 well that's great so what do you think it was fred uh that that if if if you're polling is

05:48:20.540 accurate and you think you're confident that your candidates can win tonight what what was it uh

05:48:25.340 tell us a little bit about the campaign that you ran and what you felt like your candidates

05:48:28.940 real strengths were well look aaron's a tremendous communicator he was able to talk to our membership

05:48:35.340 it was interesting one thing we noticed um when the the main party debates that we had the english

05:48:41.020 and french one uh which feels like a lifetime ago uh when those debates happened all the media and

05:48:46.940 all the pundits said peter mckay won and i watched those and i felt okay shoot everyone's saying he

05:48:52.060 He won. That wasn't good for us. But then we saw a spike in our polling, because we've been pulling

05:48:56.280 not just exit polling. We've been pulling our membership list every week, constantly, aggressively.

05:49:00.340 So we saw a spike in our polling. So I actually went back and watched the French debate in

05:49:04.660 particular. And I noticed Aaron was the only one actually speaking to our members. Peter was

05:49:10.740 speaking to media. He was speaking to pundits. He wasn't speaking to Conservative Party members

05:49:16.600 in his tone and his direction Aaron was and I think though you know people said Peter won the

05:49:23.420 debates I think we'll see it was actually Aaron who won those debates that I think is an interesting

05:49:32.160 dynamic because I know that oftentimes you get candidates in campaigns that think there's a lot

05:49:37.860 of emphasis on the debates and the advertising and stuff like that and you have other campaigns

05:49:43.260 that are in the school of thought of it's just, you know, simply a membership drive and a voter

05:49:47.520 drive. With the high numbers in this race for how many ballots cast, as I said earlier, over 170,000,

05:49:54.840 do you think that the high turnout is an overall reflection of engagement? Or do you think that's

05:49:59.900 really coming down to specific campaigns that brought in members for that campaign rather than

05:50:05.400 people that just joined up on the party and said, you know, I think this is a good race to get

05:50:09.740 involved in i'm going to join and listen and then cast a ballot for someone eventually

05:50:13.340 so based on our tracking and based what we can uh you know gather from the other campaigns and

05:50:18.880 our conversations with them the biggest when the membership sale period was going on the number one

05:50:23.840 you know there's four campaigns selling memberships it was the conservative party of canada who crushed

05:50:29.140 us all in membership sales just people generally getting involved in the party and buying a

05:50:33.700 membership and taking an interest i know other campaigns about spinning that they sold an insane

05:50:38.500 amount. It wasn't them. It was the party who sold on its own organically a tremendous amount.

05:50:45.540 I got to say, we crushed records this summer, fundraising records, donor records,

05:50:50.720 membership sales, and voters. No political party in the history of this country has had more people

05:50:56.320 vote in a leadership race than what we have seen this conservative party race. We're doing it in

05:51:02.860 the middle of a pandemic in the middle of summer. I think it's very real. I think our party is

05:51:07.580 incredibly strong and i do believe uh the next the leader of our party is going to be prime minister

05:51:13.100 and will be prime minister soon well i think that's definitely fred a reflection of the times

05:51:18.220 that we're living in i mean just look at what's going on in ottawa over the last few weeks just a

05:51:22.700 total storm of calamity for the trudeau liberals and just learning the extent to which not only

05:51:30.060 the ethical scandals with regards to we but just how much money they're handing out left right and

05:51:34.380 center you know their own bureaucrats are saying they use loosey-goosey logic and meh it's just

05:51:39.420 money no problem winky face like just seeing the extent of of chaos in in ottawa uh i'm sure

05:51:46.060 motivated a lot of people uh who might be on the conservative spectrum to to join and get a

05:51:51.420 membership to to get a new uh leader i just i want to hear your thoughts on what you think about the

05:51:58.460 idea of a general election do you think that's something that is coming down soon uh do you care

05:52:03.660 to speculate on what might happen after the throne speech in september look i i believe uh trudeau is

05:52:10.940 going to um take every opportunity he can to seize more power he's going to look at this

05:52:17.420 and he's going to come in with some kind of speech on the throne and budget with

05:52:22.060 measures that he think will get him re-elected i i think trudeau is going to try to orchestrate his

05:52:27.420 own defeat or call an election himself i think that's very real that's very possible so we as

05:52:32.620 conservatives need to prepare for that regardless of who wins this leadership race we all need to

05:52:36.860 get behind that person and start preparing for that for for that potential scenario i know one

05:52:43.340 of the the big i'll say talking points and i don't mean it in a negative or judgmental way but it was

05:52:47.900 in fact deployed by the campaign and by erin o'toole is that erin o'toole was ready to hit the ground

05:52:53.020 running with a seat in parliament if he's successful what does the role of official

05:52:58.540 opposition leader look like for Aaron O'Toole if he is successful tonight, given that Parliament

05:53:03.540 has been prorogued? What's the priority for him if he's successful starting tomorrow over the next

05:53:08.740 month? Well, we need to build our campaign team. We need to build the party. We need to build the

05:53:13.800 leader's office. There's so much work that needs to be done. And if Aaron wins, and I do believe

05:53:17.520 he will, we go to work tomorrow morning. There's no day off. There's no time. There's no vacation.

05:53:22.540 We go to work tomorrow. I've been working eight days, or sorry, eight months straight on this,

05:53:27.660 seven days a week i took yesterday off because the polls closed friday night uh and uh we've been uh

05:53:33.420 you know this was our break and we go right back to work uh we you know taking a leadership of a

05:53:38.700 political party is a responsibility uh to our country and we have a lot of work to do and we

05:53:43.100 we need to take it serious and we're going to go right at it well one of the questions that i had

05:53:48.460 for fred was uh we heard earlier lisa wright talk about how usually you know campaigns are hard

05:53:54.460 fought usually you're fighting them against ideological opponents when it comes to leadership

05:53:58.380 race you're fighting against fellow conservatives and usually a convention is a time where everyone

05:54:02.940 can come together and feel united and and and reminded of of how we're all sort of you know

05:54:08.700 in it for the same thing and and that ultimately you're all on the same team but because this year

05:54:14.300 it's all done digitally that that might not happen and that bridging those divides might be tough

05:54:20.380 I know it has been a pretty vicious campaign at times, particularly between your campaign and

05:54:26.540 Peter McKay. So I wonder if you could speak a little bit about how that divide has happened

05:54:32.860 and what you think the path forward for unity of this party is. Well, look, I mean, political

05:54:39.100 campaigns or leadership campaigns are the political equivalent of a civil war. It's friend versus

05:54:43.500 friend, brother versus sister. I have very close friends on the McKay campaign that I have not

05:54:50.140 spoken to in many many months um you know we are you know we're fighting for what we believe in we

05:54:55.100 go full tilt at the end of the day after tonight four leadership campaigns become one we unite we

05:55:01.980 we join together and uh it you know it takes time we'll have to sit down over the next few weeks

05:55:08.060 but look when we win this campaign uh this leadership race we we will absolutely reach

05:55:13.260 out to the other camps we want the best and the brightest we owe that to canada that's our

05:55:16.620 our responsibility we're not just it's not just about it's our team takes over it's we unite and

05:55:21.580 make a new team of all of us together to take on uh the true to liberals and that's how we're going

05:55:26.780 to win the next election we we can't be we can't divide ourselves we can't act like it's you know

05:55:31.620 it's just us who won it's uh we all have to come together one question i want to put with you put

05:55:38.100 to you just before we uh we let you go here uh fred uh this is from a tweet from steve pakin he

05:55:43.620 He 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.

05:55:55.020 He followed up with a tweet that says the Peter McKay campaign says they're not protesting.

05:55:59.320 What's going on in there?

05:56:01.540 Look, I don't have insight.

05:56:02.960 This is the first I've heard of this.

05:56:04.240 I know the McKay campaign has very good scrutineers who are doing their job.

05:56:09.280 So I don't call and question what they're doing.

05:56:11.440 they're uh at this point without any information but if they're uh you know if they're concerned

05:56:16.080 about a ballot they're gonna they're gonna fight it and but uh the end of the day um you know we

05:56:22.800 have all the campaigns of scrutineers there's party officials that are well practiced in this

05:56:27.600 uh i think you know we're going to get a result soon and it'll be a clear result

05:56:35.920 well excellent fred thank you so much for taking the time to join our show i know you joined it

05:56:40.000 earlier and now you're joining in again hopefully we will be uh learning the results very soon but

05:56:45.200 we we thank you again for your time no look anytime love you guys and what you guys are

05:56:50.320 doing i think this is incredibly important issues that you guys have put together and you're

05:56:54.320 you know you speak to a very uh important part of our country that doesn't get the

05:56:59.600 the uh the coverage that is usually needed so thank you for everything you guys do and thanks

05:57:03.040 Thanks for having me.

05:57:06.180 Thank you very much.

05:57:07.620 That is Fred DeLore, campaign manager for Aaron O'Toole,

05:57:11.780 joining us as we go through the highlights of people

05:57:14.720 that we spoke to earlier, just with all that's changed here.

05:57:17.980 And as far as updates in the actual official dynamic of things,

05:57:23.120 not much has changed since we gave you another update,

05:57:25.680 but if you are just tuning in,

05:57:27.140 this is the True North Conservative Leadership Results Show,

05:57:30.120 co-hosted by me and candace malcolm my colleague and friend here and and just again i mean this

05:57:37.280 has been a very long evening we started about five and a half hours ago and it's not to say that we

05:57:42.520 are deserving of a medal or anything i think you watching it for five and a half hours if anyone

05:57:46.920 certainly is deserving of a medal i will point out that the party is still committed at this point

05:57:53.200 to a province by province announcement of the ballots and just to put this into perspective

05:57:58.600 if we do not have a winner on the first ballot, that's going to add probably another 20, 30 minutes

05:58:04.380 to each round. So once they start with the results, there still could be a significant delay.

05:58:10.040 At this point, Candace, do you think they should just kind of dispense with the ceremony and just

05:58:14.540 give a straight reading of the results? Yeah, you know, we were talking earlier about how in 2016,

05:58:21.080 when they were announcing the winner of the US election, it took until three o'clock in the

05:58:24.940 warning. But, you know, there was just so much at stake. That was the leader of the free world.

05:58:29.320 That was the president of the United States. You know, you need to count every ballot. It's not up

05:58:34.920 to anyone at the central HQ. This is a little different. This is, you know, the leader of a

05:58:40.060 party. It's all internal. They have the information. They don't need to do the ceremony and the pomp

05:58:45.700 at this point. I think that, you know, it's 11 o'clock in Toronto on the east, you know, in the

05:58:50.640 eastern time zone it's even later out on the actual east coast then most people just don't

05:58:56.180 really want to stay up all night uh to to hear from each and every every uh province in their

05:59:02.120 delegate to find out who won so i think that it obviously would be a lot better if they would just

05:59:07.380 announce the winner we want to know and i'm hearing from conservative sources that it's going to

05:59:12.080 happen soon party sources say it's going to happen soon i i feel like we've heard that one before

05:59:17.720 Andrew. But yeah, I think that at this point, they should just announce the winner and let us get on

05:59:24.720 with it. What do you think? Yeah, especially since there is still going to be a speech from the

05:59:28.700 winner after. And again, we mentioned earlier, potential for a press conference, even after

05:59:34.380 that. So that would be depending on how long the speeches go. And then they are politicians,

05:59:38.440 you never know, could be an extra, you know, 20, 30 minutes. So that is, I think, a very

05:59:43.600 interesting decision by the Conservative Party of Canada. Again, when they come back, they could

05:59:48.260 change it. There was a CTV News report that said they are down to the last 800 votes. And I won't

05:59:55.980 even pretend to do math on the spot about how long it took from when they were at the last 6,000

06:00:02.020 votes to now. But depending on how long it takes them to go through that 800 vote gap that they

06:00:09.320 may have, which again, is from a report that I haven't seen. We could be dealing with a little

06:00:15.420 bit of time left, especially if this is going manually. I thought it may be good while we are

06:00:19.860 waiting to revisit some of the highlights from earlier in the evening. And one of them, I think,

06:00:26.520 was a section of Andrew Scheer's speech where he certainly singled us out by name in a favorable

06:00:31.260 way at True North. But I would say, generally speaking, singled out press freedom in relation

06:00:38.720 to independent press and this was a great moment let's roll the clip of Andrew Scheer's

06:00:43.560 outgoing speech as conservative leader earlier this evening. In times like these

06:00:49.600 it is even more important for every single conservative to stay united and do everything

06:00:56.820 you can to work together to spread our message of hope. So it doesn't matter what kind of

06:01:02.960 conservative you are our party needs all of you and we need you to go out and find more people

06:01:08.400 who share our beliefs. Please stay involved. Be bold. Think. Challenge the mainstream media. Don't

06:01:15.660 take their narrative as fact. Check out smart, independent, objective organizations that are

06:01:21.620 growing all the time, like the Post-Millennial or True North. There are other places to get

06:01:26.980 information. Let's stop being the silent majority. Don't be afraid to challenge leftist professors

06:01:32.660 or public figures. Millions of Canadians share our conservative values. They just don't all know it

06:01:40.060 yet. I know Candace mentioned earlier, I think, the importance of supporting True North and

06:01:47.320 supporting independent media and the work that we're doing. And I will say it's incredibly

06:01:51.640 important that politicians recognize it. And it's not out of vanity. It's not just because,

06:01:56.940 oh, they said our name. It's because of, I think, the space that we're filling in the Canadian

06:02:02.480 media landscape, that recognition and equal access are important. And again, I mean, I know

06:02:08.200 we talk about that independent press gallery event that was supposed to be a debate. But one of the

06:02:13.160 points that I brought up with Erin O'Toole there is that the Erin O'Toole campaign had actually

06:02:18.460 made as part of its platform, granting equal access to the independent press gallery, what

06:02:25.320 the parliamentary press gallery has now and actually bolstering access for independent

06:02:30.680 journalists to government events. And remember the Conservative Party of Canada during the last

06:02:36.200 election had banned David Menzies from Rebel at one point of covering it. I believe Rebel was

06:02:41.680 barred from covering the convention in Halifax a year or two years ago. So the Conservatives

06:02:46.680 record is not exactly unblemished in this area. So the fact that candidates are actually making

06:02:53.780 a point of raising this issue now, or at least responding to it, I do think is encouraging.

06:03:01.640 Yeah absolutely and I think that you know this is it's just a changing landscape and it is so

06:03:07.960 important that we continue to talk about these issues and raise these issues and look Andrew

06:03:14.200 you know we we've been going live here for what four or five hours now and we really couldn't

06:03:20.520 couldn't continue to do this we've got a whole team behind us so you know it's you and I that

06:03:24.920 that are on air, that are at times struggling

06:03:28.480 through this long await with filling in

06:03:32.540 with interviews and stuff.

06:03:33.660 But we have a whole team behind the scenes

06:03:35.320 that we would be remiss if we didn't think.

06:03:37.760 So I just wanna quickly say thank you to Oliver McKenzie,

06:03:42.240 who is our producer, Phil Trin,

06:03:44.000 who is really running around behind the scenes

06:03:46.380 to help us line up interviews.

06:03:48.260 You know, we had Devin Drover on earlier.

06:03:50.540 He's our sort of correspondent out on the East Coast.

06:03:53.520 We have Kozma Zerja, who's a reporter for us

06:03:56.620 on the West Coast, who's doing a lot of our social media.

06:03:59.240 We really do have a whole team of people here.

06:04:01.540 We had Sam Eskenazi join us to do some punditry.

06:04:05.940 Earlier, we had Anthony Fury as well.

06:04:07.860 So we've got a great team with True North

06:04:10.020 and it's great to have that again,

06:04:12.760 great that there are so many Canadians out there

06:04:14.700 supporting us and for all the people supporting us,

06:04:17.320 Andrew, there's a whole bunch of naysayers.

06:04:19.220 I just, I've been focusing on a broadcast,

06:04:22.060 barely been on social media but i went on to my twitter feed uh or not even my twitter feed i

06:04:27.260 just went on to twitter and saw that andrew shearer was trending so i clicked on it and i realized

06:04:31.820 that the tweet one of the top tweets that's making him uh trend right now is a mclean journalist uh

06:04:38.300 who's making fun of me saying that that most journalists i knew would be ashen faced if a

06:04:43.500 partisan leader bashed most media and then singled out their organization and then he said but most

06:04:49.100 journalists didn't come up through a party's comm shot um so i guess he's saying that i shouldn't

06:04:53.580 have shared that clip of andrew sheer um because i should have been embarrassed well i i do recall

06:04:58.700 during the last federal election justin trudeau going out of his way to single out the cbc saying

06:05:03.980 that the liberal party always supports the cbc and then gave a journalist a plate of poutine um

06:05:10.540 and you know i don't remember all the mainstream media journalists getting up in arms over that i

06:05:15.100 know a lot of conservatives were and independent people were but apparently the fact that Andrew

06:05:20.020 Scheer you know gave us props and gave props to post-millennial is is so horrific to these

06:05:26.540 mainstream media journalists and just to fact check this McLean's journalist I've never worked

06:05:31.700 for the conservative party I've never never ever worked for them I was a conservative political

06:05:37.680 staffer about a decade ago working for Jason Kenney but I never worked for the party and I didn't

06:05:44.160 work in their comm shops. So fake news over there at McLean's. Maybe you should fact check your

06:05:49.860 tweets before sending out nonsense like that. But we definitely did hit a nerve with the mainstream

06:05:56.560 media, Andrew. And I think that they probably feel threatened by the fact that a lot of people are

06:06:01.440 tuning out of the mainstream media and tuning into more independent voices. Very much so. And I mean,

06:06:07.540 this is coming at a really point at a really important point when people saw firsthand the

06:06:13.320 contrast between conservatives and the mainstream media journalists in an interview and a clip of

06:06:20.100 that interview that went viral between Natasha Fatah of CBC and Andrew Scheer. And you, I think,

06:06:26.420 Natasha, I know her as well. And I'm not friends, but professionally, I've always had a good rapport

06:06:32.260 with her. And I think she is fair and very reasonable. And the questions that she was

06:06:36.100 putting to Andrew Scheer in this interview, I don't think were necessarily offside because she

06:06:40.940 was giving him the opportunity to respond to them and boy did he so while we wait for the results to

06:06:46.100 come in and we're talking about media bias and mainstream media and its role in covering

06:06:51.060 conservatives we have to play this clip by a popular request of Andrew Scheer on CBC this week

06:06:56.520 I totally hear that sir but allow me to push back a bit on that with with the fact that you've

06:07:03.300 brought up Lesley Lewis being a black woman running for leadership of the party if she were to win the

06:07:08.960 leadership, she could very well become the prime minister of this country. So if you compare the

06:07:13.380 amount of energy and momentum around her story, which arguably was very little, versus someone

06:07:19.740 like Kamala Harris in the United States, there was so much energy around her identity and gaining

06:07:25.140 momentum for the Democrats by putting her in a high profile role. What's the disconnect here? 0.98

06:07:31.000 Why was Kamala Harris lauded and celebrated? And one could argue Leslie Lewis was somewhat

06:07:36.480 forgotten in in the conversation you know that would be a great question for me to ask you and

06:07:41.340 ask your network why you spend so much time talking about american politics and highlighting

06:07:46.680 american candidates here we have a canadian candidate here we have a black woman who's

06:07:51.680 running for the leadership of the party and as for the conversation around the energy around it

06:07:55.900 you can't look to the cbc to find an accurate reporting of what's going on in the conservative

06:08:00.540 party of canada there's a tremendous amount of excitement i think you're going to see less than

06:08:04.260 Louis, placed very, very strong in many, many regions. I'm not going to predict the outcome

06:08:08.320 of the race, but she's generated a tremendous amount of excitement. When you look at what she's,

06:08:13.880 how she's tackled some of these issues based on conservative principles, there is, you know,

06:08:19.120 I don't, I'm not surprised that the mainstream media in Canada is downplaying her candidacy

06:08:23.240 while focusing so much time and attention on American politics. It's always been frustrating

06:08:27.440 for me as a Canadian taxpayer that the state broadcaster in this country, CBC,

06:08:32.380 spend so much time and energy covering American politics,

06:08:36.060 using taxpayers' money to cover politics in another country

06:08:39.880 when they ignore and downplay many of the things happening here in Canada,

06:08:44.340 especially within the Conservative movement.

06:08:45.720 So I'd love to hear an answer to that question from your own network.

06:08:49.620 All right.

06:08:50.400 So we'll put that question to the public broadcaster for you.

06:08:54.840 I mentioned earlier at some point this evening

06:08:57.580 that Conservatives have this id-like quality in them

06:09:00.200 that wants conservative politicians

06:09:02.360 to push back against the mainstream media.

06:09:04.220 And you know that the politicians all want to,

06:09:06.620 but I do genuinely believe

06:09:08.500 they've been suckered into this mentality

06:09:10.060 that you have to play nice with the media.

06:09:11.960 You have to be respectful of the media

06:09:14.060 and of the role of the media

06:09:15.680 and understand that their role is to criticize,

06:09:18.660 but that doesn't mean you have to accept

06:09:20.820 the media's premises.

06:09:22.320 And that's, I think, the key part of this.

06:09:24.320 The media is not used to being called

06:09:26.220 when they show their bias.

06:09:28.840 They're not used to being called on that. So I think that's why that was such a masterclass

06:09:33.400 in political interview. Yeah. And I'll just say it again. I said it earlier on the show,

06:09:39.040 but we might have different people watching. Natasha Fittah is a class act and she's probably 1.00

06:09:43.680 the best journalist over at the CBC. So I definitely don't fault her for asking this.

06:09:48.800 And maybe she didn't even notice. I mean, I think a lot of conservatives pay attention to these

06:09:52.800 things. A lot of conservatives really roll their eyes when they see so much attention and so much

06:09:57.300 fanfare and so much energy from the canadian media first focused on u.s

06:10:01.140 stories uh but also the sort of devotion obsession

06:10:06.020 that the media has with democrats um painting them as if they're these like

06:10:09.860 godlike figures there to save us from the evil

06:10:12.660 donald trump you know kamal harris is not running for

06:10:15.860 president she's running as vp and maybe she'll end up being president if joe

06:10:19.860 biden wins and can't fulfill his duty as president but

06:10:23.220 but really you know the the media is obsessed with kamala harris and at the same time you know

06:10:28.340 there's another woman who's very impressive very fresh very new very energized to the conservative

06:10:34.980 base who the media just ignoring true north had a report that that showed that 500 more headlines 0.99

06:10:41.060 were written about kamala harris just in the past what two weeks um then about leslie lewis and 0.94

06:10:45.780 leslie lewis is running to essentially be prime minister in the country she could very well

06:10:50.420 be the next leader of this party in the morning and yet the mainstream media is not really paying

06:10:54.420 attention to her so certainly cbc deserves to be called out on that and i applaud andrew sheer for

06:11:00.340 finally doing that i wish we'd seen a lot more of that from him but um as we talked about a little

06:11:06.420 bit after his uh speech andrew you know now the pressure's off now he doesn't have to perform

06:11:12.180 he can kind of relax and maybe be himself a bit more uh you know we heard during that speech that

06:11:18.020 that he gave earlier tonight,

06:11:19.500 a lot more about sort of principled philosophical

06:11:22.160 conservatism, really painting the argument

06:11:24.500 that conservatism is the more compassionate worldview

06:11:27.740 and how conservative policies and values and ideas

06:11:32.260 have really helped to create the freedom and prosperity

06:11:35.480 and that there's a really a moral argument

06:11:38.020 towards that worldview.

06:11:40.100 It would have been great to hear more of him

06:11:41.900 talk about that during the campaign,

06:11:43.100 but hey, I'm happy that he's sort of hitting his stride now

06:11:46.100 and saying things that are true

06:11:47.780 that need to be said and deserve to be said.

06:11:50.120 Yes, and one very interesting thing about Andrew Scheer

06:11:53.160 that is easy to forget,

06:11:54.860 because we tend to view politicians

06:11:56.480 not really in terms of who they are as individuals,

06:11:59.340 but he's very young.

06:12:00.800 He's younger than Justin Trudeau.

06:12:02.340 He's, I think, 40 or 41.

06:12:04.640 He's not an old man at all.

06:12:06.600 And that means that he's still got

06:12:09.460 a huge amount of life left in him

06:12:11.780 and potentially political life as well.

06:12:13.980 And a lot of the times when you think about

06:12:15.940 politicians that have stepped down. They're at a point where they can kind of transition into being

06:12:21.680 more ex-officio members of the Canadian political class. Whereas Andrew Scheer, I mean, could easily

06:12:27.380 do a lot of other things. And I don't know what those things will be. I did when I was speaking

06:12:32.000 with him a couple of weeks ago on earth that he plans to stick around as a member of parliament.

06:12:36.360 He wants to run again in 2021 or 2020 or whenever the next election is. So he wants to continue

06:12:43.320 serving. So he could be a cabinet minister conceivably. But I also wouldn't be surprised

06:12:49.120 to see him go as, you know, Premier of Saskatchewan in the future to take on another role somewhere

06:12:55.180 else. And again, I mean, it's purely theoretical at this point. We don't know what the future is

06:12:59.860 going to hold for the Conservatives or for Andrew Scheer. But it is important to note that this is

06:13:04.560 not necessarily the goodbye that it is for some other politicians who are a lot older.

06:13:10.960 Well, 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.

06:13:31.200 So 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.

06:13:48.120 Andrew 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.

06:13:57.200 know the one that this guy with this guy on the board so then you post an article from mcclain's

06:14:02.800 of jerry diaz kind of embracing justin schrudo so andrew shear is there replying to these uh

06:14:09.200 these journalists who are making fun of him and true north same thing paul vieira from the wall

06:14:14.560 street journal said uh shear suggests tories uh should read post-millennial and true north instead

06:14:20.640 of the mainstream media andrew she replied not just tories all canadian so uh good to see andrew

06:14:27.120 sheer punching back in real time trolling uh all the mainstream media who are mocking them and

06:14:33.760 mocking true north it's kind of funny andrew because obviously we weren't expecting uh andrew

06:14:40.080 sheer to give us a shout out like that and it just seemed really seemed to hit a nerve with

06:14:44.080 the media you know there he gave a long speech it was very detailed it was full of interesting

06:14:48.480 things he made one comment about how you know you shouldn't just take the fact of the of the

06:14:53.520 mainstream media you should do research you should look into other areas you should look to new

06:14:58.240 independent outlets like uh post-millennial and true north for your news and all of a sudden you

06:15:02.800 have all these mainstream media journalists like you know the the media party or the mean girls in

06:15:07.440 the media as our friend ezra levant likes to call them um and these journalists all start freaking

06:15:12.160 out and so here again you have uh andrew shared trolling these journalists this is someone from

06:15:18.800 the toronto star um saying partisan endorsements clearly okay with the post-millennial and they

06:15:25.120 post the same image of of sheer making that comment and then andrew sheer replied back

06:15:32.160 with a toronto star article saying liberals are the best choice for canada so you know

06:15:36.880 and his captions so weird eh so weird okay so good to see andrew uh sheer having a good time

06:15:43.760 with these journalists who probably are not used to a politician pushing back and again i guess

06:15:49.680 this brings me to an earlier point i made andrew which is that you know it's too bad that that

06:15:55.200 that industry got pushed out after one election because he did have a good showing you know it

06:15:59.280 was a tough it was an uphill battle he didn't do as well communicating some of the social

06:16:03.440 conservative issues as we wish he had he he stumbled a little bit in his explanations and

06:16:08.640 pushing back to the media he was a little bit too polite and too cute and you know tried to be funny

06:16:12.800 at times when he should have been firmer in some ways i just wish that maybe he would have had a

06:16:18.240 second opportunity because he's becoming more known he's becoming more comfortable you know

06:16:22.800 in some ways he would be a great leader now although that's that's not what's happening but

06:16:28.080 you know the idea that you lose one election and you have to go i think that that's that's tough

06:16:32.720 precedent going forward yeah so we have a couple of updates from ottawa apparently they have 100

06:16:38.560 ballots left and the party has given campaigns a 20-minute warning. Now we are with you for the

06:16:45.080 long haul. The Andrew Scheer resignation speech or farewell speech is just under 14 minutes so

06:16:50.900 we're going to share that speech with you again because it was very popular. The media is not

06:16:55.580 happy with it although as Candace just mentioned Andrew Scheer is not backtracking at all from

06:17:01.140 that so we're going to play that. We are still with you. We are not you know throwing in the

06:17:05.580 towel on this. If the party starts its broadcast before the speech ends, we'll cut away and we'll

06:17:11.460 come back. But the results may be happening within 20 minutes. But let's go to Andrew Scheer's

06:17:16.120 farewell speech delivered earlier this evening. Folks, the Honourable Andrew Scheer.

06:17:22.220 Well, thank you very much Scott, thanks Lisa, thanks Dan, bonsoir tout le monde.

06:17:38.140 What an incredible three years.

06:17:40.720 I have been so honoured to serve as leader of the Conservative Party of Canada and as

06:17:46.220 leader of the official opposition in the House of Commons, leading our amazing team.

06:17:51.020 I am very honored to have been the Chief of the party and the Office of the House of Communities

06:17:58.020 and led our excellent team.

06:18:01.020 Looking back on where we started in 2017 and all that we have accomplished together,

06:18:06.020 I am struck by the determination, strength and resilience of our party.

06:18:12.020 In 2017, no one thought we could win the next election.

06:18:17.020 The media establishment was predicting that Justin Trudeau would easily win two or maybe even three majority governments.

06:18:23.760 He would be Prime Minister for as long as he wanted.

06:18:27.400 But we rolled up our sleeves and reminded voters that Conservatives are the only party fighting for hard-working Canadians.

06:18:36.600 The fact that anyone even considered the 2019 election winnable is because of the incredible success of our entire team.

06:18:45.000 And while we didn't get the result we all would have liked, we did reduce the Trudeau

06:18:50.760 government to a minority and formed the strongest opposition in Canadian history.

06:18:58.000 There are so many people I would like to thank.

06:19:00.960 First off, my House leadership, Shadow Cabinet and Caucus teams.

06:19:05.840 Merci pour vos conseils et votre soutien pendant mon mandat.

06:19:12.860 One of the most frustrating parts of not forming government is stopping to think about what

06:19:17.900 a great group of ministers we would have had if we had won.

06:19:22.440 I know that Canadians would have been far better served during this pandemic had there

06:19:26.540 been a Conservative government in power, and I look forward to the many great things that

06:19:31.600 our next Conservative team will accomplish.

06:19:34.620 J'aimerais aussi remercier Joan Bayless, Hamish Marshall, Kenzie Potter, Marc-André Leclerc et toute l'équipe qui m'ont encouragé à me présenter comme chef et qui sont restés à mes côtés.

06:19:50.620 Ça a parfois été difficile, mais je ne peux pas imaginer un meilleur groupe de personnes pour le faire.

06:19:58.620 To the Office of the Leader of the Opposition and party headquarter teams, thank you for

06:20:04.780 all your hard work over the past three years and throughout this leadership race.

06:20:09.280 I know that the new leader will be in good hands with all of you.

06:20:12.780 I'd also like to thank our entire Conservative Caucus, National Council, Party President

06:20:18.720 Scott Lamb, and all of our thousands and thousands of party members and volunteers.

06:20:24.440 Each of you contribute so much to our movement

06:20:27.720 and are vital to our success.

06:20:31.640 But most of all, I would like to thank my incredible wife,

06:20:35.040 Jill, for her love and support,

06:20:37.660 without which none of this would have been possible.

06:20:41.340 Jill, I love you so much.

06:20:43.120 Thank you for all the sacrifice that you and the kids made

06:20:46.200 over the past few years.

06:20:50.760 I can honestly say that I have never been prouder

06:20:53.260 to be a conservative or to be a Canadian.

06:20:56.720 La pandémie nous a mis au défi,

06:20:59.600 mais elle a aussi montré le meilleur côté des Canadiens

06:21:02.920 partout au pays.

06:21:05.160 Les voisins cédant les unes et les autres,

06:21:07.700 les entreprises trouvant des façons innovatrices

06:21:10.820 de servir leurs clients,

06:21:13.060 et les proches se réunissant pour célébrer

06:21:16.200 des moments importants, même de façon virtuelle.

06:21:20.760 Pendant cette épreuve,

06:21:22.300 Notre équipe conservatrice s'est concentrée sur l'aide aux Canadiens.

06:21:28.800 We have improved the government's response to the pandemic

06:21:32.840 and have never backed down in our fight to keep our parliament open during this crisis.

06:21:39.580 As we look forward to the recovery, Canadians will be faced with a fundamental choice.

06:21:46.680 You see, the left is offering the same failed policies that they always do.

06:21:51.000 Bigger government, more government intervention, and less individual freedom.

06:21:58.880 Mais un gouvernement plus gros et plus omniprésent nuit aux gens.

06:22:05.500 The lie of the left is that the very people they claim they want to help are hurt the most by their policies.

06:22:13.120 They pretend to be motivated by compassion, but there's nothing compassionate about big government intervention.

06:22:21.000 Ever-increasing intervention in the marketplace rewards big corporations who can afford expensive

06:22:27.320 government relations experts. New rules and laws make labour costs so expensive that

06:22:32.360 low-income workers and new entrants into the workforce lose their jobs first.

06:22:37.800 And little by little, fundamental rights and freedoms are eroded.

06:22:42.840 In the 1980s, the Soviet bloc and Eastern European countries all had the same rhetoric.

06:22:47.640 their policies were supposed to help the poor and promote equality, the exact same rhetoric

06:22:53.080 that the left is using today. But all it caused was misery.

06:23:12.760 Today's voters didn't grow up. Many of today's voters didn't grow up watching the wall come down,

06:23:17.640 or looking at the breadlines in East Berlin.

06:23:20.840 So we, as a party, need to constantly be looking

06:23:24.260 for new ways to make the case

06:23:25.840 for the core conservative principles we all believe in.

06:23:28.740 Freedom, limited government, and unlimited potential.

06:23:33.960 Our values and ideals have stood the test of time.

06:23:37.760 For generations, they have guided Canadians

06:23:39.820 through adversity, and they will once again.

06:23:44.140 See, the Liberals are all candy before supper.

06:23:47.000 They make superficial promises and hope you don't blame them for the consequences.

06:23:52.300 Then, all you're left with is a stomachache and a serious case of buyer's remorse.

06:23:58.600 Conservatives, on the other hand, we believe in a balanced meal.

06:24:01.240 We look at the whole picture, and we see the harm and the misery that the policies of the left cause.

06:24:09.500 The Liberals put all their faith in government.

06:24:11.620 They believe that bigger government and more state intervention will somehow solve all of the world's problems.

06:24:17.000 Conservatives fight for those who don't have powerful lobbyists getting insider deals.

06:24:23.740 We fight for the men and women who don't have well-connected friends in Ottawa, who

06:24:26.920 are too busy raising their families and working hard to attend the cocktail circuit.

06:24:33.260 We are your voice.

06:24:36.300 But the biggest risk to freedom and liberty is when people empower government to do more

06:24:40.560 and more for them.

06:24:43.400 It may be tempting to use the government to address the challenges society often faces.

06:24:48.400 But once invited inside, the government is a terrible house guest.

06:24:52.280 It may feel good to vote in a party that is going to overstep the limits of government

06:24:57.360 in order to do something you agree with.

06:24:59.960 However, that invitation is quickly used to justify all sorts of actions you might never

06:25:05.220 have considered.

06:25:06.600 It is far better to keep government within strictly defined limits and leave the rest

06:25:11.460 of society to fulfill its proper role. That is why Conservatives put their faith in people.

06:25:20.100 We know that there is more to society than just government, and that free people, within

06:25:24.260 a free market, working hard and enjoying the fruits of their labour, free to express themselves

06:25:29.540 and live their lives the way they want, that is the recipe for success every single place

06:25:37.580 It's been tried.

06:25:39.160 When given a choice between societies

06:25:40.900 where governments control more and more of their citizens' lives

06:25:44.580 and those where freedom and opportunity are protected,

06:25:47.620 people will always choose freedom.

06:25:50.180 After all, no one ever got shot trying to jump the wall

06:25:53.560 to get into East Berlin or paddle the raft to get to Cuba.

06:25:58.320 We don't even have to go back into the past

06:26:00.420 to see these examples.

06:26:01.780 We just need to look at the mess happening right now

06:26:04.280 in Venezuela and all the tragedy that it is causing.

06:26:07.460 At a time when the establishment elites are doing everything they can to defeat us, at

06:26:25.500 a time when dozens of groups like Lead Now and Unifor pay millions of dollars to run

06:26:30.940 ads against us and bash our policies at a time when the mainstream media bias in this

06:26:37.240 country has never been more clear.

06:26:42.560 In times like this, it is up to the Conservative Party to unite Canadians instead of allowing

06:26:49.560 the left to divide Canadians.

06:26:54.340 At a time when our kids, when young people, have never been taught the value of those

06:27:00.040 free market principles, where they've actually been taught that there's something wrong

06:27:04.720 with free markets and individual liberty.

06:27:09.400 In times like these, it is even more important for every single Conservative to stay united

06:27:16.620 and do everything you can to work together to spread our message of hope.

06:27:22.440 So it doesn't matter what kind of Conservative you are, our party needs all of you, and we

06:27:27.300 We need you to go out and find more people who share our beliefs.

06:27:31.980 Please stay involved.

06:27:33.040 Be bold.

06:27:34.040 Think.

06:27:35.040 Challenge the mainstream media.

06:27:36.360 Don't take their narrative as fact.

06:27:38.500 Check out smart, independent, objective organizations that are growing all the time, like the Post

06:27:44.180 Millennial or True North.

06:27:46.380 There are other places to get information.

06:27:48.960 Let's stop being the silent majority.

06:27:51.420 Don't be afraid to challenge leftist professors or public figures.

06:27:55.720 of Canadians share our Conservative values. They just don't all know it yet.

06:28:04.760 Now, I know that we can win the next election.

06:28:16.200 Today, I am leaving the next leader with 121 amazing MPs from coast to coast.

06:28:25.000 In 2015, we won around 31% of the vote. In 2019, we won 34.4%, won the popular vote,

06:28:33.560 and formed the strongest opposition in Canadian history.

06:28:38.280 I'm also proud to say tonight that the Conservative Party of Canada is officially debt-free.

06:28:47.400 We are in an excellent position, but we cannot be complacent.

06:28:51.320 Our party's unity has been tested in the past, and media love nothing more than writing

06:28:55.720 about disgruntled Conservatives, so we cannot give them that opportunity.

06:29:00.520 For the last few months, the different candidates and their supporters have been highlighting

06:29:04.520 the differences between them. After tonight, let's all come together

06:29:10.840 and focus on the things that unite us. We must stay squarely concentrated on working together

06:29:18.680 and focusing on the many things we share in common.

06:29:40.280 Where they will use the pandemic as an excuse to reward their friends, 0.66

06:29:43.640 conservatives will clean up their corruption. Where they will play the politics of envy,

06:29:48.520 we will spread a message of hope and opportunity where they will attack our energy sector we will

06:29:55.160 champion it and celebrate the prosperity it creates for all canadians where they will demonize people

06:30:01.000 for having different views on issues facing canadians we will not attack people for their

06:30:05.560 deeply held positions but instead look to find the common ground alors qu'ils vont diriger

06:30:12.760 a fédération centrée sur Ottawa, nous allons respecter les compétences provinciales et la

06:30:18.620 nation québécoise. And when they let Canadians down, as they always do, we will be ready to

06:30:27.000 offer them a Conservative government that puts people first. And after tonight, let's all rally

06:30:33.960 behind the new leader and do everything we can to make sure that the next leader of the Conservative

06:30:39.880 party becomes the next prime minister of this great country. Serving in this role has been the

06:30:47.000 greatest honor of my professional life. I want to thank all the members, all the volunteers,

06:30:52.040 the member of our fantastic team so much. This has been such an honor. Thank you very much.

06:30:58.200 Thank you so much for all the support that you've given to me and my family,

06:31:02.680 and we will get them in the next election. Thank you very much. Merci beaucoup.

06:31:09.880 well here we are it is now well we're in our seventh hour because we started we've done six

06:31:19.000 hours which means we're in our seventh hour of the true north live conservative leadership results

06:31:24.520 show i'm andrew lawton joined by candace malcolm and again we've had a lot to get through a lot

06:31:31.400 of back and forth on where things are in the result process and the counting process if you

06:31:36.360 folks the honor but we are supposedly down to double digit numbers of the number of ballots

06:31:44.380 that are remaining so the latest was about a hundred and that was i think 15 minutes ago or so

06:31:49.380 results are supposedly going to be coming within the next 10 to 15 minutes again i mean you have

06:31:55.140 to take with a few grains of salt anyone who has claimed to have knowledge of the specific time

06:32:00.260 because this was supposed to start at 6 p.m. Eastern

06:32:03.380 and it's now just after 11.30 Eastern time.

06:32:06.620 If you are in Atlantic Canada,

06:32:08.320 if you're in Newfoundland, it's right now 1 a.m.

06:32:10.420 So you've probably tapped out.

06:32:12.020 If you're in BC, it's 8.30.

06:32:13.420 So you're just getting started.

06:32:14.600 If you're in any other part of the world,

06:32:16.540 I don't know what time it is.

06:32:17.780 But regardless, thank you to all of you

06:32:19.520 who have been watching.

06:32:20.560 This has been something that was actually,

06:32:22.640 I should say, Candice, a bit of a,

06:32:24.460 not necessarily an experiment for us.

06:32:26.180 We've done live shows with our weekly True North update,

06:32:29.000 but this sort of a anchored live show around an event was a bit of a new one for us. So I don't

06:32:34.080 know if, I mean, obviously we want them to be a bit shorter next time, but I am so far actually

06:32:38.240 happy all things considered about how it's gone. Well, we've learned a lot together, haven't we,

06:32:43.040 Andrew? Uh, you know, initially we were going to have a 30 minute broadcast prior to the results

06:32:48.540 coming in. About half of that was interviews that Andrew had done. So, so, you know, we've been live

06:32:53.240 here for seven hours. We did a pre-show for an hour before Andrew was doing interviews all day.

06:32:58.020 so we've really been non-stop and you know unlike our friends at the mainstream media we don't have

06:33:02.580 a huge budget we don't have a huge production team it's basically just us with uh oliver our

06:33:07.620 producer and phil our producer executive producer behind the scenes putting this all together and so

06:33:13.860 you know huge uh thank you to you guys uh behind the scenes uh for that you know if we're over at

06:33:18.900 the cbc we would have people interns bringing us coffee and and people bringing us different uh

06:33:24.980 interesting tidbits to talk about and we'd have all kinds of clips that we could throw to and

06:33:30.020 you know life would be a lot easier but you know the life of an independent journalist isn't quite

06:33:35.220 as glamorous as the life of a cbc journalist i guess andrew but i all things considered i'm

06:33:40.980 you know pretty happy with our broadcast i think we still have a couple thousand people watching

06:33:44.900 across the mediums between facebook and and youtube which which is great for a very small

06:33:50.420 outlet like us and i think the numbers have been higher at other points in the night so we're very

06:33:54.340 happy with it and we thank you you know to each and every one of you who's who's stuck with us

06:33:58.580 and and watched all of our interviews and this entire show really really appreciate it you know

06:34:03.380 we are still growing and and and learning and trying to get our message out there and trying

06:34:08.020 to provide the kind of coverage that canadians are looking for i'll just say it again you know

06:34:13.460 we replay this uh the the speech from andrew sheer it was great to hear uh to have him you know push

06:34:18.660 back against the mainstream media in his speech tell canadians specifically to you know question

06:34:23.860 the the the facts that are coming from mainstream media because they're not always true and to look

06:34:28.180 to alternative sources of news and media and he he said specifically post-millennial and true north

06:34:33.700 which obviously is a huge compliment for us i'm not going to pretend uh that it isn't but apparently

06:34:39.540 to some of the journalists watching and and commenting on twitter um it was very unbecoming

06:34:46.100 of us to share that clip andrew because we we should have been uh embarrassed and humiliated

06:34:51.300 by the fact that a partisan politician mentioned us instead of actually, you know, sharing that

06:34:56.360 message and supporting it. So I guess that's part of the reason why they just don't consider us

06:35:01.740 real journalists over here at True North. Yeah, and one of them was from a member of the

06:35:06.100 Parliamentary Press Gallery, who many of our viewers and supporters know we've had a bit of a

06:35:11.520 battle of sorts with because it was the Parliamentary Press Gallery that was instrumental

06:35:15.680 in barring True North from covering the election debate. So when people in this exclusive club that

06:35:21.180 has, by government mandate, a greater access to practice journalism than other people is

06:35:27.180 kind of snarking at the recognition of independent media, there's a big problem. And that's why it's

06:35:32.520 important to fight for it. So this is, I guess, proving that no timeline can be taken for granted

06:35:38.340 or taken at face value. About 15 minutes ago, we were given the 20 minute warning. And as per our

06:35:44.400 friend Brian Lilly, he just tweeted a moment ago that the 15 minute warning didn't apparently start

06:35:50.580 right away. The 15 minute warning had a delayed start time. So there was actually a 15 minute

06:35:56.080 warning for the 15 minute warning. So according to Brian Lilly, the 15 minute warning went into

06:36:01.260 effect at 1130 Eastern, which means at 1135 Eastern, which is what the time is now, we are

06:36:07.760 supposedly 10 minutes away. So at this point, I don't even know why we're bothering with the times,

06:36:11.680 but we are giving you the information as we get it. That's the fun of a live show. And we are,

06:36:17.100 as I said, at this point, we're committed to it. We've had a lot of support from people on

06:36:22.720 social media. And while we are waiting, I guess let's actually put an invitation. I mean,

06:36:28.000 I'm watching Twitter right now more than anything else. So if you want to tweet me

06:36:30.940 at Andrew Lawton, your thoughts on the race predictions, questions, we can turn this into

06:36:35.840 a bit more of a, not necessarily casual, but a bit more of an informal conversation now just as

06:36:41.740 we wait for the results to start. So if you have any questions, you can tweet me at Andrew Lawton

06:36:46.240 And 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.

06:37:05.020 And 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.

06:37:23.420 And 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.

06:37:46.520 And there are a few exceptions to this.

06:37:48.440 Obviously, we had Kevin O'Leary last time, but he came in with some celebrity.

06:37:53.140 So that helped him do well.

06:37:54.780 And ultimately, he didn't think he was going to win.

06:37:56.780 And that's why he bowed out of the race.

06:37:58.700 So I don't know if what Leslie Lewis did was something that could be replicated or if it

06:38:03.260 was just the right candidate, the right team, the right strategy at the right point in time

06:38:07.880 when there wasn't a lot of other options stepping forward.

06:38:11.480 Well, it's interesting because the rules sort of changed last time around.

06:38:14.620 it seemed like there's sort of course correction on behalf of the conservative party and the people

06:38:19.100 who run these kind of things because you know in the race to replace stephen harper after the 2015

06:38:24.860 election uh that i guess it was in 2015 2016 um we had so many candidates you know we had i think

06:38:32.780 there there was 18 candidates or something like that and they didn't have any kind of a cutoff

06:38:37.500 so i was always kind of expecting you know half the the the ballots to drop off and then have a

06:38:43.340 smaller race near the end the way that the republicans sort of do it down in the us where

06:38:47.580 the the group gets smaller and smaller um i i guess at that point they wanted more people more

06:38:53.180 ideas in some ways that leadership race andrew was was much more about ideas you had different

06:38:58.700 kinds of conservatives putting forth different ideas you recall you had maxine bernier who

06:39:03.660 really was a libertarian and kind of morphed into this new populist uh leader in canada but we also

06:39:09.580 had people like Kelly Leach who were proposing just something a little different with regards to

06:39:14.300 immigration uh integration talking about having some kind of a values test for people coming into

06:39:20.700 Canada which of course the media blew that out completely out of proportion um but but all that's

06:39:25.900 just to say that there was a lot more people involved a lot more regions represented and

06:39:29.980 different kinds of conservatives uh this time I think they wanted to avoid that large large field

06:39:34.700 of just so many candidates and sort of lack of focus and you know I think it ended up taking

06:39:39.180 14 ballots or something to determine that Andrew Scheer was you know became the leader and so this

06:39:45.580 time around they made it more restrictive there was a higher barrier in terms of the amount of

06:39:49.820 money raised and it's no easy fee I mean Lesley Lewis said it herself that she didn't think

06:39:54.060 initially that she would have enough support to be able to raise that three hundred thousand

06:39:59.260 dollar threshold well she ended up raising two million dollars which is a huge amount of money

06:40:04.140 for you know a new candidate in Canada it's a relatively small country we don't have as much

06:40:08.940 money in our politics as they do in the US it's all just sort of small money grassroots

06:40:13.980 campaign donations and contributions so you know regardless of what the results are I think

06:40:18.460 Lesley Lewis really really did accomplish something spectacular and I think that the

06:40:23.260 Conservatives should really continue with that momentum make sure that Lesley Lewis is in a key

06:40:28.860 position that she runs for in a riding it's relatively safe that she can win she can have a

06:40:33.900 seat uh in parliament and and be a strong voice going forward conservatives because i think she's

06:40:38.940 got a great tone a great message she appeals to a lot of people you know one of the criticisms 0.99

06:40:43.820 about her is that she didn't have a very well scripted campaign or that she wasn't necessarily 0.99

06:40:50.060 ready for prime time or as smooth as she should be well look you know she's brand new to the game 0.97

06:40:54.060 she's got a lot of time to grow and i hope that she does have a future uh in in the party and

06:40:58.940 also in the broader conservative movement in canada we uh asked for your questions on twitter

06:41:04.940 we'll read a couple that have come in and by the way a lot of tweets that have come in from people

06:41:08.620 that aren't even questions just uh congratulations i i mean i'm honored and quite humbled by this

06:41:13.420 we're we're having a good time doing this so thank you very much for your support uh kelly creek

06:41:17.900 dairy says thoughts on the next leader of the conservatives not running against trudeau but

06:41:21.500 but another leader of the Liberals like Freeland.

06:41:24.200 And there was another tweet along a similar vein.

06:41:26.680 What's the deal with the mainstream media 0.94

06:41:27.980 hailing Chrystia Freeland as some kind of new savior?

06:41:30.740 This is, I think, interesting.

06:41:32.340 And I thought that when Justin Trudeau won the last election,

06:41:35.980 that he was kind of phoning it in

06:41:37.440 in the first couple of months of his premiership.

06:41:39.780 And I think was probably ready to hand over the reins

06:41:42.180 to someone else because he had downloaded

06:41:44.420 so many of his responsibilities to Freeland.

06:41:47.180 And then the pandemic hit and all of a sudden

06:41:48.740 we need to have the prime minister.

06:41:50.480 We need to have someone stepping forward.

06:41:52.500 So I think that has renewed his relevance to his party and his relevance to his government

06:41:57.880 when he was trying to backtrack.

06:41:59.820 He said the other day at a press conference that, yes, he's going to be on the ballot

06:42:03.360 next time.

06:42:04.280 But what are your thoughts, Candace?

06:42:05.620 I mean, do you think the Conservatives need to be abandoning the strategy that seems to

06:42:09.100 have been there since 2015 of just running against Justin Trudeau?

06:42:14.060 Well, I think that was certainly part of the problem for Andrew Scheer.

06:42:17.700 you know, during this last campaign, the SNC-Lavalin scandal was so devastating. And for

06:42:22.740 folks that were really tuned in and paying attention to sort of, you know, political

06:42:26.220 insiders like you and I, Andrew, it seemed like it was, you know, that was going to be the end of

06:42:31.180 the liberal government, the end of Justin Trudeau. I remember there was a really devastating

06:42:37.080 cover on Maclean's magazine, calling him the imposter, and just seemed like, okay,

06:42:42.000 the mask has fallen off, you know, the emperor has no clothes. Once the mainstream media turns on you,

06:42:46.820 there's not really anything there there with Justin Trudeau there's a substance and so if he

06:42:51.320 doesn't have the loving admiration of his friends in the mainstream media what does he have but

06:42:56.680 clearly that wasn't enough you know Canadians weren't as tuned into the SNC level scandal

06:43:01.200 maybe it was more complex obviously Trudeau got downgraded to a minority government he didn't win

06:43:07.460 the popular vote Andrew Schur got more individual votes cast for him and so I thought the conservatives

06:43:12.100 actually did a pretty good job last time around but they didn't get the coveted uh government you

06:43:17.240 know obviously Andrew Scheer wanted to become prime minister so I think that there is a lesson

06:43:21.660 learned there which is that you have to offer something different you can't just say you know

06:43:26.620 we're not them um Canadians want to have a strong alternative they want to understand what it is

06:43:31.980 that that is going to be the next government what what the platform is what the values are

06:43:36.460 and instead of just running about what we're not you know you have to really put forth uh something

06:43:41.820 and I think we've talked about it a little bit throughout the podcast, Andrew, which is that,

06:43:46.060 you know, there is a really tremendous story to be told. The conservative worldview needs to be

06:43:52.220 emphasized and it's such an easy story to tell that you need someone who's really unabashed,

06:43:57.900 unafraid, willing to tell that story and just culturally at this moment in time, you know,

06:44:03.260 we're living through some really strange times, not just with COVID and not just with all these

06:44:07.820 scandals in government but just more broadly speaking where we we see this the rise of cancel

06:44:13.180 culture these woke social justice warriors who are trying to say that you know if you don't believe

06:44:18.860 exactly the same things that they believe in and you don't agree with their extreme ideology on

06:44:22.940 every point uh you shouldn't have a platform you shouldn't exist that you know they go out of their

06:44:26.860 way to try to uh cancel and remove platforms from any conservative in canada that has a platform

06:44:32.860 they've done it to rex murphy they did it to barbara k to conrad black uh you know we saw

06:44:37.980 stock all day get kicked off the show uh at uh cbc just for saying something really mild um that

06:44:44.140 wasn't ill-intended at all and so i think more and more canadians are looking at this trend

06:44:49.340 with with concern and they want someone who's going to push back and provide sort of a common

06:44:53.740 sense appeal and that's really where conservatives can can step in and be the counter voice to to

06:44:59.420 this sort of woke out of control left leftist madness um that has really captured the imagination

06:45:05.740 not just of the liberal party but also the mainstream media and so many other mainstream

06:45:10.780 institutions in canada it's time that someone pushed back against it i think conservatives are

06:45:14.780 well positioned to do that so i think that all this is just to say the conservatives have a lot

06:45:18.380 going for them they should really try to communicate that more to canadians what they do stand for

06:45:23.260 what they believe in and not just uh hey look you know true liberals are corrupt yeah we all know

06:45:28.380 that but we've got to do something more i think in order to replace the government so i'm hearing

06:45:34.300 from a source in one of the campaigns right now just so you all know that 35 000 ballots were

06:45:42.140 sliced by the machine and had to be fixed so earlier we were told that it was somewhere in

06:45:46.940 the range of four or five thousand now we're being told 35 000 ballots now again this is coming from

06:45:53.180 a campaign so so take that with a grain of salt although this doesn't seem to be anything that is

06:45:57.580 is particularly biased or partisan. This is just a statement of fact. So again, it puts things into

06:46:03.340 perspective. And what was interesting, I mean, a lot of people, yes, of course, were complaining

06:46:07.960 about the delays. And, you know, I count myself in that category, not as complaining necessarily,

06:46:13.160 but certainly pointing it out. But ultimately, even the people on the campaigns that I were

06:46:17.240 speaking to were saying, we've got to get it right. I mean, a rushed result would be worse

06:46:21.860 than a delayed result when it comes into questioning the integrity of some of the

06:46:26.560 information. So that is one of the details and all the more impressive that they seem to be down to

06:46:32.500 at least the final few ballots, if not completely done right now. The latest estimated start time

06:46:39.620 for results was 11.45pm Eastern. It is now 11.46pm Eastern. So perhaps it's going to be bumped back

06:46:46.060 again, or perhaps we'll actually be looking at a result that's coming in the mere moment. So we

06:46:52.340 are monitoring that and we'll throw to it the second that we have that available. I mentioned

06:46:57.320 earlier in the show that I think one of the challenges here is the Conservative Party's

06:47:01.980 required usage of mail-in ballots. And I think I'd suggest it offhandedly, online ballots. I

06:47:08.380 actually got a lot of pushback from that. People saying that online voting only makes the integrity

06:47:13.880 question more of an issue rather than less of one. I would love to find a secure way to do

06:47:21.140 a vote that's a little bit more modernized. I don't know what that would look like without

06:47:25.200 compromising security, though. Do you have any ideas, Candace? Well, I remember looking into this

06:47:30.000 some time ago, back when I was a political science student, and, you know, reading what the sort of

06:47:36.080 leading people in the field at the time were saying was that basically, there was just no way

06:47:40.700 to do these kind of elections, you know, either digitally or through mail-in ballots. There's all

06:47:46.820 kinds of security and fraud issues. I mean, you know, it's already difficult as it is just given

06:47:52.440 that you, well, Andrew, you've broken stories in the past of people showing up to vote without any

06:47:57.940 ID, people who may or may not even be Canadian citizens trying to vote in general elections,

06:48:03.200 people who are, you know, in Canada as permanent residents or refugees even that haven't even had

06:48:09.480 their paperwork process that are being invited to vote. There are all kinds of issues with

06:48:14.520 integrity and so when you move it away from in person and you put it online and into mailing

06:48:20.140 ballots even uh there's just so many security concerns so i i at this point i wouldn't be too

06:48:25.820 confident i haven't read the the recent literature maybe they've found ways to make it more secure

06:48:30.100 but i would i would certainly be be skeptical of that i think that the best way to vote is still

06:48:35.300 good old-fashioned in-person voting uh obviously you know given the the situation with covid and

06:48:41.160 everything that wasn't possible and you know this is the reality with with something like

06:48:46.040 a mail-in ballot i'm a little disappointed with the conservatives for not being more forthright

06:48:49.960 i mean how many times have we heard a new time tonight it just hasn't come true it's like hey

06:48:55.320 guys you know politicians already have a reputation of not being trustworthy and you know when they

06:49:00.840 say things that they're not really telling the truth uh you know this is exactly an example of

06:49:05.640 that here where we're you know we're told it's going to be six o'clock then we're told it's

06:49:09.400 to be eight o'clock now we're told 11 30 actually we're told very precisely 11 42 um and then that

06:49:15.400 was clearly not the case so the the campaigns are being told that they are given 15 minute notice

06:49:21.400 before the results are supposed to come in we've been given that 15 minute notice a couple of times

06:49:26.200 now and uh we still don't have the results and the fact that they're now saying that it was 35 000 or

06:49:31.800 we're now hearing that it was 30 000 ripped ballots and not the 2 000 that we were initially

06:49:36.760 told us like, what's the story here? Just tell us it straight. Tell us the truth. Don't give us

06:49:43.780 these half answers that turn out to be not true. That's exactly why people don't really trust

06:49:48.360 politicians and political parties in the first place. Yeah, at this point, I think it's gone on

06:49:53.140 long enough. Stacey Abrams thinks she's the winner of the conservative leadership race, which 1.00

06:49:57.180 is eventually what happens with any delayed election. So we have to be very mindful of that.

06:50:01.700 she might show up for question period when parliament resumes. I do think that, you know,

06:50:06.860 it's so interesting because obviously candidates and campaigns have to be optimistic and they have

06:50:12.280 to be confident. But I go back to the point that I raised earlier, which is the level of confidence

06:50:17.720 from the O'Toole campaign. I mean, I don't know if it's bravado or ignorance or genuine reliance

06:50:24.540 on their data. I mean, we heard the numbers from Aaron O'Toole campaign manager, Fred DeLaurie

06:50:29.420 earlier, saying that they did exit polls of 51,000 people, of 51,000 voters out of 172,000.

06:50:37.840 If those polling results are accurate, and this is not predictive polling, but exit polling,

06:50:43.740 as in how did you vote? If that's accurate, yeah, I'd be inclined to trust the O'Toole campaign,

06:50:49.100 but we all know campaigns seem to have a blind spot for their own data and for their own results.

06:50:54.420 Absolutely. I mean, every campaign that I've spoken to says that they think their candidate

06:50:58.180 is going to win uh obviously you know when we had uh steve outhouse from less than lewis campaign he

06:51:04.500 didn't want to make any predictions but definitely you know when you when you speak to them off the

06:51:09.380 record and on background and stuff they all think their their people are going to win so i don't

06:51:13.860 know if it's just uh optimism of a campaign or or selective uh information that they choose to

06:51:19.860 consume but yeah at this point you kind of wonder like what's what's the benefit in saying that your

06:51:24.660 campaign is going to win. You're going to turn around if that's not actually the case.

06:51:29.060 Because you look really bad if you're wrong and you look really good if you were humble and,

06:51:33.300 well, I don't know, we hope to win. So it's a high stakes game when you act this confident

06:51:38.660 even after the votes are in. Yeah, exactly. And again, there's nothing really to gain other than

06:51:44.100 just to say that you believe that your campaign did a good job or whatever. But yeah, no, I think

06:51:50.660 that there probably is something to their polling and i wouldn't be surprised if that is how the

06:51:54.660 results come out even some of the things that we're sort of hearing about how the mckay team

06:51:59.620 is challenging each and every ballot well that would sort of indicate that they're behind they're

06:52:03.780 trailing and they're trying to catch up and make up for votes you know which is why again we're

06:52:09.220 told that perhaps you know the speculation that that's why we're so delayed is because

06:52:13.540 the sorry the mccade uh campaign is questioning a lot of the results and and and you know wanting

06:52:20.820 to double check everything and again that would that would indicate that they were behind but

06:52:25.620 again you don't you don't want to speculate based on half half uh true information or based on

06:52:32.180 things that you're hearing and that kind of thing so it doesn't really benefit you uh in the end

06:52:37.300 well andrew i know this wasn't really the the night that we expected at all um you know we still have

06:52:43.380 our staff meeting scheduled for tomorrow morning yeah we do uh we do a true north scrum every

06:52:48.580 monday morning bright and early and so andrew and i might be a little burnt out for that call

06:52:53.540 uh just to any uh true north staff uh paying attention right now you know you might have to

06:52:58.500 carry the call tomorrow but um yeah we did we did a a pool inside of true north where we predicted

06:53:05.540 the outcome uh just a little friendly internal poll among true north uh staff and i i was pretty

06:53:13.540 surprised i think that most people who work for true north predicted that erin o'toole would win

06:53:19.140 uh most people predicted that that uh that peter mckay would come in second uh given that you know

06:53:24.820 mckay is supposedly the front runner he's the one that had the most name recognition he he's got the

06:53:29.700 you know the thickest resume and he was one of the founders essentially of this party

06:53:34.340 Andrew, why do you think that so many people on our team were leaning more towards thinking that

06:53:40.340 Erin O'Toole was going to win? It's tough to say. I think a lot of the discussions that I had with

06:53:45.700 some of our friends and colleagues were really coming down to the ranking. I think people seeing

06:53:49.860 a lot of support for Sloan and Lewis and just not seeing Peter McKay as having that 50% threshold

06:53:55.780 that he would need to win without down ballot support. And I think that's what it came down to.

06:54:00.500 And 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.

06:54:09.140 And they still were just kind of looking at where they thought things were going with it.

06:54:13.760 And a lot of us had the same results, but very different paths to get there.

06:54:19.260 Yeah, that's right. And different people who they thought would, you know, come in second or come in third, different percentages and all that.

06:54:26.400 And certainly not endorsing any candidate or anything, just predicting it.

06:54:31.820 It's kind of always fun to see these office pools.

06:54:35.120 I think only one person on our entire team had Peter McKay winning.

06:54:39.280 So if McKay does pull it off, that one person will walk away with a lot of bragging rights

06:54:45.620 and a little bit of cash too.

06:54:48.020 So it should be interesting.

06:54:50.200 Keep the night interesting, I guess.

06:54:51.560 Yes, 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.

06:55:18.700 But 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.

06:55:37.940 We have another tweet here saying that this is from someone else, Western Standard, saying

06:55:44.680 that Aaron O'Toole has been told that he has won.

06:55:47.380 Now, the reason I share that with you is because we were told by the party that when the results

06:55:52.960 are broadcast live, the candidates will be hearing them for the first time.

06:55:56.360 So if he has been, as they say, told he has won, it might not mean by any official source,

06:56:01.700 but rather by scrutineers in the room that are just saying, yeah, we think you've won.

06:56:05.760 So I take that with a grain of salt if you see it circulating, but I share that just to give the

06:56:10.160 context that the party has said unequivocally that candidates will not be given advanced knowledge

06:56:16.400 of a win. Interesting. And yet we were told that they were going to go to a press conference. So

06:56:23.360 I guess the winner would just find out spontaneously, which I guess is pretty much what happens

06:56:29.040 when these results are delivered live at a convention. But again, I don't even really

06:56:34.800 know at this point, Andrew, if they're going to just announce the first ballot and then we're

06:56:38.720 going to have to wait for the second ballot, are they still going province by province? Have they

06:56:42.320 just scrapped that? Do we know anything about what the ceremony is going to look like once they

06:56:45.920 finally do come back? The last I heard was that they're still going to province by province. Now,

06:56:51.420 I mean, we heard how long it took to do the introductions of the people from the various

06:56:55.720 provinces that were going to be doing their announcements. So I don't know if they have

06:57:02.600 those people on retainer and they have to stick with the province by province analysis. But I do

06:57:07.960 think that at this point, that has not changed officially, though once the parties come back,

06:57:12.540 we may see a little bit of a change. So just if you're tuning in, again, I'm getting a bunch of

06:57:17.080 people asking about this tweet that said Erin O'Toole has been told he won. The party has said

06:57:21.960 that candidates are not being told in advance. So if a candidate has been told that they are

06:57:27.680 victorious, it would have to have been from a scrutineer. And I don't actually know if

06:57:32.000 scrutineers have the full numbers. I like they could be keeping their own ballot counts, of

06:57:37.380 course. But as I understand it, they'd be just looking at individual ballots. I don't think

06:57:42.000 they're getting a final tally that they're leaving the room with. So so take this all with with a

06:57:47.020 grain of salt. I know I've used that expression a few times tonight. But I think we need that much

06:57:50.720 salt with a lot of the information that's coming out because the longer it goes, the higher the

06:57:55.200 stakes are. And I think the easier it is for for things that are in some cases, rumors, maybe it's

06:57:59.940 a half truth or just something that's entirely untrue to be able to get around. So that's my

06:58:06.060 TED talk on this, if you will. Well, it is good to know. And again, yeah,

06:58:10.580 there's lots of circulation. And with anything, social media, you know, you hear rumors and you

06:58:15.120 don't know how true they are, where they're coming from. Andrew, I'll ask you a bit of a more,

06:58:19.780 not a personal question, but a professional question about this race. You've gotten to sit

06:58:23.560 down and interview all of the candidates except for Peter McKay, who for some reason didn't want

06:58:28.480 to. You interviewed them at the start of the race. And then again, near the end, when we did the

06:58:32.380 fireside chats, was there anything that sort of surprised you from what the candidates had to say

06:58:38.040 in your interviews? What was the sort of biggest thing that you learned from sitting down with

06:58:42.900 them? It's actually an interesting question. I would say that nothing surprised me really about

06:58:51.260 the interviews that I did. I think in some cases I was really in, what's a good way of putting it?

06:58:57.840 I was very pleased with how the candidates carried themselves in the face of criticism.

06:59:04.680 And to look at the most recent interviews, the Independent Press Gallery fireside chats,

06:59:09.100 both Aaron O'Toole and Derek Sloan were in the hot seat.

06:59:12.940 And it was a bit of a distinct experience for us because we were planning on doing a

06:59:17.220 debate.

06:59:17.980 But ultimately, what we were looking to do was showcase the candidates and showcase the

06:59:24.580 campaigns.

06:59:24.980 And we did that in a different format.

06:59:26.460 And in a one-on-one interview, there's nowhere to hide. Your talking points won't save you.

06:59:31.120 Soundbites won't save you. If you don't answer the question, I was pressing them on it. And both of

06:59:35.800 them said things that I might not like or whatnot, but they both, I'd say, composed themselves very

06:59:41.680 well. And when they were pushed, when they did have pushback from me, I thought they did very

06:59:46.420 well. Now, I don't think it's fair to compare interviews later on in the race with at the

06:59:51.020 beginning of the race because candidates, especially newer candidates, grow. Lesley Lewis,

06:59:56.020 I sat down with once very early on, and I didn't think she was exceptional. I thought she was good,

07:00:01.140 but I've also seen her improve throughout the race. I mean, even from some of the earlier 0.83

07:00:07.220 interviews she did to the English language debate to some of the later interviews,

07:00:11.520 she really rose to it. And Derek Sloan as well. I saw him do a couple of speeches actually

07:00:16.920 a few weeks from one another. And even between the first and the second, he had improved a fair

07:00:22.020 bit. So for Peter McKay and Erin O'Toole, I mean, they've been in politics for a while. What you see

07:00:26.800 is what you get. But I was really interested to see how Leslyn Lewis and Derek Sloan really

07:00:33.060 continued to improve throughout the race, even though it was a challenging race. And for Leslyn

07:00:37.840 Lewis, especially, who's not a member of parliament, a relatively new experience.

07:00:42.920 Absolutely. And so unfortunately, you did not get the opportunity to sit down with Peter McKay. He's

07:00:47.560 the only one who declined to take up our invitation to come and do a one-on-one interview. And

07:00:53.000 unfortunately, again, he didn't show up to the Independent Press Gallery's debate that we held.

07:00:59.040 But Andrew, you did get a chance to ask him a question, which was after, I believe it was the

07:01:04.120 English leader debate that was held through the official Conservative Party. So we have that clip

07:01:11.020 of you asking a question to peter mckay on his position on hate speech let's go to that clip now

07:01:17.900 good evening mr mckay in the previous parliament the justice committee had done studies on on

07:01:23.820 potentially reviving a new version of the old section 13 which was the part of the canadian

07:01:29.340 human rights act that went after online speech and the new version that ended up being recommended

07:01:34.940 was something that would look at putting liability on social social media companies that have what

07:01:40.460 What 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.

07:01:49.260 Do you support something like this?

07:01:51.340 What I support, Andrew, frankly, is greater emphasis on protecting children from online abuse, from luring.

07:01:58.220 And we tried to do that when I was in government.

07:02:00.480 When 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.

07:02:10.460 and the non-consensual distribution of intimate images that type of legislation when it's used

07:02:17.180 to protect rather than to be pernicious or to limit free speech I do support that type of

07:02:23.400 legislation this bill that you're talking about I have not seen the details of it but in in general

07:02:28.340 terms I'm not for punishing people's thoughts or expressions or putting limitations on their speech

07:02:34.160 I am in very much in in favor of protecting children in particular from some of the online

07:02:39.920 activities that are going out that I find to be very pernicious very evil

07:02:43.940 quite frankly and and they go after vulnerable people children who are

07:02:47.540 highly impressionable I also do believe on the same subject that we should be

07:02:52.220 doing more to ensure that those big internet service providers have

07:02:58.520 requirements to operate in Canada to provide Canadian jobs and to not be

07:03:02.900 exempt from the the taxation quite frankly that they are exempt from

07:03:07.520 currently under the rules

07:03:10.560 Well you know one of the unfortunate things about uh unfortunately the fact that Peter McKay

07:03:14.880 wouldn't sit down with a true north journalist that we couldn't interview him is that we didn't

07:03:17.840 really get the chance to get to know him I felt like the interviews that you did Andrew were so

07:03:22.160 illuminating about the candidates I really learned a lot from watching them particularly the fired

07:03:26.320 side chats there were some elements even that late in the campaign uh that we just really didn't know

07:03:31.200 I think that you really helped us clarify what uh Erin O'Toole's position was about carbon taxes

07:03:37.120 and climate change we learned that derek sloan supported supply management of dairy i had no

07:03:42.320 idea that was the case i just kind of assumed because he was this like authentic true conservative

07:03:46.640 that he would be take the conservative position on every issue and then obviously on that one

07:03:51.200 you know he was he was on the side of of the supply management of dairy um but but but

07:03:56.480 unfortunately because peter mckay didn't allow you to have that access to sit down and talk with him

07:04:02.080 We didn't really learn that much about him.

07:04:04.220 And even now, I sort of struggle sometimes to think of, you know, what does Peter McKay really want different for the country?

07:04:11.360 What is his vision for Canada?

07:04:13.060 What does he believe in?

07:04:14.300 What would Canada's role be on the world stage?

07:04:16.500 What would our fiscal situation look like?

07:04:18.820 You know, we hear a lot that he's a red Tory.

07:04:21.780 What does that even really mean in the context of today's politics?

07:04:24.660 Because Justin Trudeau is so far to the left.

07:04:27.380 His government is basically a socialist government.

07:04:29.460 we've seen spending never before seen before i think that the current deficit is seven times

07:04:34.660 larger than any other deficit in canadian history well typically a red tory would be someone who's

07:04:40.260 more social more more fiscally liberal more more open to big government programs uh but without

07:04:46.900 that means smaller government compared to justin trudeau so then wouldn't he sort of become more of

07:04:50.900 a fiscal conservative in today's environment there's so much that we didn't get to hear from

07:04:55.780 peter mckay that we didn't learn about him and i think that that's ultimately to his detriment that

07:05:00.420 he's the one that loses out because you know conservatives want to get to know someone before

07:05:04.660 they consider putting their name on the ballot whether it's in the first place second or third

07:05:09.380 and it is really too bad that peter mckay failed to do that you know you did get that opportunity

07:05:14.660 to put the question to him after that leadership debate but do you feel like there's something

07:05:19.380 missing uh from peter mckay that you would have liked to learn more about him uh any specific

07:05:23.700 policies or anything like that, Andrew? To be honest, I think national unity was the key thing

07:05:28.800 I wanted from him. How do you reconcile your identity as an Atlantic Canadian, as a Torontonian

07:05:34.540 with the Westerners and a lot of those old reform alliance types that are very uneasy about a PC

07:05:40.760 leader? I would have asked about how you bring social conservatives and other conservatives that

07:05:45.800 feel they're alienated from his vision of the party in. And I have to say, I've had some criticism,

07:05:50.760 especially in the last few days from Peter McKay loyalists and supporters that think I have a

07:05:55.800 vendetta against Peter McKay because I've been critical of him. And I would defend that by saying

07:06:00.320 two things. Number one, I've had to be critical in the absence of any opportunity to ask a question

07:06:05.500 beyond that one question at a press conference after the debate. And the fact that we've offered

07:06:11.220 numerous opportunities to interview, to debate, to do more interviews, we couldn't even get a

07:06:16.060 campaign official from McKay on the show today, which would have been a very light, easygoing,

07:06:22.180 friendly interview just about the campaign. So I've had to be very critical because of the

07:06:26.820 disdain that McKay has had towards us and other independent journalists that are trying

07:06:31.900 to cover the race. And I mean, the dirty little secret I'll let you all in on is that I've had

07:06:36.920 nothing against McKay. In fact, I had a lot of respect for him when he was in cabinet and I've

07:06:42.220 had pleasant interactions with him in the past years ago. And when the race started, I, despite

07:06:47.340 thinking, you know, maybe I'm not a fan of the red Tory thing. There are lots of red Tories that I

07:06:52.080 sat down with and had great chats with like Rudy Husney, like Marilyn Gladue. And I would have

07:06:56.600 happily done the same thing with Peter McKay. And as we've said, given everyone and every candidate

07:07:01.400 a fair shake. So my frustrations with McKay have had more to do with how he's treated media during

07:07:08.160 the campaign than any of his policies. And as I believe you mentioned earlier, when I was prepping

07:07:14.120 for the debate and when we were prepping for the debate and the fireside chats and looking at the

07:07:18.560 platform, there wasn't anything really objectionable in Peter McKay's platform. It really just comes

07:07:24.140 down to his conduct. And I think there is a cautionary tale there for McKay and for other

07:07:29.020 candidates that it isn't just about your values, your beliefs, your platform, but the way that you

07:07:34.660 engage with people and the way that you don't engage with people. And that remains to this day

07:07:40.260 my only issue with the McKay campaign and with McKay. Those are really good points. I've said

07:07:45.400 it several times. I try to keep an open mind with Peter McKay. And if he does win tonight, I think

07:07:49.760 that I'll have to take another opportunity to try to get to know him and to keep an open mind

07:07:54.600 about what he could stand for. But what you talk about is his sort of reluctancy to go into rooms

07:08:01.680 where he's unfamiliar and to go in and engage with different kinds of conservatives, that

07:08:06.500 does seem like a big red flag, especially given in light of some of the conversations

07:08:11.360 that we've had tonight with guests and just among ourselves about this issue of not just

07:08:16.740 unity within the party, but national unity.

07:08:19.040 And there are some really, really big questions and problems on the horizon that the leader

07:08:24.140 will have to really, really, you know, invest themselves into addressing and understanding

07:08:30.100 and trying to solve and what we've seen from mckay is sort of a reluctancy to engage with the

07:08:35.460 grassroots of the conservative party be it independent media like us or you know going

07:08:40.180 into other rooms where people might not be as receptive to him and trying to win people over

07:08:45.060 and it doesn't really seem like that's something that peter mckay has been all that willing or

07:08:49.460 interesting to do now maybe if he wins tonight becomes leader of the party he'll be forced to

07:08:54.580 do that and to to branch out and to broaden his appeal not just you know to the more

07:09:00.820 establishmenty kind of mainstream uh laurentian elites in ontario and quebec but also really you

07:09:08.180 know doing things that resonate uh with with the grassroots trying to connect with people

07:09:14.180 in other parts of the country and and really trying to understand a little bit more you know

07:09:18.420 what's what's going on in western canada what's going on in alberta how can we uh create policies

07:09:23.460 that bring this whole country together and, you know, not just conservative voters, but all

07:09:28.080 Canadians. Very much so. And I would point out as well that with Peter McKay and Aaron O'Toole and

07:09:34.620 all of the candidates in the race, I said something on my show that I think bears repeating

07:09:39.360 to this audience as well. A candidate is never going to be more conservative than when they are

07:09:44.660 seeking the conservative leadership. They're never going to be more accessible to conservative

07:09:49.200 media than when they're seeking the conservative leadership. They might maintain, they might get a

07:09:53.840 little bit less so, but they're never going to be more so. And I think that's hugely important for

07:09:58.120 a few reasons. Number one, if someone isn't going to do an interview with conservative media

07:10:02.440 when they are only seeking conservative votes, it's very difficult to imagine circumstances

07:10:09.180 under which in a general election, they would take the time to speak to conservative media. So

07:10:13.080 that's a big issue with Peter McKay. And by the way, I mean, if he is the winner tonight,

07:10:17.980 We're going to send an invitation to his campaign for a sit-down interview at 9 a.m. tomorrow.

07:10:23.480 And that invitation will be genuine and it will be a frank, candid, open discussion.

07:10:28.560 But I'm just not optimistic that they would accept given that they haven't up until this point.

07:10:34.100 And I think there is something in that to learn when it comes to policies.

07:10:38.380 When 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.

07:10:47.180 If 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.

07:11:03.540 Oh, absolutely.

07:11:04.600 And, you know, one of the things that was sort of a knock Gates, Peter McKay, was that

07:11:08.000 the fact that he was endorsed by, you know, the fringe far left or the sort of most hated

07:11:14.300 figures among conservative, including, you know, the Toronto Star gave him an endorsement.

07:11:19.740 Charles Adler, longtime radio host, who used to be a strong, you know, reliable conservative

07:11:25.300 voice, but who's recently really gone off the rails in a sort of strange direction where

07:11:31.340 he really believes that conservatives deep down are these truly awful people he seems to have a

07:11:36.700 really big problem with jason kenny premier of alberta and you know really doesn't have a lot

07:11:42.220 of good things to say about any conservative idea or value uh well he's out there endorsing

07:11:49.420 peter mckay and so i think that's that's part of the reason why a lot of conservatives don't like

07:11:54.620 him is just because of the people who do like him are not the kind of people that we typically align

07:11:59.580 ourselves with i say i try to keep an open mind about peter bouquet because maybe it's time that

07:12:05.020 there's a conservative uh leader that's just really likable to the mainstream media that's

07:12:09.420 really palatable uh that sort of can break through in a way that other conservatives haven't

07:12:15.180 but then of course the the counter the flip side of that coin is that you know if you're resonating

07:12:21.500 so easily with the mainstream media who hates conservatives you're not really resonating with

07:12:26.060 your own side of the team and how are you going to keep the party together how are you going to keep

07:12:30.300 conservatives energized and excited to go out and vote for you because you know the people who

07:12:35.180 ultimately are going to help a conservative leader win is having mass support and excitement around

07:12:41.580 a candidate throughout the country in particular in western canada you can't start jeopardizing

07:12:46.940 some of those seats in alberta just because you think you know it's a shoe and we're seeing

07:12:51.420 other parties make a lot of inroads in alberta albert is not the solid blue block that it used

07:12:56.700 to be and so i think any conservative leader should be mindful of that i would agree and

07:13:02.540 when you talk about people like charles adler lining up to support peter mckay and a lot of

07:13:07.100 people i know who are on the left liberal or ndp that are supporting peter mckay there's an

07:13:12.540 important dynamic here that i i have to talk about for just a moment because this is what leads into

07:13:18.780 that idea of the electability myth, which is, I think, what it is. If you see in a leadership

07:13:24.000 people that aren't conservatives that are saying they support them, that proves that, oh, well,

07:13:28.160 in a general election, it means they're going to be bringing in all this other support.

07:13:31.480 And there are two issues with that. Number one, if you pick up support from the left at the expense

07:13:36.620 of support from the right, there has to be a question asked as to, are you actually a conservative?

07:13:42.100 And if a conservative wins by shedding their conservatism, I don't think it's a real win

07:13:47.640 overall. But the bigger question that I would raise is that, is that even going to hold up?

07:13:54.540 Because I find that the left generally loves certain conservatives up until the point that

07:13:59.760 they're actually the leader. And you get this all the time, whereas people will say,

07:14:03.540 oh, well, if so-and-so was the leader, I would vote conservative. And when they are,

07:14:08.080 they become the new Hitler. They become the new worst person in the world and this far-right bigot 0.69

07:14:12.580 and all that sort of stuff. And if Peter McKay, who right now is a darling of the media and of a lot

07:14:17.320 of centrists and center-left people were the leader. I have no doubt that he's just going to

07:14:21.040 be this far-right former Harper sycophant and that love that he had from the center is going to be

07:14:26.640 gone. I completely agree. It's interesting because sometimes we even see it the reverse.

07:14:33.300 And this is what happened. I think this is part of the way that the reason that paved the road

07:14:37.320 for Donald Trump to become president of the United States is that when you had sort of a

07:14:42.720 more mainstream, moderate conservative running

07:14:45.280 for the position of president in Mitt Romney, 0.70

07:14:48.820 he was painted as this awful misogynist.

07:14:51.560 Everything that he said was sort of taken out of context. 0.98

07:14:54.140 He was really painted as this like mean, horrible person.

07:14:57.480 You know, I remember there was one clip

07:15:00.960 that was taken from a debate where he was talking

07:15:03.540 about how he wanted to populate his cabinet with women.

07:15:06.800 And he wanted to point women 1.00

07:15:08.080 into all these different positions, which is, 1.00

07:15:10.000 you know, that's what the left wing loves.

07:15:11.340 what Justin Trudeau said and did but Mitt Romney kind of said in an awkward way he said you know

07:15:15.500 I've got binders full of women uh that I want to fill and the mainstream media took that to mean

07:15:22.380 something like totally different than what Mitt Romney was saying to try to say like oh look at

07:15:27.180 this sexist guy he thinks that women live in binders or whatever it became this whole meme

07:15:30.940 of the campaign it's like no obviously that's not what he was talking about that wasn't his intention

07:15:36.060 that's not what he meant but that was sort of the way that they took it so you know when you

07:15:40.060 do have these moderate conservatives to your point they're painting them as these horrible awful far

07:15:45.980 right figures and then after the fact now you know now that Mitt Romney is sort of an anti-Trump or

07:15:51.980 an ever-Trump or and comes out frequently to criticize Trump the mainstream media love him

07:15:57.020 and elevate him and pretend that he's this like noble voice that speaks for all conservatives

07:16:01.900 it's like well first of all why didn't you treat him this way when he was running for president

07:16:06.060 back in 2012 uh and how are we supposed to trust your judgment like you know you just can't be a

07:16:12.220 conservative seeking strange new respect from the media because no matter what the media is just

07:16:17.100 going to you know use what you say against you or they're going to paint you in positive light in 0.97

07:16:21.500 some circumstances and then stab you in the back later it's it's really a fool's errand uh andrew

07:16:26.780 to try to go after the love and admiration of the mainstream media because they're not your friends 0.99

07:16:30.700 especially if you're conservative they're they're just going to you know do something um to stab you

07:16:36.380 in the back so i think that peter mckay uh yeah should proceed with caution if that's his strategy

07:16:43.180 and that's his approach well yeah i mean did you ever think you'd see the day when uh people in the

07:16:48.140 media and on the left were saying why can't all republicans be like george w bush like i remember

07:16:52.140 when he was a war criminal and then in the era of trump it's oh you know i miss bush he was great

07:16:56.620 why can't they all be like bush and again i i look forward to the fact that in 15 20 years

07:17:01.580 some liberal columnist is going to be the first person to say if only republicans could be like

07:17:06.860 donald trump and because the cycle keeps going and going i mean michael chong who in the the 2017

07:17:13.660 leadership race was pretty much the the furthest to the left of the field he was the only one of

07:17:17.980 the 14 or so that was in support of a carbon tax if he had somehow won he would be subjected to

07:17:24.140 that same sort of song and dance that we're talking about now. And I think it really speaks

07:17:29.100 to Derek Sloan's point throughout the campaign, and to some extent, Erin O'Toole's and Leslyn

07:17:34.060 Lewis is that you have to just be yourself. And at the very least, then if you go down,

07:17:39.260 it will be on honest terms. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I will say I haven't yet seen the mainstream

07:17:46.040 media come around for Stephen Harper. I haven't heard them say, you know, we only wish that we

07:17:52.500 had a guy like Stephen Harper. So I think we're still a couple years away from that. But surely

07:17:57.280 it'll be interesting if the media ever does look back positively at a Trump administration

07:18:03.220 in any regard. Andrew, I think we have another clip that we're going to play. This one is

07:18:08.640 about Derek Sloan talking about how Conservatives need to campaign on their values. Let's play that

07:18:16.520 clip. Conservative campaigns have historically been about aversion to risk as you've seen and

07:18:23.100 I think a focus on, we heard the term throughout the Harper years of boutique tax credits and

07:18:28.380 focus solely on pocketbook issues. I know that you've put forward a vision that deals with

07:18:33.800 economic, fiscal issues, social issues, foreign policy. Do you fundamentally disagree with that

07:18:40.120 idea that when you're asking Canadians to vote for you, to vote for your party, that the economic

07:18:46.400 economics are where it's at. Well, okay, so let me put it, so yes, I guess I disagree with all of it,

07:18:53.260 but in a more nuanced way than how you phrased it. Please, how do you phrase it? Well, here, so I

07:18:58.180 definitely disagree with running on a platform of boutique tax credits. However you run, it needs

07:19:03.100 to be in a big, bold vision and not, you know, hey, Andrew, if you put your kid in soccer, I'll save

07:19:07.940 you 200 bucks. You know, like in this last election, we had people like, literally like, okay, I'm

07:19:12.800 going to save 25% of my cell phone if I vote liberal. I'm going to get 100 bucks if I put in

07:19:17.380 green lights or you know environmentally efficient lights. So it can't be about that. It has to be

07:19:23.260 about values. And I've said listen we need to we need to run on a freedom platform. In the BC

07:19:29.380 debate we saw a poll that was done online from people. We are back and now we go live to Ottawa

07:19:37.820 for the Conservative Party of Canada's results.

07:20:07.820 the exact representation of what our members want to see.

07:20:12.820 Excellent. So now the moment we've been waiting for, Dan.

07:20:15.820 Remember, ladies and gentlemen at home, the number is 16,901.

07:20:21.820 All right. So…

07:20:23.820 And the first place we're going to go to… Do you want to repeat it in French for me?

07:20:26.820 In French, the results are 16,901.

07:20:32.820 Excellent. And the first place we're going to go to is British Columbia.

07:20:36.820 How are you doing out there, Cathy and James?

07:20:40.820 We're doing well, thank you.

07:20:43.820 Finalement, hold on.

07:20:46.820 You're up.

07:20:47.820 Finalement, on a des chiffres.

07:20:48.820 Merci beaucoup.

07:20:49.820 Thank you, Dan.

07:20:50.820 Thank you, Lisa.

07:20:51.820 You can hear me all right?

07:20:52.820 Yes, thank you, James.

07:20:53.820 Very good.

07:20:54.820 La province de la Colombie-Britannique dispose un total de 4200 points.

07:20:59.820 Par ordre alphabétique, chaque candidat a obtenu le nombre de points suivant.

07:21:06.820 Leslyn Lewis a obtenu 1,047 points.

07:21:13.580 Peter McKay a reçu 1,281 points.

07:21:21.260 Erin O'Toole a reçu 1,255 points.

07:21:27.940 Derek Sloan a reçu 617 points.

07:21:32.440 so there are 4200 points available in the province of british columbia leslin lewis has earned 1047

07:21:45.720 points peter mckay has earned 1281 points aaron o'toole has earned 1255 points derek sloan has

07:21:59.640 earned 617 points and that's from british columbia thank you kathy thank you james okay merci and

07:22:07.000 now we will go on valley a la province la belle province the town of labrador judy and sharon are

07:22:12.920 you there and for those of you looking at home you can see that the british columbia results

07:22:21.320 have been posted on your screen judy and sharon are you there to give us the results from newfoundland

07:22:27.160 we're here excellent great there are 700 points available in the province of newfoundland and

07:22:34.440 labrador in alphabetical order each candidate has earned the following leslin lewis has earned 118

07:22:44.600 points peter mckay has earned 282 points

07:22:50.840 Aaron O'Toole, you got me. Aaron O'Toole has earned 240 points. Derek Sloan has earned 61 points.

07:23:09.840 Thank you. The results of TARDE-NEUV are the following.

07:23:14.840 Leslyn Lewis received 118 points.

07:23:18.840 Peter McKay received 282 points.

07:23:21.840 Erin O'Toole received 240 points.

07:23:24.840 Derek Sloan received 61 points.

07:23:29.840 Excellent. Thank you very much, Dan.

07:23:32.840 We are now going to go to Alberta.

07:23:34.840 So, Sonia and Dustin, tell us the results.

07:23:38.840 well thanks lisa and dan um and in alberta we have a total of 3 400 points and in alphabetical

07:23:47.000 order leslin lewis has earned 957 points peter mckay earned 826 points aaron o'toole earned 1084

07:23:59.480 points and derek sloan earned 532 points for a total of 3 400. over to you dustin

07:24:08.840 Lesley Lewis obtenu 957 points, Peter McKay obtenu 826 points,

07:24:16.040 Erin O'Toole obtenu 1,084 points, and Derek Sloan obtenu 532 points.

07:24:23.800 Thank you very much.

07:24:25.640 Thank you very much, Dustin. Thank you very much, Sonia.

07:24:28.040 And there you have the results for Alberta put up in front of you again.

07:24:32.360 Our next place that we're going to be going to is the province of Nova Scotia

07:24:36.280 and we're looking for Tara and Chris there there are 1100 points available in

07:24:46.180 the province of Nova Scotia in alphabetical order each candidate has

07:24:51.040 earned the following

07:25:04.660 Leslyn Lewis has earned 160 points.

07:25:10.540 Leslyn Lewis a obtenu 160 points.

07:25:15.820 Peter McKay has earned 710 points.

07:25:21.200 Peter McKay a obtenu 710 points.

07:25:26.240 Erin O'Toole has earned 142 points.

07:25:30.100 Aaron O'Toole a obtenu 142 points.

07:25:35.100 And Derek Sloan has earned 88 points.

07:25:40.100 Derek Sloan a obtenu 88 points.

07:25:45.100 Thank you very much.

07:25:49.100 And now we're going to Northern Canada to David Connolly.

07:25:53.100 And now we're going to Northern Canada to David Connolly.

07:25:57.100 David, are you there?

07:25:59.100 David's going to be announcing, of course, for Nunavut, for the Northwest Territories,

07:26:05.220 and for Yukon.

07:26:06.220 Of course.

07:26:07.220 So the three will be included in one announcement with David.

07:26:10.340 Okay.

07:26:11.340 David, are you there?

07:26:12.340 Yes, I am.

07:26:13.340 All right.

07:26:14.340 Go ahead.

07:26:15.340 Good evening from the North, and thank everyone for their patience and hanging in there this

07:26:19.540 evening.

07:26:20.860 There are a total of 300 points available from the combined three Northern Territories

07:26:26.020 of Nunavut, the Northwest Territories, and the Yukon.

07:26:31.020 Leslyn Lewis has earned 90 points.

07:26:35.080 Peter McKay has earned 111 points.

07:26:40.200 Erin O'Toole has earned 65 points.

07:26:44.560 And Derek Sloan has earned 35 points.

07:26:50.320 34 points, I correct, 34 points.

07:26:54.700 For the three territories of the North, the Norwood, the North-West, and the Yukon,

07:27:01.640 they have 300 points.

07:27:05.520 Leslie Lewis has obtained 90 points.

07:27:10.780 Peter McKay has obtained 511 points.

07:27:16.520 Aaron O'Toole has obtained 65 points.

07:27:21.060 and Derek's loan has obtained 34 times.

07:27:27.300 Thank you very much and good evening.

07:27:29.700 Thank you very much, David. We appreciate it.

07:27:32.200 And now, the next province we're going to,

07:27:33.900 it's the beautiful province of Prince Edward.

07:27:36.100 Next, we are going to the beautiful province of Prince Edward Island,

07:27:39.120 and we're going to Pat Binns and Gayle Shea.

07:27:41.720 Are you there?

07:27:43.880 We are, and there are 400 points available

07:27:46.760 in the province of Prince Edward Island,

07:27:49.280 in alphabetical order each candidate has earned the following leslin lewis has earned 96 points

07:27:59.040 peter mckay has earned 206 points erin o'toole has earned 55 points and derek sloan has earned 43 points

07:28:11.600 Thank 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.

07:28:26.600 Thank 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?

07:28:37.320 Thank you Lisa. In Saskatchewan we have 1400 points in play and the results in alphabetical

07:28:45.080 order are Leslie Lewis 554 points, Peter McKay 224 points, Erin O'Toole 369 points,

07:28:56.760 and Derek Sloan 252 points. Over to you Kelly.

07:29:06.600 de 1400 points. Leslie Lewis a obtenu 554 points. Peter McKay a obtenu 124 points. Erin

07:29:25.040 The keynote tour has obtained 369 points.

07:29:33.040 Derek Sloan has obtained 252 points.

07:29:42.040 Thank you very much.

07:29:45.040 And now we'll go to beautiful New Brunswick.

07:29:48.040 Monica and Mel, are you there?

07:29:53.040 We're just, we are just getting them.

07:30:02.280 As we're waiting, we have Saskatchewan.

07:30:05.020 We can take a look again at the results that we have there for Saskatchewan.

07:30:08.480 Les and Lewis, 554.

07:30:10.280 Aaron O'Toole, 369.

07:30:12.120 Derek Sloan, 252.

07:30:14.240 And Peter McKay, 224.

07:30:17.960 Okay.

07:30:19.100 And we have Mel Norton from New Brunswick.

07:30:22.120 Nell are you there? I am Dan and thank you everyone for hanging in with us. In New Brunswick

07:30:27.940 there are 1,000 points available from our province. In alphabetical order each candidate has earned

07:30:34.780 the following. Leslyn Lewis has earned 204 points. Peter McKay has earned 533 points.

07:30:44.000 Aaron O'Toole has earned 153 points, and Derek Sloan has earned 110 points.

07:30:54.000 All right, thank you very much, Mel.

07:30:56.000 And in French, Leslie Lewis has earned 204 points, Peter McKay has earned 533 points,

07:31:04.000 Aaron O'Toole has earned 153 points, and Derek Sloan has earned 110 points.

07:31:10.000 Great. And our next province, as we take a look at those New Brunswick results one more time,

07:31:17.440 our next province is we're going to Manitoba. And there we have Candace Bergen and Heather

07:31:23.260 Stephenson. Thanks very much, Lisa and Dan. There are 1,400 points available in the province of

07:31:31.740 Manitoba. In alphabetical order, each candidate has earned the following. Leslyn Lewis has earned

07:31:38.140 360 points. Peter McKay has earned 414 points. Erin O'Toole has earned 373 points. And Derek

07:31:51.280 Sloan has earned 253 points.

07:31:55.560 Okay, merci beaucoup. Et en français, Leslyn Lewis a reçu 360 points. Peter McKay a reçu

07:32:01.680 414 points. Aaron O'Toole a reçu 373 points. Et Derek Sloan a reçu 253 points.

07:32:10.500 Et là, nous allons au Québec. Alain et Marie-Josée, êtes-vous là?

07:32:15.820 Oui. Oui, allô?

07:32:19.880 Bonjour.

07:32:20.920 Donc, pour la province de Québec, dispose au total de 7800 points.

07:32:25.680 There are 7,800 points available in the province of Québec.

07:32:31.140 Alors, pour Leslie Lewis, 781 points, 781 points.

07:32:40.040 Pour Peter McKay, 2,685 points, 2,685 points.

07:32:49.180 For Erin O'Toole, 3,532 points, 3,532 points, Derek Sloan, 802 points, 802 points.

07:33:05.240 Excellent. Thank you very much, Marie-Josée. Sorry about that. So, for Quebec, we have the

07:33:11.340 numbers up there for Erin O'Toole, Peter McKay, Derek Sloan, and Leslyn Lewis. And going to our

07:33:18.100 We're heading back here to Ontario where it's going to be Minister Caroline Mulroney and Gary Clement.

07:33:25.100 Thank you very much, Lisa and Dan.

07:33:29.100 The province of Ontario has a total of 12,100 points.

07:33:34.100 In alphabetical order, each candidate has obtained the number of points.

07:33:39.100 There are 12,100 points available in the province of Ontario.

07:33:49.340 In alphabetical order, each candidate earned the following.

07:33:54.240 Leslyn Lewis earned 2,557 points.

07:33:58.940 Leslyn Lewis a obtenu 2,557 points.

07:34:04.140 Peter McKay earned 4,056 points.

07:34:08.800 Peter McKay a obtenu 4,056 points.

07:34:13.540 Aaron O'Toole earned 3,414 points.

07:34:18.580 Aaron O'Toole a obtenu 3,414 points.

07:34:23.840 Derek Sloan earned 2,073 points.

07:34:27.920 Derek Sloan a obtenu 2,073 points.

07:34:33.120 Thank you very much.

07:34:34.120 Appreciate that.

07:34:34.860 So in Ontario, Peter McKay, 4,056.

07:34:38.600 Erin 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.

07:35:00.380 So, Dan, over to you.

07:35:02.380 Okay, the results for the first vote.

07:35:04.380 Peter McKay, 11,328 points.

07:35:08.380 Erin O'Toole, 10,681 points.

07:35:12.380 Leslyn Lewis, 6,925 points.

07:35:16.380 Derek Sloan, 4,864 points.

07:35:19.380 That means that Mr. Sloan is eliminated and we will have a second vote.

07:35:23.380 So, on this national ballot in English, Mr. McKay, 11,328 votes.

07:35:29.380 votes. Mr. O'Toole, 10,681 votes. Ms. Lewis, 6,925 votes. Mr. Sloan, 4,864 votes. Mr. Sloan

07:35:40.880 drops off the ballot and we move to a second ballot.

07:35:59.380 We are going to reset, so we can go back for our second ballot, so we'll be rejoining

07:36:05.620 you in a moment.

07:36:06.620 But I'm sure, Dan, there's lots to talk about.

07:36:08.500 These numbers, I'm sure there's got a lot of people talking across the country.

07:36:11.660 It was fantastic to see what the results were like from coast to coast to coast.

07:36:16.380 Absolutely.

07:36:17.380 And thank you again to our regional announcers.

07:36:19.380 Merci beaucoup à nos annonceurs régional et à avoir resté avec nous autres.

07:36:23.380 Et on va prendre une courte pause pour avoir le deuxième scrutin.

07:36:28.140 Merci beaucoup.

07:36:29.140 We'll be back.

07:36:29.740 Thank you.

07:36:44.280 Well, that was the first round of voting,

07:36:47.420 the first round of counting, rather,

07:36:49.100 releasing those results from the Conservative Party of Canada viewing party.

07:36:53.580 There is a lot in this,

07:36:55.020 and I can say that there is a lot of speculation that these results from

07:36:59.040 round one are suggesting an Aaron O'Toole win. We're going to go over the numbers with you again.

07:37:04.140 Peter McKay is leading in the first round of national results. He has 11,328 points. Aaron

07:37:11.960 O'Toole trails behind by less than a thousand with 10,681. And Leslie Lewis has just under 7,000,

07:37:21.440 6,925 votes with Derek Sloan at 4,864 points, rather. Sorry, I said votes points. So just to

07:37:31.760 round it, McKay at 11,000, O'Toole at 10,700, Lewis at 7,000 roughly, and Derek Sloan in fourth

07:37:40.260 place at 4,800. Sloan has been eliminated. So when the second round of votes are counted,

07:37:47.420 it will be with all of the people who had Sloan as their number one,

07:37:50.700 it will be the reallocation based on the second choice of those.

07:37:54.660 Now, you don't need to rank your ballot.

07:37:56.720 If some people put only Sloan, then those numbers will just dissipate.

07:38:01.520 They'll fall off.

07:38:02.200 But anyone who put Sloan one and someone else number two,

07:38:05.280 those number two votes will be retabulated and we start again.

07:38:09.520 I mean, these are hugely impressive numbers for Leslie Lewis.

07:38:13.080 In a couple of provinces, she actually was beating O'Toole and McCain.

07:38:17.420 namely Alberta and Saskatchewan.

07:38:19.960 O'Toole had huge support in Quebec,

07:38:22.400 which I found a bit surprising,

07:38:24.000 although we mentioned earlier

07:38:25.000 that he had a specific Quebec platform.

07:38:28.000 So that may have been a role played there.

07:38:30.880 Peter McKay, no surprise,

07:38:32.560 won in Atlantic Canada by a huge margin.

07:38:35.980 Lesley Lewis, though,

07:38:36.900 she did very well in BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan,

07:38:40.060 but fell short, relatively speaking, in Ontario,

07:38:43.320 which is where she ended up falling back.

07:38:46.020 Candice, any big surprises from the first round?

07:38:49.760 Well, I'll just say I don't think that Peter McKay did what he needed to do here.

07:38:53.880 I think that, yeah, sure, he won in Atlantic Canada,

07:38:56.800 but he wasn't posting huge, big numbers.

07:38:59.480 I think that it's very, very close at this point.

07:39:02.640 It's really going to come down to the views that social conservatives have.

07:39:07.280 You know, if Derek Sloan votes go toward who they're going to go towards.

07:39:11.140 I think Leslie Lewis really, really outperformed pretty much what anyone was expecting.

07:39:15.780 It's really exciting to see her come in first place in Saskatchewan and second place in Alberta.

07:39:21.380 You know, for all we hear about the fact that Conservatives are these closed-minded people who

07:39:27.220 hate immigrants and hate people who look differently. You know, the base and the

07:39:31.300 grassroots of the party really have delivered a huge victory for Leslie Lewis. And there were times,

07:39:38.020 i mean before the ontario and quebec results came in she was neck and neck they were all within one

07:39:42.980 percent according to my tabulations which are a little off because you know i was just jotting

07:39:47.940 them down as we went but i i think that it's it's incredibly close it's going to come down to the

07:39:53.220 wire and uh i mean i i wish they would just announce results already because this is really

07:40:00.100 starting to drag on but we're getting into the exciting moments here and uh looks like we are

07:40:06.180 are back onto the live stream, Andrew.

07:40:15.540 Open the stream, but I don't see anything happen yet.

07:40:17.660 So I'll point out while we're waiting

07:40:19.960 a couple of analytics facts here.

07:40:22.160 So McKay at 11.3, Aaron O'Toole at 10.6,

07:40:26.580 Lewis at 6.9 and Sloan out.

07:40:29.060 Now there are 4,864 points from Derek Sloan

07:40:33.800 that are theoretically up for grabs now.

07:40:35.940 So we don't know what percentage of people just put Sloan and no one else and what percentage

07:40:41.100 of people ranked a second choice.

07:40:43.100 But I want to just put these numbers here because at 4,800 votes, if 4,000 of those

07:40:50.300 went to Lesley Lewis, she would eclipse O'Toole and she would only be a few hundred points

07:40:57.380 behind McKay.

07:40:58.560 Now, that would be a significant margin, but we do know that the social conservative groups

07:41:02.940 we're pushing either Lewis Sloan or Sloan Lewis as being the top two choices so this is where you

07:41:09.440 have to start looking at again that down ballot support you have to look at the Sloan plus Lewis

07:41:14.960 numbers combined which again not taking into account drop-off would actually put us at over

07:41:21.240 11,000 if everyone from Sloan broke for Lewis which would actually put her in the lead now

07:41:26.420 that would be based on again everyone doing a certain thing which is always a bad assumption

07:41:31.560 in politics. But we're looking at numbers here that suggest, I mean, we had said that Peter

07:41:37.520 McCain needed to have a really strong showing on the first ballot, either a win or not far behind

07:41:42.760 50%. And he is nowhere close to that right now. So this is, again, it's possible that things could

07:41:49.560 break a little bit differently here. Lesley Lewis has a base of support that is not just

07:41:55.500 social conservatives. But doing this and looking at the numbers this way, it's easy to see a path

07:42:02.320 to victory for Aaron O'Toole, easier to see that than a path to victory for Peter McKay based on

07:42:07.800 these numbers. I just got to say, I need to say it's really exciting in general, you know, even

07:42:13.140 the fact that Derek Sloan did as well as he did, nearly 15% of the vote, it's nothing to shake your

07:42:18.920 head at. That is a really tremendous standing. And the fact that now his voters, so the people

07:42:24.860 who support him and got behind him, they're now in the kingmaker position because really anything

07:42:30.320 could happen at this point. To your point that you just made, Andrew, you know, 4,800 votes

07:42:36.940 going towards any of those campaigns, we could potentially see Peter McKay get knocked off the

07:42:41.680 list, go from first to last in this ballot, depending on how Derek Sloan's voters chose

07:42:47.920 to rank their second person. You know, if it is really an alliance of pro-life social conservatives

07:42:53.800 and they all go towards Leslyn Lewis, potentially we could see Leslyn Lewis winning this whole thing

07:42:59.080 just based on the support of those Derek Sloan voters. So really, you know, we can't make any

07:43:05.880 predictions at this point because we still have so much information that needs to get filled in,

07:43:10.360 but it's really close. It shows sort of a little bit of the divide that's happening in the country,

07:43:16.220 how different the results were in eastern Canada than they were in western Canada. I was a little

07:43:20.900 surprised that Peter McKay won in Ontario. I would have assumed that that would sort of be

07:43:25.700 the place where Aaron O'Toole would shine and do his best, given that's where he's from

07:43:31.120 and that's where he lives. But I guess, you know, when we talk about the supposed moderate

07:43:36.560 conservative vote, I suppose that's coming from Ontario. And so those people were the ones that

07:43:41.840 got behind Peter McKay. But what do you think is going to happen next, Andrew?

07:43:46.780 Well, again, it's going to look at, I think drop off is going to be the real question here. How

07:43:51.300 many people continue and rank their full ballot versus just drop off because they only liked one

07:43:56.420 candidate or two candidates? I mean, it would be possible. And again, I'm not saying probable,

07:44:01.200 but possible for Lesley and Lewis to get to first place if the Sloan to Lewis pipeline of the

07:44:08.540 ranking is really, really strong. That would have to be really strong, but it's possible. But

07:44:13.580 certainly I would agree with you wholeheartedly that I was surprised that neither candidate had

07:44:18.480 a stronger showing in Ontario. I thought that with how much of an emphasis was being put there,

07:44:24.160 that would be the key battleground. I thought we'd see something a bit more decisive there,

07:44:27.360 but we didn't. No, we didn't. And again, I just don't think that Peter McKay got the votes to

07:44:33.780 your point. I think that he really needed to have a strong showing on that first ballot,

07:44:37.580 just because, you know, the other candidates seem more aligned with each other and more likely

07:44:43.020 that Derek Sloan's votes will go towards Lesley Lewis or Erin O'Toole. At least they're more

07:44:48.140 open-minded and open towards all the social conservative issues. Obviously, Lesley Lewis

07:44:52.900 herself is a social conservative as well, but I think that Peter McKay is going to be in trouble

07:44:58.880 when these ballots come in. Andrew, do we have any idea how long this pauses and when we're going to

07:45:03.780 hear the next round of votes? No, and this is a little bit of an annoyance, if I do say so myself,

07:45:09.580 because I, we, we are right now looking at something that I think is more readily available

07:45:14.180 to be described as theater than any substantive delay. This is at this point, they know the

07:45:19.540 results they're in the computer system. I mean, maybe it's lining up all the different provincial

07:45:23.840 representatives on zoom, or maybe it's putting the graphics together with the numbers. But at

07:45:28.360 this point, it seems unnecessary to take a break when the whole point of the first round of

07:45:32.940 balloting is that we have the numbers available. Yeah. I, you know, you can forgive the delays.

07:45:39.580 all along because of all the problems they had with their voting machines but it's a good point

07:45:43.440 at this point you know they know I was even wondering why they bothered with the whole

07:45:47.920 pageantry of going province by province but I'm sure you know everyone wants to have their their

07:45:52.720 moment to get to announce their you know votes and they want to have their moment where they get

07:45:58.240 a little bit of recognition but again you know it's it's now one o'clock in the morning nearly

07:46:03.520 in Toronto later out on the east coast and I think that we're all just sort of ready to

07:46:09.060 to learn the results and sort of move on with our lives. So hopefully we get the next ballot

07:46:15.980 pretty soon. But I guess the next ballot could be the end of the night, in which case, you know,

07:46:21.280 then they are trying to drag it out for some reason. Yeah, that would actually be fairly

07:46:26.120 difficult, I think. But to be honest, I actually think, no, I think that would be impossible. We

07:46:30.700 need to go to three ballots at this point. The magic number is, if I'm not mistaken,

07:46:36.600 in 16,000, but I might be off on that now. So no, correct me if I'm wrong. I'm mixing up two

07:46:44.080 numbers here. So when we look at this, I am suspecting it will go to the third ballot,

07:46:49.880 but I would also point out as well, and we've spent a fair bit of the show talking about social

07:46:54.520 conservative support and how much that was doing for Lewis and Sloan. And we had Steve Outhouse

07:46:59.800 from the Lesley Lewis campaign on twice tonight. And he was saying that he thinks that she's

07:47:04.840 tapped into something that's bigger than that. And these numbers would really suggest that's true

07:47:09.260 because yes, there is a huge social conservative support base, but at the same time, there also

07:47:15.480 has to be more than that. I mean, that's enough to give you a solid block. It's not enough to

07:47:19.840 give you a win. And if she's focused to being, if she's targeting right now, a figure that could

07:47:25.600 be in first or second place, that's more than just SOCONs. Absolutely. That's a really good

07:47:30.500 point and if you just uh you know just quickly looking at the numbers here if you add leslie

07:47:35.300 lewis's support with derek slone's support you've got 35 30 36 almost which is more than either

07:47:42.660 mckay or o'toole so it is a good reminder that a very solid large percent of the conservative party

07:47:50.180 continues to be pro-life conservatives and i think that every time that there is a leadership race or

07:47:56.820 or anytime there's a vote like this, people are surprised,

07:47:59.620 particularly our friends over in Legacy Media

07:48:02.060 and over at the CBC,

07:48:03.700 always surprised by how well pro-life candidates do.

07:48:07.880 Well, the reality is that a large portion of Canadians,

07:48:11.420 a large portion of people

07:48:12.780 who are part of the Conservative Party,

07:48:14.600 that's one of their firmly held beliefs.

07:48:16.860 So I'm not necessarily surprised with how well

07:48:20.300 the pro-life candidates did in this campaign so far,

07:48:24.720 just very different than I think

07:48:25.920 what the predictions were coming from our friends over in the mainstream media and again the ability

07:48:30.920 to be kingmaker I think that you're right that I'm looking at how many points each candidate

07:48:35.240 needs to win it looks like Peter McKay would need another 5,800 points and Aaron O'Toole would need

07:48:42.980 another 6,200 and so Derek Sloan's 4,800 won't be enough to push either of them over the edge so

07:48:49.780 you know we could have a different first place candidate at the end of the next ballot but it

07:48:54.480 looks like we will have to go to three ballots on this night. I want to focus for just a moment

07:49:01.500 on Quebec numbers. So Quebec has 7,800 points available. And I was, to be honest, I wasn't sure

07:49:08.020 how Quebec would ultimately shake out. Now it's important to note we're talking about conservative

07:49:12.580 members in Quebec, not a huge population compared to the province at large. It's not like general

07:49:18.260 election results. And some of these ridings, as we talked about earlier, only have a small handful

07:49:23.140 of members. So if you can win those over, which comes down to strategy, you can do very well in

07:49:28.100 the points because it is the second most riding rich and thus point rich province in Canada.

07:49:34.680 But I would point out that it was really surprising to see O'Toole come out very strong there. In

07:49:40.340 fact, I think it was his biggest margin just by virtue of the province size and not winning

07:49:44.700 Ontario. In Quebec, Leslyn Lewis had 781. Peter McKay had 2685. Aaron O'Toole had 3532. And Derek

07:49:54.800 Sloan had 802. And this is where you have to wonder how much the language effect played into

07:50:00.840 things here. Because there was a lot of mocking Peter McKay earlier on for mixing up a French word

07:50:06.340 when he announced his campaign. Aaron O'Toole tried to say that he was bilingual, but people

07:50:10.840 raised some issues with his French. Lesley Lewis gave a really, really bad performance in that

07:50:16.300 French debate because she's not a French speaker. She was reading and I don't think she looked up

07:50:20.440 for the entire time. Derek Sloan was rocky, but he was a bit more engaged. He was looking up,

07:50:25.960 like he was looking back and forth. Whereas for Lesley Lewis, she was reading it because she

07:50:29.960 didn't know the language. And both Lewis and Sloan have said they've continued to work on their

07:50:35.120 French. But I have to wonder, and again, it's subtle, we're talking about a difference of 21

07:50:40.380 points overall. But I have to wonder if that French debate performance was really a determining factor

07:50:46.260 in where those Quebec votes landed. Yeah, that's an interesting perspective. And again, for all the

07:50:52.100 hey that media make over an ability to speak French for the candidates. I mean, I don't really

07:50:59.280 know that it does move that many votes in Quebec. I think that the point that we raised earlier,

07:51:04.140 I think we were probably one of the only media outlets to report on this and to raise this,

07:51:09.820 was the fact that Aaron O'Toole was able to reach a whole bunch of rural voters in Quebec

07:51:17.900 with his gun policies and that gun owners and people who were really alarmed by Justin Trudeau's

07:51:24.300 gun grab were showing up in droves to support Aaron O'Toole. It's a lot easier to win points

07:51:30.300 in Quebec just because there aren't that many conservative voters and conservative members

07:51:35.740 in some ridings and so you don't need that many people to come out and change but you know if you

07:51:39.900 have a targeted campaign issue like that like gun rights which I think Erin O'Toole did kind of

07:51:46.540 come out above and beyond the other candidates even though we did talk about how all candidates

07:51:50.620 were supportive of gun owners and all opposed Justin Trudeau's gun grabs. Erin O'Toole really

07:51:55.660 made that effort. I think that was a real part of the reason why he was able to win so many points

07:52:00.900 in Quebec. Yeah, someone pointed out on Twitter, unfortunately, the tweet kind of went off my

07:52:06.500 timeline when I refreshed, so I don't know who to give credit for it. But that all candidates have

07:52:11.480 had lots of time today alone to learn French in the course of reading the results. So it's very

07:52:16.820 likely that anyone who didn't speak French before will be able to now. So we are just minutes away,

07:52:22.740 it sounds like from the round two results coming. And again, we've crunched the numbers and it

07:52:27.920 doesn't sound like it's possible for there to be a winner on the second ballot. So we are in this

07:52:33.900 for the long haul. And we don't have like CNN does, John King in the corner with the big smart

07:52:38.380 board doing all of the calculations and permutations. In fact, I think our math guy

07:52:43.240 went to bed. So you're stuck with Candace and I right now. But I do think that when we look at

07:52:49.920 this, it completely vindicates all of the people that have been talking about Lesley

07:52:54.720 Lewis's rise.

07:52:55.820 I mean, it's not theoretical at this point.

07:52:57.560 The fact that she has these numbers and was beating the supposed front runners in some

07:53:02.740 provinces and pretty key provinces to the conservative movement, I think, is a huge

07:53:08.000 endorsement for her and for her campaign team.

07:53:10.800 And props to Steve Outhouse, who we talked to tonight for doing that.

07:53:13.960 I would also point out when we spoke earlier about how some of these really high density 0.90

07:53:20.980 ridings have thousands of members, that means that for her to do well in those ridings took

07:53:26.660 a lot more effort than some of the winners of the ridings that don't have a strong conservative 0.88

07:53:32.120 base.

07:53:32.700 And this is not to say that there's anything unfair about it because you have to play to

07:53:36.760 the rules and you play to the system.

07:53:38.280 But if she's winning huge support in ridings that have thousands and thousands and thousands

07:53:43.520 of conservative members. That's showing a real mass appeal that can't be ignored. 0.90

07:53:49.200 Absolutely. I agree. I'm just going through the numbers a little more closely. It looks like

07:53:53.360 Lesley Lewis won in British Columbia. In Alberta, she beat out Peter McKay, got more than 100 more

07:54:00.560 points than McKay did. In Nova Scotia, she beat Erin O'Toole. What else do we have? In Northern

07:54:07.200 Canada, so the three territories, she beat Erin O'Toole. I mean, it's just really remarkable how

07:54:13.200 well she did in in beating uh you know some of these establishment politicians who probably you

07:54:19.120 know much more experienced in much bigger campaign teams in prince of rhode island uh she beat out

07:54:24.640 erin o'toole uh in new brunswick she beat out erin o'toole in ontario she came in third in quebec

07:54:32.640 she came in fourth in saskatchewan she won and in manitoba she was very close to uh to to erin

07:54:41.920 O'Toole and Peter McKay won over there so really across the country she definitely you know appealed

07:54:48.560 to to conservative voters and I think that's great again for the party hopefully she can bring a lot

07:54:54.480 of that energy into the general election if there is one and and help maintain more outreach and

07:55:02.080 reaching a broader range of Canadians aside from just you know the people who the mainstream media

07:55:07.680 believe are conservative voters, which isn't really an accurate portrayal of the country at

07:55:12.240 this point. And I do think that even if Aaron O'Toole, or for that matter, Peter McKay wins

07:55:17.900 tonight, if there is a real, I don't want to say a loss, but somewhat of an embarrassment,

07:55:23.920 and this is not to discount Lesley Lewis's campaign, but when you come in with the fundraising,

07:55:28.640 with the name recognition, and you still have to work for it to someone who has just showed up out

07:55:34.660 of the blue, basically. What does that say about you? And there's always that question of,

07:55:39.420 is it a reflection of Lesley Lewis doing really well? Or is it a reflection of Erin O'Toole and

07:55:44.260 Peter McKay not exciting people? Well, I think it's probably a combination of both. And that's

07:55:53.580 not to say that McKay and O'Toole didn't run good campaigns. I'm sure they did. And they had good

07:55:59.420 policy. I think particularly Erin O'Toole had some really interesting and new policy ideas. But

07:56:05.260 I just think that there is a caricature of what a conservative is in this country and what they

07:56:11.760 look like and how they sound. And Leslie Lewis just sort of defies that. And that's what makes

07:56:16.220 her interesting. She has a different background. You know, I'm not one to obsess over identity

07:56:21.120 politics. I don't think that that's all that matters is someone's identity. But just given

07:56:26.240 the fact that so many of the critiques and the stereotypes and the negative things that get said

07:56:31.680 about conservatives in canada and a lot of it is driven by the mainstream media are about one very

07:56:37.200 specific stereotype of a conservative being sort of you know uh angry old white male probably from

07:56:44.400 western canada probably not very well educated and all that kind of stuff uh it's obviously not true

07:56:49.920 it is not accurate representation of the conservative party or the conservative movement

07:56:54.480 but that's what the stereotype is and so when you have people that just clearly defy that and you

07:56:59.840 can't you know put them into a box and write them off in the same way as you can other candidates

07:57:05.120 it's just exciting in general and so obviously you know the whole old white male uh image is

07:57:11.680 something that either erin o'toole or peter mckay will have to shake and and try to get past whereas

07:57:17.440 leslie lewis has an inherent advantage in that she just isn't that and so because of that she's

07:57:22.160 she's able to, I think, break out of that box and appeal to different types of Canadians.

07:57:27.760 It is just coming up on 1 a.m. on August 24th on the East Coast, Eastern Standard, not the East

07:57:34.960 Coast, Eastern Standard Time or Eastern Daylight Time, not the East Coast. I don't want to get

07:57:38.700 jumped on by Devin Drover and our Atlantic Canadian friends who I don't know if they're

07:57:42.880 still up or not. We have been rolling for my math is no longer working. I've been devoting it to

07:57:47.980 points. I think seven and a half hours now we have been on and we've gotten our second or third win

07:57:52.980 because things have started to pick up with results. This is the True North Live Conservative

07:57:58.460 Leadership Results Show. We are still waiting for the Conservative Party of Canada's release

07:58:04.260 of the second round of votes. Just to recap, in the first round, Derek Sloan was eliminated. He had

07:58:11.280 4,864 points. Leslyn Lewis is now in third place with 6,925 points. In second place is Aaron O'Toole

07:58:23.980 with 10,681 points. And in the lead, Peter McKay has 11,328 points. So as you can see from those

07:58:34.800 numbers, if you're looking at them on your screen somewhere, we're looking at less than 700

07:58:39.380 separating O'Toole and McKay. You're looking at a little over three, three and a half thousand

07:58:46.400 separating Lewis from O'Toole and 4,864 points conceivably being reallocated. If everyone on

07:58:55.180 Derek Sloan's support list has ranked a second choice, then we have 4,864 points up for grabs.

07:59:02.980 So again, we still have some, some different ways that this could go. Possible that Leslie and

07:59:08.880 Lewis could eke out a victory. Difficult, but there's a way to do it. And it would depend on

07:59:13.880 if she and Sloan had a really strong one-two punch, basically, where everyone who had Lewis

07:59:20.080 first was putting Sloan second or vice versa. And again, I won't say it can't happen. I think

07:59:24.860 the fact that Lewis has these numbers already is showing us that the unforeseeable or the unlikely

07:59:30.760 is, in fact, possible. Right. And now it's confirmed that, you know, it wasn't just rumors

07:59:36.240 is saying that Lesley Lewis overperformed or outperformed expectations, we have the hard

07:59:41.640 data for it. And interesting tidbit, Andrew, I saw during close to the end of the campaign,

07:59:47.760 there was a flyer that was mailed out to many conservative members from Lesley Lewis. I don't

07:59:53.040 know if it was across the whole country or just in some writings, where she basically just said,

07:59:58.500 you know, thank you for being a conservative member. I know I'm not your first pick,

08:00:03.760 but I humbly ask you to put me as number two. And I thought that was an interesting ask because

08:00:09.540 usually as a politician, you know, you're not asking to be someone second choice. You're asking

08:00:13.760 to be their number one choice. You want to win. You want to have the most votes. And so for her

08:00:19.180 to send out a dedicated flyer asking conservative members to consider putting her number two,

08:00:25.360 I mean, it was just, it was a nice thoughtful card. And I think a lot of people who didn't

08:00:29.780 really maybe give her a chance might have at that point considered hey okay I'll put her number two

08:00:34.780 this seems like a good person that we want as part of our party and part of the leadership of our

08:00:39.640 party you know I wonder maybe maybe something like that as a tactic at a moment like this

08:00:44.300 is going to pay off for her because if if conservative members did listen to that flyer 0.99

08:00:50.080 take it to heart decide to put her number two it could be enough in this moment for her to 0.99

08:00:54.800 really be a spoiler right now and eliminate Peter McKay, leading to a Lewis-O'Toole showdown in the

08:01:02.900 end, which, you know, is not what we expect. I think at this moment, the expectation is that

08:01:07.740 Les and Lewis will get eliminated next, and then we'll have the O'Toole-McKay show-off, which is

08:01:13.260 dual, which is what we really kind of expected from the outset. So if Les and Lewis is able to

08:01:19.500 pull out those number two rankings, I think it would be a huge, huge upset. And that would,

08:01:25.700 regardless of who becomes the leader, that would be the big story of the night.

08:01:30.280 Yeah. And I would also add to that, that when we see this happen and when we see these results,

08:01:37.960 it makes it, I think, more important for the eventual conservative leader to know that you

08:01:44.520 cannot take social conservatives for granted expect their support and then turn around and

08:01:52.180 not give them anything back for it they're here to stay and that's a reality so I think that this

08:01:58.300 is important to send a message and a lot of people even if they thought Derek Sloan wouldn't win I

08:02:02.300 think voted for him because they wanted the party to know that yeah we're here absolutely and again

08:02:08.220 not just pro-life conservatives or social conservatives uh but we've talked about it a

08:02:12.860 it throughout this program, Andrew, about how Derek Sloan didn't really just fit into a box.

08:02:17.460 You know, part of the reason that so many people who maybe didn't know about him before

08:02:21.580 ended up putting their sport behind him, or even, I think, people who might have left the

08:02:26.080 Conservative Party to go with Maxine Bernier came back to give Derek Sloan a chance. It's because

08:02:32.460 he just said what he thought. He didn't seem overly scripted. He called things out. He was

08:02:37.600 really one of the only ones being fiercely critical of the response of the Trudeau government working

08:02:44.000 with the World Health Organization pointing out some of the major flaws in that organization and

08:02:48.720 how it was handling coronavirus the really really just awful advice we're getting from Canada's

08:02:55.440 chief medical officer Theresa Tam calling for her to be fired even if it was sort of a clunky

08:03:00.400 address that the media made a lot of hay out of you know that's the sentiment that a lot of Canadians

08:03:05.760 are behind and feel that way.

08:03:07.920 And he was one of the only ones calling him out.

08:03:09.620 So I wouldn't just say that Derek Sloan's supporters

08:03:12.300 were just pro-life people.

08:03:14.100 I think that there was a broad range of people

08:03:15.980 that supported them.

08:03:17.280 But again, it's a good reminder

08:03:20.160 that a good portion of this party is pro-life.

08:03:24.040 It shouldn't be taken for granted.

08:03:25.760 We are going now, someone from Deloitte is speaking

08:03:29.120 at the Conservative Party event.

08:03:31.080 We go to that live.

08:03:32.380 20, Conservative Party of Canada, leadership election.

08:03:35.760 Today we have performed specified procedures over the calculation of the total points

08:03:39.920 received by each leadership candidate in connection with the election result.

08:03:44.720 As a result of applying the procedures, we found no exceptions.

08:03:48.240 However, these procedures do not constitute an audit of the election result

08:03:51.920 and accordingly we do not express an opinion on such information.

08:03:55.440 Thank you. And with that, Dan and Lisa, I'm going to give you the results for round two and three.

08:04:00.720 Okay, thank you.

08:04:03.720 Thank you, Doreen.

08:04:05.720 It's very helpful.

08:04:06.720 So, we will…

08:04:07.720 So, the first thing to do,

08:04:09.720 the first thing we're going to mention,

08:04:10.720 is that we're going to give the results

08:04:13.720 of the national report.

08:04:16.720 We're not going to do the regions

08:04:18.720 for the next results.

08:04:20.720 So, we're going to do that for the second report.

08:04:25.720 Are we ready with the results?

08:04:29.720 Are we ready with the second round results?

08:04:32.720 Okay.

08:04:33.720 We are ready to go.

08:04:34.720 Okay.

08:04:35.720 On ordre alphabétique.

08:04:39.720 Leslyn Lewis, 10,140 points.

08:04:44.720 Peter McKay, 11,756 points.

08:04:50.720 And Erno Toole, 11,903 points.

08:04:54.720 Ms. Lewis, we thank you and thank you for participating with a Grand Macar campaign.

08:05:24.720 Okay.

08:05:27.720 And with that, are we ready with the results of the third scrutin?

08:05:35.720 This is it. Yeah.

08:05:38.720 Okay.

08:05:41.720 And the results of the third scrutin. 1.00

08:05:44.720 Ms. Lewis falls off this ballot. We proceed to the third.

08:05:47.720 And I want to thank you very much for her participation in this leadership.

08:05:52.720 points. Le gagnant est le prochain chef du Parti conservateur, Erin O'Toole, avec 19,261 points.

08:06:00.720 Est-ce qu'on est prêt avec les résultats du troisième scrutin?

08:06:02.720 OK.

08:06:06.720 Et les résultats du troisième scrutin.

08:06:12.720 Ms. Lewis calls off this ballot we proceed to the third part of the Conservative Party of January.

08:06:17.720 Congratulations, Mr. O'Toole.

08:06:20.720 And thank you to the next chief and party conservator,

08:06:24.720 Erin O'Toole, with 19,260 points.

08:06:33.720 Now, if you're wondering what's coming next…

08:06:42.720 Can we go?

08:06:48.720 Are we done?

08:06:49.720 Oh, thank you.

08:07:12.720 Well, as you can see, there are a lot of celebration from the Erin O'Toole Watch Party.

08:07:37.940 if you've just missed it. Aaron O'Toole has been elected Conservative Party of Canada leader. It was

08:07:44.020 on the third ballot as predicted. The final score had Aaron O'Toole at 19,271 points and Peter

08:07:52.220 McKay at 14,528 points. Although it was interesting how close that number was in round two with

08:07:59.760 Leslie Lewis, Peter McKay, and Aaron O'Toole all in many respects. I mean, neck and neck.

08:08:04.940 Leslyn Lewis had 10,140 points. McKay had 11,756. Aaron O'Toole had 11,903. And when Leslyn Lewis 0.61

08:08:16.260 dropped off, Aaron O'Toole picked up 8,000 votes almost. And McKay just picked up about 3,000.

08:08:23.340 And that are about 7,000 to 3,000. And that was what we predicted when we saw that first ballot.

08:08:29.120 but Erin O'Toole wins.

08:08:30.820 Candice, immediate reactions to this 0.85

08:08:32.760 while we wait for the acceptance speech from Erin O'Toole.

08:08:35.720 Any moment now.

08:08:37.260 Well, first I just wanna say congratulations

08:08:39.660 to all the candidates.

08:08:40.860 I think that we've talked a lot throughout this show.

08:08:43.500 We've had to fill what, eight hours of time here

08:08:47.380 unexpectedly, Andrew.

08:08:48.640 So we've said everything we've ever thought

08:08:50.740 about any of the candidates on air,

08:08:52.540 but I think it's an exciting moment

08:08:54.580 for the Conservative Party,

08:08:56.080 the Conservative movement more broadly. 0.96

08:08:58.580 great to see someone like Erin O'Toole pulling it off. It wasn't really even that close in the end.

08:09:03.540 He won by, I think, 6,000 points over Peter McKay based on that last ballot. Great to see

08:09:09.940 Les and Lewis do such a strong showing. Again, you know, it wasn't her and O'Toole at the end,

08:09:17.140 like I thought maybe it would be, but still a really great showing. And I hope she does fall

08:09:20.980 through and run as an MP for the Conservatives and becomes a strong voice for that party

08:09:26.660 in ottawa but i i think really this was a big surprise upset for peter mckay he he didn't he

08:09:32.820 didn't get it done he didn't do what he needed to do considering that he was the front runner

08:09:37.460 and that so many people thought that it was a coronation and that he was the heir apparent of

08:09:42.340 the party well i think the party had uh another idea about things and again i think that the

08:09:48.740 difference probably did come down to how those pro-life voters voted the second ballot third

08:09:54.340 ballot, giving more and more votes to Aaron O'Toole. So I think, you know, to anyone considering

08:10:01.560 running for conservative politics in the future, you know, ignore and neglect the conservative base

08:10:08.600 at your own Perel, because really, that was the difference tonight.

08:10:13.020 Yeah, I think that's a really spot on analysis. And I'm glad you gave it, Candace, because this

08:10:17.840 was a grassroots victory. And also, I think we can say that Aaron O'Toole, obviously, he worked

08:10:22.560 hard. His team worked hard. But I think it's fair to say that Leslie Lewis delivered that victory

08:10:27.620 for him. And that's something that needs to be acknowledged. She said she's going to be running.

08:10:33.060 I think that she is probably going to be a cabinet minister. And I hope she has a very strong role

08:10:37.840 in the Aaron O'Toole party and in the Aaron O'Toole potentially government if Aaron O'Toole

08:10:43.780 is successful in an election. And I know he was saying since the start that as an MP who's sitting

08:10:48.860 right now he's going to be hitting the ground running there's going to be a big test ahead

08:10:52.820 remember we've got parliament coming back in september we've got throne speech budget

08:10:57.060 potentially an election uh it's not going to be a long runway that the conservative leader now the

08:11:04.380 erin o'toole team has to get ready that's that's very true and it is a really good position that

08:11:11.160 he's in the fact that he is a sitting mp considering that the two other candidates

08:11:14.460 that were in the top three there neither of them were mps so we would have had to wait to a by

08:11:18.420 election and they would have had a disadvantage just not being in the house we saw that with

08:11:22.500 ndp leader jagmeet singh who wasn't an mp when he was named leader of that party and he was sort of

08:11:27.860 just irrelevant for a while you didn't really hear anything about him and it took him a long time

08:11:32.820 to gain national relevancy he still hasn't really found his stride as leader of that party so it is

08:11:39.540 great that aaron is in that position aaron o'tool is in that position where he can you know quickly

08:11:44.500 jump in to hold this liberal government to account. I wonder, you know, we heard earlier

08:11:49.880 from Steve Outhouse, who was running Les Lewis's campaign, about how she was committed, regardless

08:11:54.920 of the outcome, to run as an MP and to be involved in the next government. Have we heard

08:11:59.940 any of the same assurances, Andrew, from Peter McKay? Do we know for sure that he's going

08:12:05.040 to run as a Conservative in the next election? No, we don't. And you raise an important question

08:12:11.440 there because Peter McKay had bowed out from politics. He had gotten out of the game and it

08:12:15.920 was only just in this leadership race that he jumped back in. So I don't know if he's interested

08:12:21.160 in actually becoming a part of someone else's team or if it was just leader or bust. I don't know if

08:12:28.060 we'll get an answer to that for the next little while. One thing that I would say is interesting

08:12:33.480 is that Christine Elliott in Ontario came out of political retirement to run for the leadership and

08:12:38.600 When she lost, she actually got back in, ran again, and now she's Ontario's health minister.

08:12:43.640 So there is precedent that Peter McKay could still run and be a part of Erin O'Toole's team.

08:12:49.000 We talked earlier with Fred Delory from the O'Toole campaign about some of that animosity between the O'Toole campaign and McKay campaign.

08:12:56.820 And you've seen the sniping between staffers on those two campaigns on Twitter a lot.

08:13:01.940 I don't know if it's going to be as easy to bury the hatchet, so to speak, and move on at that level.

08:13:07.940 So that'll be one thing to watch, I think.

08:13:10.400 And it's interesting.

08:13:11.040 We had Devin Drover, our own True North correspondent who lives out in Newfoundland.

08:13:16.240 He was talking about how Peter McKay is very electable and has a lot of appeal in Atlantic

08:13:21.080 Canada.

08:13:21.740 So having him be a strong voice and sort of a partner within an Air No Tool Conservative

08:13:28.880 Party would be good in that regard if he can carry some of his appeal and his connections 0.98

08:13:34.480 to Atlantic Canada to help at least devise some kind of a strategy to make folks Canadians out

08:13:41.880 in Eastern Canada reconsider the Conservatives because we know there wasn't really a lot of

08:13:46.520 love lost between folks in Atlantic Canada and the Harper government. I think that the Conservatives

08:13:54.040 ended up being completely locked out if I recall correctly back in 2015. So certainly it would be

08:14:00.540 great to have more voices from Eastern and Atlantic Canada and, you know,

08:14:05.380 helping again with conservatives to understand what, what it,

08:14:08.620 what it takes to appeal to conservatives in that area and get them out to vote

08:14:13.060 in the election.

08:14:14.620 So if you are just tuning in, we are coming up on eight hours.

08:14:19.040 What has ended up being a marathon conservative leadership results show.

08:14:22.980 We have the leadership results right now.

08:14:24.900 We are waiting on the acceptance speech, the victory speech from Aaron O'Toole.

08:14:29.420 Now, for context, what's happening here is all of the candidates were having their own viewing parties at a hotel in Ottawa.

08:14:37.100 I think they're all at the Westin.

08:14:38.740 And the way it happened, normally you'd have a big ballroom.

08:14:41.400 Everyone's in one room.

08:14:42.440 You'd have big screens.

08:14:43.500 In the coronavirus era, the COVID-19 era, this wasn't possible.

08:14:48.060 So every candidate had their own viewing party.

08:14:50.680 The 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.

08:14:58.380 So 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.

08:15:14.820 And that part, I don't know for sure. And then Aaron O'Toole will speak from where the party is set up.

08:15:20.440 So it's not a long walk, but it is a bit of a walk.

08:15:23.460 And if everyone's wanting to celebrate him and pop champagne corks and shake his hands,

08:15:27.620 this migration might take a bit of time.

08:15:30.140 I think we are, you know, some 10 to 12 minutes after announcing the results.

08:15:34.640 And that's where we are now.

08:15:36.760 So we're waiting.

08:15:37.720 The party has said to stay tuned for the new leader.

08:15:40.620 So that's what we are watching.

08:15:42.080 And we'll cut to that speech the second it starts.

08:15:45.000 I would say that there was a question about whether the leader would do a press conference

08:15:50.360 after their speech, and given the late hour of this,

08:15:53.980 I don't necessarily think that that would be a good idea.

08:15:57.400 Aaron O'Toole may do a press conference tomorrow from Ottawa.

08:16:00.840 That's something to keep in mind,

08:16:02.600 and I don't know if I'll end up having to be on the first flight out to Ottawa

08:16:06.400 or if we can just phone it in, and I don't mean that in a lazy way.

08:16:09.200 I mean, literally dial into the press conference,

08:16:11.980 but that's going to be something to watch here.

08:16:14.460 But we are going to have the victory speech.

08:16:16.000 That is happening tonight.

08:16:17.480 We don't know exactly what time.

08:16:19.080 what do you think the key message of this speech will be Candace do you think it is just going to

08:16:23.820 be about unity or do you think it's going to be more of the the sort of red meat anti-cancel

08:16:28.360 culture uh the policy issues that got O'Toole to this point well I guess this is like the moment

08:16:34.320 of truth we're talking about it a little earlier on about how you know for conservative running in

08:16:39.720 a conservative uh election this is like the most that this is the most red meat that we're going

08:16:45.420 this is the most that a candidate is going to try to appeal to the conservative base. So

08:16:50.860 we're going to find out, I think tonight by this speech, Andrew, whether or not Aaron O'Toole was

08:16:56.520 really, you know, putting it on and playing, putting on a show and pretending to be a true

08:17:01.060 blue conservative. But now that he's the leader, he's going to morph back into sort of a red Tory

08:17:05.920 and try to be more genteel and appeal to the mainstream media a bit more, or whether he is

08:17:11.920 going to continue on his path of saying it like it is and standing up to the radical left and being

08:17:17.920 the sort of you know champion of conservative issues that so many hoped and so many conservatives

08:17:23.840 voted for in this campaign so i i hope that he maintains his uh authenticity as as being that

08:17:31.120 sort of true blue voice we heard it from him so many times that he said i'm the true blue guy i'm

08:17:35.200 the true blue conservative you know he talked a lot about his endorsement from jason kenney

08:17:39.920 uh it was almost became sort of a running joke i think during the uh fireside chat that you did

08:17:45.120 with him how many times he mentioned jason kenny it was almost like it could have turned into a

08:17:50.400 drinking game like take a drink every time erin o'toole touts uh his endorsement from jason kenny

08:17:55.520 but uh you know obviously unity is important unity of the party uh it's great to keep everyone

08:18:02.080 united it is a big blue tent and if you're gonna try to beat justin true to win a general election

08:18:06.640 you have to have as many votes as possible so obviously you have to reach across the aisle but

08:18:11.200 i hope you know some of his core policies that really did appeal to conservatives talking about

08:18:16.400 defunding the cbc uh you know his his support for groups like the independent press gallery

08:18:21.840 and true north his strong position on guns i hope i hope he maintains all of that and and continues

08:18:28.480 on in that direction running uh you know in in more of a general election and i hope that

08:18:34.240 like andrew shear has done as of late i hope that he's more willing to push back against the media

08:18:39.520 i think he did a great interview at one point with the cbc where he was talking about how his

08:18:45.440 position was actually to cut their funding and to defund them and uh really pushed back against

08:18:51.120 the host was really firm really strong and then the cbc ended up cutting that portion of the

08:18:55.520 interview out so they didn't even show it to their own viewers which is incredibly uh

08:19:00.160 disingenuous of the CBC exactly what we've come to expect from them but I hope that we see more

08:19:05.360 of that from Erin O'Toole more of the sort of pushing back that Conservatives love to see.

08:19:10.720 I hear applause coming from the Conservative studio but we don't have a visual of the stage yet so

08:19:16.240 I think from the sound it's moments away but we don't have a visual yet but do stay tuned.

08:19:21.440 Candace mentioned the Jason Kenney endorsement let's just take advantage of this and look at

08:19:26.320 at the numbers here since we have a few moments. The Alberta results in round one had Aaron O'Toole

08:19:32.640 as the winner at 1,084, but Leslyn Lewis not far behind at 9.57 and McKay behind that at 8.26

08:19:40.460 and then Sloan at 5.32. So yes, O'Toole won Alberta and ultimately we know that Sloan's

08:19:46.660 and Lewis's numbers eventually went to O'Toole, but it wasn't a blowout in Alberta. And I don't

08:19:51.820 know if there's anything to read into that except for the fact that Leslyn Lewis did very well and

08:19:56.300 was very popular. But I would say that there is very much, I think, an intrigue there in that,

08:20:04.360 you know, the Jason Kenney endorsement, did it actually deliver votes? Because we know that

08:20:08.020 endorsements in general simply are sometimes overstated. Alex Boutillier, who's a reporter

08:20:14.840 with the Toronto Star, has just tweeted that he got a text from Hamish Marshall, Andrew Scheer's

08:20:20.040 former campaign manager, saying Peter McKay losing his leadership is like missing a shot on an empty

08:20:25.060 net. And that is exactly what Peter McKay said snarkily in the wake of Andrew Scheer's election

08:20:30.740 loss. And it sounds like Hamish Marshall is returning the favor. A little bit of sour grapes

08:20:35.740 there, but that's okay. Yeah, I think that, you know, again, Peter McKay just didn't really get

08:20:41.420 it done. And, you know, the fact that Jason Kenney did endorse Aaron O'Toole, you know, I know we've

08:20:47.420 said over and over that endorsements don't really mean much, but it is a signal to sort of the base

08:20:52.460 of the Conservative Party that someone like Jason Kenney who is so does such a great job articulating

08:20:58.560 so many of the issues he stick handles his way through issues so well he pushes back against

08:21:03.000 the mainstream media he's you know doing a lot of things that conservatives like over there in

08:21:08.760 Alberta as he did when he was a federal cabinet minister it does mean something and I think the

08:21:13.740 fact that Aaron O'Toole ultimately won in Alberta you know he didn't do that well last time around

08:21:20.020 in Alberta. It was Max St. Bernier that cleaned up out there. So, so I think that the endorsement

08:21:25.140 obviously did go, you know, a little bit of a ways. It didn't, didn't really, you know,

08:21:29.900 it wasn't a big, huge blowout there or anything like that, but still, you know, endorsement did

08:21:34.680 help. Well, Andrew, because we're going to be cut off at any moment by Aaron O'Toole's

08:21:39.040 concession, or not concession, I can't even dig straight, his victory speech.

08:21:45.280 We're nine minutes away from the eight hour mark. I think it can be forgiven.

08:21:48.560 Let's go now to Erin O'Toole in Ottawa.

08:21:54.560 What an honour. Thank you so much. Conservative members across this country have been patient

08:22:03.680 throughout this leadership race as Canadians have been through COVID-19

08:22:08.800 and Conservatives were patient again tonight. So thank you for being patient throughout this

08:22:13.200 leadership race. But I want to start by thanking my friends, Leslyn Lewis, Derek Sloan, and of course

08:22:20.960 the Honourable Peter McKay. Thank you for stepping up for our country. Congratulations for the

08:22:27.600 campaigns you have run, for the ideas you have put forward, and for the Canadians you have recruited

08:22:33.360 to our cause. Thank you for putting your name on the ballot, for leaving your family for weeks to

08:22:39.520 travel all over this great country whether on the ground or in a room of

08:22:44.840 your house for hours of zoom calls thank you for talking to Canadians about our

08:22:50.400 country our party and ideas for a stronger future thank you for valuing

08:22:57.100 the grassroots members of our movement I want to thank my incredible campaign

08:23:03.140 team from coast to coast to coast we have built a passionate team of

08:23:08.440 patriotic Canadians. And your hard work led to this victory.

08:23:14.440 My friends, this course shows that the Conservative Party is a part of ideas and principles.

08:23:21.440 The positive debates with Leslin, Derek and Peter prove that our movement is healthy.

08:23:29.440 Thank you to you three. We will continue the work together.

08:23:35.440 During this course, I was proud to travel across the beautiful province.

08:23:40.440 I met hundreds of Quebecers in Montreal, Trois-Rivières, Quebec and in Saguenay.

08:23:47.440 Thank you for being here to talk about economy, health and agriculture.

08:23:55.440 When journalists will talk about this course, they will talk about our great success in Quebec.

08:24:02.440 I also want to thank the volunteers for Peter, Leslin and Derek.

08:24:19.440 You worked incredibly hard and I look forward to all of us working together to build a stronger

08:24:25.280 country with more opportunity for our children and our grandchildren.

08:24:31.320 I would also like to thank Andrew and Jill Scheer and your family for your service and

08:24:40.840 dedication to the country and to our party.

08:24:44.160 We will continue to work together for Canadians.

08:24:48.420 And of course, I want to thank my wife Rebecca, our children Molly and Jack and all of my

08:24:58.260 family and friends here tonight, or still up watching at home, thank you for your love,

08:25:04.540 advice and patience these nine months.

08:25:07.980 Cette victoire revient évidemment à mon épouse Rebecca, nos enfants Molly et Jacques, ainsi

08:25:14.300 que toute ma famille et nos amis. Merci pour votre amour, votre patience et vos conseils.

08:25:24.060 of all, thank you to the tens of thousands of Canadians from coast to coast to coast

08:25:28.820 who voted for me. You put your faith in me to lead this historic party, and I'm honoured

08:25:36.060 and humbled. I promise you, I will not let you down. Today, you have given me a clear

08:25:42.660 mission to unite our party, to champion our Conservative principles, to show Canadians

08:25:50.160 what we know so well, that Justin Trudeau and his team are failing our great country.

08:25:57.360 We must continue to point out liberal failings and corruption, but we must also show Canadians

08:26:04.320 our vision for a stronger, prosperous and more united Canada. Canada can and must do better,

08:26:14.080 and Conservatives will work hard to earn the trust and confidence of Canadians in the next election.

08:26:20.160 Today, you give me a clear mission – to unite our party, to hold me up for our values

08:26:29.120 and to demonstrate, again, that Justin Trudeau defends Canada.

08:26:34.780 But I will not just criticize the liberals.

08:26:39.100 We are going to propose a vision of a stronger, stronger and prosperous Canada – a conservative

08:26:47.180 positive conservatrice friends now the real work begins we could be into an election campaign as

08:26:55.740 soon as this fall but as more than 260 000 passionate conservatives have already shown

08:27:03.740 in this record-breaking leadership amidst a pandemic the conservative party will be ready

08:27:10.220 for the next election and we will win the next election to the millions of canadians

08:27:23.820 that are still up that i'm meeting tonight for the first time good morning i'm erin o'toole

08:27:32.780 you're going to be seeing and hearing a lot from me in the coming

08:27:35.900 weeks and months. But I want you to know from the start that I'm here to fight for you and your family.

08:28:05.900 Like many millions of Canadians, Rebecca and I have been juggling a lot of jobs lately.

08:28:23.420 With our kids at home, COVID has made us appreciate teachers more than ever before.

08:28:29.420 my mother who passed away when I was nine was a teacher and throughout my life I

08:28:35.840 wish she was here to give me advice right now I wish you were here to see

08:28:41.720 her child succeed but I know she is here tonight because I can see her in my

08:28:47.360 daughter who shares her name thankfully I've also had my stepmother also a

08:28:53.540 teacher to guide me to this very day. I'm thankful that she and my dad are here

08:29:00.380 with me tonight. My father John inspired me into public service. But like many

08:29:06.920 teenagers, especially those who lost a parent, I gave my dad a hard time

08:29:11.540 growing up. He worked at General Motors for over 30 years which brought us from

08:29:16.700 St. Therese, Quebec to Bowmanville, Ontario to my home in the Toronto area.

08:29:22.080 After high school, I joined the military to gain discipline and to serve the country.

08:29:27.520 It deepened my love for Canada and defines who I am today. I served as a navigator on

08:29:35.200 Sea King helicopters and sailed with our Navy out of Halifax. It was in Halifax where I met Rebecca,

08:29:42.480 the love of my life. Today, Rebecca and I are both navigating, raising our amazing children,

08:29:49.280 Molly and Jack, and five days ago, Rebecca and I celebrated 20 years of marriage.

08:30:00.080 I have spent my entire adult life trying to serve Canada and its people. Soon, I will be asking

08:30:06.160 Canadians for the chance to serve as Prime Minister so that we can get this country back on track.

08:30:13.280 I love this country and I'm very worried about the course we are on.

08:30:18.000 When I launched my campaign in Calgary in January, I said that the stakes were high.

08:30:24.800 They are even higher today. Our country is currently facing its most serious economic

08:30:31.280 challenges since the Great Depression. Capital and jobs have been leaving Canada and large

08:30:36.720 deficits were being run before the COVID crisis led to record debt and deficits.

08:30:47.040 of the failure. We see the tariffs on the aluminum increase and no agreement for the

08:30:57.040 Canadian labor. Warren Buffett has banned his investment of several billion dollars in

08:31:03.040 the Saguenay because of the illegal blocus. With the Liberals, Canada is a risky country

08:31:12.040 to invest. We need to give confidence to employers, to the PME and to the innovators.

08:31:20.040 We need to remind them that it is possible for Canada to be one of the best places in the world to do things. 0.99

08:31:30.040 But I'm going to fight for all the forgotten people.

08:31:35.040 These people who wake up early to feed their families,

08:31:39.040 Les hommes et les femmes qui travaillent fort et qui sont fiers de travailler, ils peuvent compter sur moi.

08:31:48.020 Our country is more divided than it ever has been in my lifetime.

08:31:52.420 People are losing faith in Canada because of the ideological and out-of-touch policies from the Liberals.

08:31:59.600 We just emerged from the first wave of the largest health crisis in our history.

08:32:04.860 Premiers across our country have shown real leadership amid the COVID-19 crisis.

08:32:10.300 They were looking out for you. Justin Trudeau, Bill Morneau and the Liberals showed once again

08:32:15.660 that even amid a national crisis, they were still interested in looking after their friends.

08:32:23.660 We can rebuild our great country while protecting Canadians from the ongoing threat of COVID-19.

08:32:30.300 We can get Canadians back to work, be proud of the things we grow, build and produce in Canada again.

08:32:37.260 We must have a government that will keep us safe and ensure that we are never ill-prepared again.

08:32:44.380 To do that, we need a leader with real-world experience and someone who is not afraid

08:32:49.580 to make the tough decisions. A leader who cares more about keeping Canadians safe and united

08:32:55.660 than about his personal image and the interests of insiders.

08:33:00.060 We need a leader who puts Canadians first and will stand up for Canada and our interests

08:33:05.500 in a challenging world where we've lost the respect of our friends and allies.

08:33:11.820 The world still needs more Canada, it just needs less Justin Trudeau.

08:33:18.140 Why should I be that leader? Because I believe that whether you are black, 0.83

08:33:22.620 white, brown, or from any race or creed. Whether you are LGBT or straight, whether you are an

08:33:29.420 Indigenous Canadian or have joined the Canadian family three weeks ago or three generations ago,

08:33:36.540 whether you are doing well or barely getting by, whether you worship on Fridays, Saturdays,

08:33:42.620 Sundays, or not at all, you are an important part of Canada and you have a home in the Conservative

08:33:50.700 party of Canada. Maybe you have voted for a different party your whole life or have never

08:33:56.940 voted at all. Maybe you feel that as a union member you should not vote for our party. Maybe

08:34:03.260 you feel let down repeatedly by politicians. Maybe your family came to Canada for better

08:34:09.740 but you are still waiting for fair treatment. Maybe you run a small business and work all day

08:34:15.820 only to be called a tax cheat by your own government. It is time for many

08:34:22.000 Liberal and NDP voters to socially distance themselves from those out of

08:34:27.760 touch parties. It is time for more Canadians to look at the Conservative

08:34:32.820 Party again. If you want the opportunity to work hard to provide for your family

08:34:38.300 you should be voting Conservative. If you want to stop insiders from getting ahead

08:34:44.320 head while you are falling back you should be voting conservative if you are

08:34:50.640 proud of what we produce in this country whether it's the resources in the ground

08:34:55.040 or the ideas in our heads you should be voting conservative and if you believe

08:35:01.240 deeply like I do that you need an ethical government and that we need to

08:35:07.400 give the ethics commissioner a break you should be voting conservative Justin

08:35:13.480 Trudeau and Jagmeet Singh claim to stand up for working families, but they failed them

08:35:18.120 time and time again.

08:35:20.120 Et le Bloc Québécois? On va se dire la vérité. Le Bloc est passé date.

08:35:27.800 Il est né quand Justin Trudeau méprise les Québécois. Ça va être très différent

08:35:34.520 avec moi. C'est le temps pour le Québec d'avoir une chaise à la table des décisions.

08:35:40.680 Et je le dis à vous tous, les Québécois nationalistes ont une place importante dans le Parti conservateur.

08:35:49.680 Canada needs serious leadership for these challenging times,

08:35:52.680 to keep Canadians safe and prepared for the future,

08:35:55.680 to rebuild our country,

08:35:57.680 to navigate our way out of record liberal deficits

08:36:00.680 before they put our social programs at risk,

08:36:03.680 to ensure that we rebuild stronger and more self-reliant,

08:36:07.680 more resilient so that we are better prepared for future waves of COVID-19 and all threats.

08:36:15.560 To restore Canada's place in a tough world, earning back the respect that Justin Trudeau

08:36:20.980 has lost on the world stage. That is what Conservatives stand for. Doing what is right

08:36:28.420 even when it is not what is easy. That is what Canadians stand for. It's the same sense of duty

08:36:36.640 that kept our health care workers and PSWs helping our sick in the early weeks of the pandemic

08:36:42.160 when they were worried about risks to themselves and their families.

08:36:45.120 We were all proud of our soldiers who came to help in the CHSLD.

08:36:52.160 The situation was very difficult, but Canadians have worked together.

08:36:58.400 In our families, we cooked potatoes. We took care of our parents.

08:37:04.720 That same feeling when a family helps newcomers to Canada by opening up their own home and

08:37:18.440 letting them get their start with the help from family or friends in the community, even

08:37:22.900 when it makes things challenging. That same feeling our soldiers must have felt at the

08:37:29.380 bottom of Vimy Ridge more than a century ago. It's a belief in what Canada can be.

08:37:36.580 It's a belief in the hope and opportunity that Canada represents.

08:37:42.580 My fellow Canadians, my name is Erin O'Toole.

08:37:46.420 I believe in this country and I'm running to serve you as Prime Minister. Thank you and good night.

08:37:53.780 do we have to put this back on

08:38:23.780 And maybe put me in a small.

08:38:53.780 Well, as you can see there, a triumphant moment from the new Conservative Party of Canada leader

08:39:17.500 Aaron O'Toole raising his hand up with his predecessor Andrew Scheer and joining Aaron O'Toole

08:39:24.480 on stage right now you can see are his family to his right and to the left you have his competitors

08:39:31.780 in the leadership race I see Leslyn Lewis and Peter McKay and it looks like Peter McKay's wife

08:39:38.140 and son Derek Sloan is there as well I'm not sure who the the person is between Peter McKay and

08:39:44.760 less than lewis i believe he's on less than lewis's campaign so that is the that is it and that look

08:39:51.180 that here's the camaraderie in the moment all of the fellow competitors who were not successful

08:39:56.260 congratulating shaking hands with erin o'toole the new leader of the conservative party of canada

08:40:02.560 and we cleared the eight hour mark eight hours and nine minutes later i am ready to call it a wrap

08:40:10.400 on the True North Live

08:40:12.740 Conservative Leadership Results Show.

08:40:15.720 I want to thank all of you truly for tuning in.

08:40:18.360 This was not the show we anticipated,

08:40:20.260 but it was, I think, a very important one

08:40:22.280 for True North, for Canada,

08:40:23.700 for the conservative movement.

08:40:25.280 And I thank you on behalf of Candace Malcolm

08:40:27.300 and the entire team for being a part of it.

08:40:30.160 If you want to support the work that we do,

08:40:32.080 please go to www.tnc.news.

08:40:36.100 And a big thank you

08:40:37.380 to the entire True North team behind the scenes.

08:40:40.080 I am not going to list everyone by name because there are too many,

08:40:42.600 but all of the people that have worked from the videography side to the

08:40:45.660 research, to the social media, to the production,

08:40:48.160 everyone was a simple class act today and we are so grateful.

08:40:52.420 So thank you very much to you all.

08:40:55.180 We will talk to you soon and Andrew Lawton show tomorrow,

08:40:57.360 breaking down the results. Thank you. God bless. And good night, Canada.

08:41:09.660 Thank you.

08:41:39.660 Thank you.

08:42:09.660 Thank you.

08:42:39.660 Thank you.

08:43:09.660 Thank you.

08:43:39.660 You

Juno News - August 24, 2020

Conservative Leadership Results Show

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