00:00:00.000Welcome to Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show. This is The Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by True North.
00:00:10.660Coming up, the Conservative Leadership Series concludes with my sit-down interview with leadership candidate Leslyn Lewis about identity politics, net zero, and the road to a Conservative victory.
00:00:21.000The Andrew Lawton Show starts right now.
00:00:24.000Hello and welcome. This is another edition of Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show. You're tuned in to The Andrew Lawton Show here on True North.
00:00:32.460As we've been doing the last six weeks now, we are doing in-depth conversations with Conservative leadership candidates that run the gamut.
00:00:40.200We talk about their policies, the state of Canadian politics, a few curveballs here and there, and the goal is to really get a sense of who these candidates are.
00:00:48.220Remember, they're not just seeking to lead the Conservatives, but they're also seeking to lead the country.
00:00:53.000So we've been doing this series. We've gone through five of the six candidates so far, and today we have the final installment of this series, my sit-down with Leslyn Lewis.
00:01:01.840Now, I've spoken to Leslyn Lewis in the past, so it's not my first time speaking to her, even in the campaign.
00:01:07.180I did an interview not long after she launched. Also caught up with her in Ottawa for the Freedom Convoy, and again, very briefly, after the unofficial first Conservative leadership debate put on by the Canada Strong and Free Network.
00:01:19.940But this is a lengthier discussion. As you'll see, we cover a number of different things that she's touched on in her campaigns and others that Conservative members and prospective Conservative voters have shared with us as being questions that they have.
00:01:31.340And here is my interview with Conservative leadership candidate Leslyn Lewis.
00:01:35.320Haldeman Norfolk Member of Parliament Leslyn Lewis. Dr. Lewis, good to speak to you. Thanks for doing this.
00:01:39.580Nice to be back with you, Andrew, and in person this time.
00:01:41.980Yes, yes. Always a pleasure to speak to you in person. When I last interviewed you in person, it was briefly after the debate, the Canada Strong and Free Network conference debate in Ottawa, which was the first debate of this race.
00:01:56.580And now, obviously, we've had a few more months of campaigning and the membership cutoff is locked in.
00:02:01.920What's your sense of this race overall, especially as for you, it's a second time running compared to last time around? How are you feeling?
00:02:08.780So, well, last time around, you know that I won the popular vote on the second ballot.
00:02:14.640I, my numbers are much stronger this time. I see that the support for me is much stronger this time.
00:02:22.000It's a little bit bewildering because the media has not even recognized that.
00:02:26.560I mean, you have, and to some respect, and so has Conservative media.
00:02:30.880But the media in general has not really recognized the fact that I'm really the only candidate that has a proven track record in a federal Conservative leadership race.
00:02:41.700And it was a very strong track record, but yet they really, really view me as an invisible person.
00:02:48.840And I'm getting a lot of support from the membership base who are recognizing just how biased the legacy media in general, the pundits are.
00:02:58.080Going into the 2020 leadership race, I think you were a relative political unknown.
00:03:04.340I know you had run as a candidate in Scarborough, but now you've come at it as someone with national profile.
00:03:10.720But after the last leadership race, I think a lot of people really thought you were going to have a very strong role in the Conservative Party of Canada.
00:03:17.880Certainly Aaron O'Toole had indicated that.
00:03:19.840But you were not even given a shadow cabinet role after the 2021 election.
00:03:29.060Well, I think, to be honest with you, Aaron wanted to give me a shadow cabinet position.
00:03:34.060But he had a policy that everybody at that time had to divulge their vaccination status.
00:03:39.100And I was very adamant that I believed that the vaccine mandates and COVID was being used to create division and to really create segregation within our society.
00:03:52.620And I was very adamant that medical privacy is something that's very, very important because I was afraid of what was going to happen, how we were going to use it as a political wedge.
00:04:03.020And I was right. It did happen. And so I stood up for that.
00:04:07.300And Aaron was honest with me. He said, you'll have to divulge to get the shadow cabinet position.
00:04:13.420And he really wanted to give it to me. But I said, no, this is a stance that I have to take. And he understood.
00:04:20.280When you talk about this invisibility that you feel to the mainstream media in the current race, what do you think is the source of that?
00:04:27.420Do you think it's that you are someone who's talking about vaccine mandates? Do you think it's because you're pro-life?
00:04:31.680Why do you think you are taking on that status of being invisible, in your words?
00:04:38.540Well, no, because someone like Roman Babar gave up his career.
00:04:43.600He took a very, very, very harsh stance and paid a price for vaccine mandates.
00:04:50.620So I don't think it's necessarily that. I think it's because I don't fit the narrative, the left-leaning narrative of what a black woman should be.
00:05:03.520They've created this entire critical race narrative where they define everybody in terms of their race.
00:05:10.600And you have to fit within a certain box. I don't fit within that box.
00:05:14.720I refuse to see a little white six-year-old child and label that child as an oppressor.
00:05:20.460Nor do I want anybody labeling my children as victims.
00:05:24.160And I'm not a victim. So when you can create a narrative that people of color are victims, then you can render them invisible.
00:05:33.760And that's exactly what the media has done.
00:05:35.660If you look at what happened recently when Patrick Brown got kicked out of the race, it was preposterous that people were saying,
00:05:42.320Oh, who are visible minorities going to vote for? Because they had rendered me completely invisible.
00:05:48.840And it's because of this vote-cancel culture narrative that we have bought into, whereby we, if everybody doesn't agree,
00:05:57.480if everybody doesn't agree on abortion or pro-life, you label them, you demonize them, you create a political wedge,
00:06:04.360you get them to fight against each other.
00:06:06.240And that's how politicians keep us divided.
00:06:09.420I've taken a different approach. I've said, I don't want to be a regular politician where I'm going to dodge from the question.
00:06:16.520This is who I am. This is what I believe.
00:06:18.900I don't necessarily believe that you have to have the same beliefs as me.
00:06:23.400In fact, I welcome you to have a different perspective than I have.
00:06:27.520If you take, for the example of abortion, I am working with pro-choice people right now on dealing with the issue of females being rendered less than boys in the womb.
00:06:41.700I'm dealing with that because we've seen that China and India has put in laws to make sure that aborting female babies is not a practice anymore.
00:06:55.740And those countries have dealt with that problem because there was a problem.
00:06:59.980And now the only two countries that are left that allow you to have an abortion only because you're a girl are Canada and North Korea.
00:07:07.420So we're seeing a tourist industry here in Canada.
00:07:10.500And so pro-life people and pro-choice people have united and said, yes, we will unite together in fighting misogyny because we believe that baby girls are equal to baby boys.
00:07:21.560That is something that we can do in forming common ground.
00:07:25.960But we can never get there if we demonize each other and if we assume that just because we have different perspectives, we can't agree on anything.
00:07:34.280And so that's what I'm trying to put forth is that type of leadership.
00:07:38.580I want to go back to the identity politics comment you made at the beginning of that response.
00:07:42.620Because you were, it sounded like, talking about the way the left assumes that all minorities think and act the same.
00:07:48.920You've also taken aim very recently at that attitude within conservative circles.
00:07:53.340I mean, Patrick Brown's campaign, for example, talked about really courting the so-called ethnic vote as though anyone who is under that banner of ethnic thinks the same way about politics and leadership candidates.
00:08:04.480Do you feel that conservatives get too hung up in identity politics?
00:08:07.900Because I've heard supporters of yours, for example, that say, well, you know, it would be great if conservatives fielded a minority because then it would deflect against the racism allegation or a woman because it would deflect against the misogyny.
00:08:18.780Do you feel conservatives get too consumed by this as well?
00:08:25.060The problem that we have is when we attribute everything to it.
00:08:29.520Now, if we know that the liberals are playing identity politics, yes, of course, my candidacy is going to deflect against that because the ridiculous things that they accuse conservatives of are false.
00:08:43.580And so that's a part of the problem that the media has with me is that they can no longer perpetuate that false narrative.
00:08:51.720So race is real, racism is real, but the problem is, is that we cannot reduce individuals just to a race.
00:09:00.360And for a leadership candidate to say, I somehow have proprietary rights over this group of people and I'm going to pass them on to this group of people as if these individuals are not human beings with identities, with values.
00:09:15.540I believe that I can reach different segments of people based on different values.
00:09:22.200You reach farmers based on one set of values.
00:09:25.140You may reach another group based on a different set of values, but you can't assume that every farmer thinks alike or every white person thinks alike or every person of color thinks alike.
00:09:36.180You have, in the course of your campaign, called out a number of global institutions and treaties that you view as problematic.
00:09:43.840Most notably, we have the World Health Organization, which I think has been rightfully under a microscope lately.
00:09:49.940Talk to me about what you would do as Prime Minister when it comes to Canada's engagement with multilateral organizations, including, but not limited to, the WHO.
00:10:10.920I believe that global organizations are encroaching on our sovereignty.
00:10:16.360And many of the treaties that are being imposed, we later ascend to those treaties.
00:10:21.460And then we start to conform our laws to meet those treaty parameters.
00:10:28.180And so that's the problem that I have when we have something like the World Pandemic Treaty that's going to be drafted.
00:10:36.180The first draft will be presented in August next month.
00:10:40.100And yet we have not looked at what we have done right and wrong in COVID.
00:10:44.780We have not formulated our own pandemic response.
00:10:48.080So how can we sit down at a table with global leaders and say, this is how our interests will best be served when we haven't assessed that on our own?
00:10:57.760That's the problem that I have primarily with the World Pandemic Treaty.
00:11:02.140And the fact that the international health regulations that's attached to the WHO, that those were going to be modified, those 13 modifications that seemed to be just being pushed under the carpet earlier,
00:11:17.280I thought it was very important to raise a flag and let civil society know exactly what was going on.
00:11:24.540What were the issues with those amendments to the IHRs?
00:11:27.280The issue was that many of those amendments, if they had taken place, it would have been a preemptive treaty.
00:11:35.280It was almost like grooming us for a treaty.
00:11:38.060And yet those would have taken place outside of the parameters of consultation that you would have when you have a signage to an international treaty.
00:11:50.360So the civil society would have been robbed of the opportunity to engage in those amendments.
00:11:56.440And then potentially when the treaty came about, they would say, well, you know what?
00:12:01.220We already have these amendments in the regulation.
00:12:35.920If it's affecting our sovereignty and if they're not going to respect our sovereign health care rights, then absolutely yes.
00:12:42.000What is it that you would like to see as Canada's role on the world stage?
00:12:46.340Because we all know when Justin Trudeau came in, he gave that famous line, Canada's back, as though Canada was a laughingstock under Harper and then it was back.
00:12:53.600And, I mean, I think most people know that hasn't worked out exactly as he promised it.
00:12:57.720But what do you want to see as Canada's role?
00:13:00.900Canada was respected under Stephen Harper internationally.
00:14:08.700We've heard rumblings, which as you know now in Ottawa are very common about anything and everything, that there could be a fall election coming up.
00:14:15.460And the Conservatives put out a tweet last week when this came up that said, you know, Canada doesn't need an election.
00:14:23.820The counterpoint to that is that for Conservatives who see what Justin Trudeau is doing, who oppose that, you'd think they'd want to replace him at the first available opportunity.
00:14:33.720So you would be, you would welcome if you're the leader of September or fall election.
00:14:36.680Absolutely. The very first available opportunity to replace him because Canadians are tired.
00:14:43.180Canadians recognize that the only way forward is a Conservative majority so that we can undo some of the damage that has been done by this current leadership.
00:14:54.500We need an election and if one, the opportunity comes up in the fall, I think that we should jump at it.
00:15:01.340It would be the best opportunity for our country.
00:15:03.960You've taken aim at the idea of net zero, which as we know is really the backbone of, I think, Canada's environmental policy right now.
00:15:11.580This idea that we have to get to net zero emissions by 2030, 2035, whenever each target is it.
00:15:18.240You wrote your doctoral dissertation on attracting green energy investment.
00:15:22.960You were specifically looking at sub-Saharan Africa.
00:15:25.440But a lot of people would look at that and say, well, she's a booster of a lot of the very same things that net zero is really based on.
00:21:00.040We need to have metrics that we can measure, that people can question.
00:21:05.840And it doesn't have to be a one-sided, dictatorial approach.
00:21:10.200What is it that your campaign is about?
00:21:12.940If you can distill it down into a theme, what is it that your message fundamentally is to Conservative members and to Canadians?
00:21:20.120I think essentially it's about freedom.
00:21:22.300It's about freedom to be able to be a sovereign nation that we love and that we've built.
00:21:27.960The freedom to work together and unite together.
00:21:32.580The freedom of individuals to be able to determine their own destiny.
00:21:37.220And these are things that Canadians feel are being eroded.
00:21:41.540And so there's an element of hope that people are hoping that leaders will come forward that will be able to stand up to some of the misinformation and the lies that have been used to just divide us, to turn us against each other, to create hatred, and really for politicians to capitalize off of.
00:22:04.760So I think that if we look at the issue of freedom, we'll see so many aspects of what we need to do to move forward.
00:22:16.220Freedom to prosper and to develop our natural resources.
00:22:22.100That was my interview with Leslyn Lewis, concluding our Conservative Leadership Series, which uncreatively is our series of Conservative Leadership Candidates.
00:22:32.780And if you've missed any of them, we have them all up at tnc.news.
00:22:35.800You can see my chats with Roman Babber, Scott Aitchison, with Pierre Paulyeve, with Jean Charest, and just for posterity and for the heck of it with Patrick Brown, although he is not in the race at this point.
00:22:47.300But the reason I share that with you is so that you can also, if you've enjoyed it and you think there's some value to this, so that you can head on over to donate.tnc.news and support this.
00:22:57.600We've had to go around and meet the leadership candidates where they are.
00:23:00.640So if you can show your support for this project and for the other work that True North is doing, we would mightily appreciate it.