Juno News - Decapitating John A. Macdonald

00:00:00.000 Welcome to Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show.

00:00:06.680 This is The Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by True North.

00:00:12.920 Coming up, Sir John A. Macdonald is the latest victim of the mob.

00:00:17.000 Also, People's Party of Canada leader Maxime Bernier on where the PPC goes from here.

00:00:23.760 The Andrew Lawton Show starts right now.

00:00:30.000 Hello and welcome to another edition of Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show,

00:00:34.200 The Andrew Lawton Show, here on True North.

00:00:37.280 You know, there was a time when it would be,

00:00:40.240 regardless of political persuasion, affiliation, ideological outlook,

00:00:45.640 decapitating the statue of a former Prime Minister,

00:00:49.720 decapitating any statue, would be seen as heretical to a country,

00:00:54.980 if I can use such a term.

00:00:56.420 There was a time when everyone of all party stripes would deplore

00:00:59.920 this and say well hang on our history is shared our history is something that unites us and not

00:01:06.080 divides us well that would be true up until a certain point in time it's certainly not true

00:01:12.860 in 2020 the statue of canada's first prime minister sir john a mcdonald felled by the mob

00:01:19.580 in montreal and as the statue hits the ground with a thud sir john a mcdonald's head a head

00:01:26.540 that, not the statue head anyway, but the actual head of John A. Macdonald, concocted a lot of the

00:01:31.500 very foundation of this country, against tremendous odds, goes and rolls away. Now this is not new,

00:01:39.740 although Canada has been somewhat insulated from the scourge of statue deplinthing that's been going 0.54

00:01:46.220 on around the United States, particularly in the South, in the last few years, but especially the

00:01:50.800 last few months, but we've still had it here. And oftentimes John A. Macdonald is the one that

00:01:56.900 everyone's ire is directed to, despite how devoid of history hating Sir John A. Macdonald truly is.

00:02:04.880 And I'm going to talk about some of the historic aspects of this that the mob certainly is not

00:02:09.800 aware of, but also the fact that even if you accept that he is, to use the lingo of 2020,

00:02:16.060 a problematic character, de-plinthing these statues, decapitating the statues,

00:02:22.400 that is not going to achieve anything. So this now happens in Montreal and the fact that it

00:02:30.420 happened in Montreal is actually an interesting one because Quebec at the best of times is not

00:02:36.040 exactly a fan of Confederation or of the British Empire or of Sir John A. Macdonald but even so

00:02:42.220 in the province of Quebec, one of the cornerstones of Canadian Confederation, the statue of Sir John

00:02:48.480 A. MacDonald stood for more than a century, in fact 125 years until this past weekend. And if

00:02:56.300 you listen to what the people in the Quebec government said about it, again, people that

00:03:01.740 are French nationalists, they are not exactly fans of the Brits. There's no love lost between

00:03:06.920 Franco-nationalists in Quebec and the British Empire. But you look at what

00:03:11.600 Francois Legault, the Premier of Quebec, had to say about it. His tweet here,

00:03:16.340 which translated English means, whatever one might think of John A. Macdonald,

00:03:20.420 destroying a monument in this way is unacceptable. We must fight racism, but

00:03:25.540 trashing parts of our history is not the answer. Vandalism has no place in our

00:03:30.600 democracy and the statue must be restored. One of Francois Legault's colleagues Martin Koskinen

00:03:37.960 has said that the statue must be restored. These acts of provocation cannot be tolerated

00:03:44.020 in a democracy. This is important coming from the province of Quebec. It's important coming from

00:03:51.080 Legault and I value that not because I have a tremendous amount of respect for what he says

00:03:57.880 on a lot of other things, which I do and don't, depending on the topic. But because when the

00:04:02.620 people who are exactly the people that should be skeptical and critical of Sir John A. Macdonald's

00:04:08.700 legacy are saying, yes, that statue should remain up. It's a part of our history. People across the

00:04:13.400 country should be listening. And sensible people are. This is one of these areas where the mob is

00:04:20.580 a loud and angry minority that is at odds with what the general population thinks. But right now,

00:04:27.880 the minority position is the one that everyone is capitulating to. The minority position is the

00:04:32.300 one that everyone is elevating and holding up as being this bastion of virtue and this beacon

00:04:37.140 of virtuousness when that is so far from the truth. But right now you look at what happened.

00:04:43.480 Police were on site. It takes time, believe it or not, not that I've ever taken down a statue,

00:04:47.900 but I've seen videos of it. It takes time to climb up, to get on the statue, to put the straps

00:04:52.760 around it to get the people there to start doing the whole heave-ho it takes time to do that and

00:04:58.360 you may think okay you're in downtown montreal i've actually been to that statue i've seen it

00:05:03.000 before i've been to the location where this happened and you think okay that would take

00:05:06.760 a bit of time to get to the point where that is happening surely police must have been on site

00:05:13.000 they were police decided to stand by and watch police decided as a piece of history as a piece

00:05:21.720 of art was being taken down to just stand by and look and do who knows what. Now, were they

00:05:28.140 following orders? Did they not know? I have no idea and I don't particularly care, but police

00:05:32.160 at some level made the decision to not get involved, thus endorsing that this is apparently

00:05:38.860 the way you do things in a free and civilized society in 2020. Now, the condemnations from a

00:05:45.960 lot of people have been swift, but not all. And Aaron O'Toole, the leader of the Conservative

00:05:49.920 Party of Canada as of last week. He's spoken up and has said that this is just unacceptable.

00:05:55.660 Canada wouldn't exist without Sir John A. Macdonald. Canada is a great country and one we

00:06:00.620 should be proud of. We will not build a better future by defacing our past. O'Toole said

00:06:06.580 politicians need to grow a backbone to stand up for the country. You look at Jason Kenney,

00:06:11.720 who's always been a stalwart defender of protecting and preserving Canada's history.

00:06:15.780 He had actually put a thread out on Twitter saying that the mob has torn down and defaced the statue of Sir John A. Macdonald.

00:06:24.300 This vandalism of our history and heroes must stop.

00:06:28.480 And interestingly, he actually went further to say this isn't just defending history.

00:06:32.700 He was actually educating people.

00:06:35.100 Kenny, if you look at the Twitter thread, was educating people about John A. Macdonald's legacy.

00:06:39.460 and he said he was an immigrant who suffered unimaginable personal trauma throughout his life

00:06:45.180 which he overcame to forge an enormous country out of divided factions. It's right to debate his

00:06:51.400 legacy and life but it is wrong to allow roving bands of thugs to vandalize our history with

00:06:59.260 impunity. If the city of Montreal decides not to put it back up he has said that he is going to

00:07:05.340 make sure it happens on the grounds of the Alberta legislature. So again Jason Kenney is saying listen

00:07:10.640 if Montreal is not taking it we will although I hope from Francois Legault's comments that Montreal

00:07:15.800 will heed the call of the people who have a bit of sense around the country and put it back up to

00:07:21.460 its rightful place and protect it when the mob tries to go after it again because we know this

00:07:27.140 is not going to end. And if you look at the whole nature of this if you decide you're going to filter

00:07:34.760 a 2020 social justice lens and apply that to every single historic figure, no one, absolutely no one

00:07:42.980 passes the test. For example, not, I think it was 60 yards away, there's a statue of Wilfrid Laurier,

00:07:50.560 I believe. Certainly we have statues of all of these figures. And if you want, you can look

00:07:54.040 through their greatest hits and find quotes of theirs that might make you a little bit squeamish

00:07:57.960 or might make things a little bit awkward if you were to put them into a 2020 political discourse.

00:08:02.320 but you cannot expect the heroes of the past, and I don't use that word lightly, to have the

00:08:08.140 sensibilities of the present. And if you do, you are actually anti-history because you don't realize

00:08:15.320 that history is about the time and place in which things happened and the context in which things

00:08:20.940 happened. And the fact is, well, John A. MacDonald's position on, let's use Indigenous issues, which

00:08:26.840 seems to be the cornerstone of the criticism of him, his position on Indigenous issues

00:08:32.140 might not match up with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission position of today.

00:08:37.340 But his position was actually progressive for the era.

00:08:42.140 And in fact, John A. Macdonald got significant pushback from his colleagues and from his contemporaries

00:08:47.840 because of how he was trying to move things forward.

00:08:51.000 He actually wanted a better future and better presence in Canada for the Indigenous population.

00:08:57.860 And he stakes political capital on that.

00:09:00.240 and that's very different and now people would say oh well you know it doesn't matter because

00:09:04.840 it's not the standard of today well who does have the standard today name one person in history

00:09:10.500 that has the standard of 2020 in fact even the people who pushed for progress the people who

00:09:16.240 pushed the envelope the people who were renegades often held regressive views on other things

00:09:21.880 let's take for example an NDP hero and the reason I bring this up is because I got into I don't want

00:09:27.880 say it's a Twitter argument because he didn't respond, but I had a, I put a tweet out rather,

00:09:34.240 we'll say, when Charlie Angus, who is an NDP member of Parliament, had put forward a tweet

00:09:41.440 quoting John A. MacDonald and specifically quoting an aspect of John A. MacDonald's existence that is

00:09:49.080 what raises the ire of the Indigenous activists today. And the line is, I have reason to believe 1.00

00:09:54.820 that the Indian agents are doing all they can by refusing food until the Indians are on the verge

00:10:01.520 of starvation to reduce the expense. John A. Macdonald, 1882. And that's important because

00:10:08.460 it actually came in a discussion where if you look at the follow-up, John A. Macdonald's line

00:10:13.440 was actually fairly progressive. He was criticized, believe it or not, for not doing enough to starve

00:10:18.320 out Indians. And that was the rationale at the time that, oh, well, if we just tell them that 1.00

00:10:23.040 government's going to protect them, they're not going to do anything. And McDonald was actually

00:10:27.060 pushing against that, which is why knowledge of history is so important. So in response to Charlie

00:10:33.560 Angus's tweet, I included a tweet from a hero of the NDP, Tommy Douglas, the founder of Medicare

00:10:39.080 in Canada, the founder of the modern NDP. And he had said in 1968, we ought to recognize homosexuality 0.97

00:10:46.980 for what it is. It's a mental illness. It's a psychiatric condition. Roll that clip. 1.00

00:10:51.720 If ever we needed in this country to adopt a new attitude to homosexuality, this is the time. 1.00

00:10:58.320 Instead of treating it as a crime and driving it underground, we ought to recognize it for what it is. 1.00

00:11:02.780 It's a mental illness. It's a psychiatric condition, which ought to be treated sympathetically,

00:11:09.060 which ought to be treated by psychiatrists and social workers.

00:11:11.740 Now, Tommy Douglas holds a view that if you were to say that in any political context today, you'd be vilified.

00:11:17.480 In the NDP, you'd certainly be persona non grata.

00:11:20.000 yet still that was the belief held by Tommy Douglas. Now does that mean we should cancel

00:11:25.760 Tommy Douglas? No. Does that mean we should not honor Tommy Douglas and honor his legacy and all

00:11:31.420 that stuff? No. Now if we could cancel certain things that his health care plan has done for

00:11:36.140 the country maybe that would be a good idea but that's a different dialogue. We don't. We look at

00:11:40.400 him in the context of his era and when I posted this a couple of people said oh well hang on.

00:11:45.220 he was responding to the wisdom of the day, which said that homosexuality should be seen as criminal.

00:11:52.580 To which I say that proves the point, that his view, which may have been progressive of the era,

00:11:58.980 was still regressive by today's standards. So do we say no more Tommy Douglas? No. We say,

00:12:07.420 all right, this is the context through which we view that quote, this is how we understand him,

00:12:13.040 and we honor the good things while learning from the bad things and that's what history is all

00:12:20.440 about and you can actually still have your historic heroes even if they aren't perfect

00:12:25.760 on every single aspect of their existence by the lens that we view things through today

00:12:31.580 that's the whole point of it history is about growth it is about evolution and it is about

00:12:36.840 progress. And when people say that taking down statues is not an attack on history, they are

00:12:43.860 absolutely wrong because they are trying to obliterate the very meaning and the very essence

00:12:48.980 of history, which is one that requires us to learn from the past and to celebrate the good parts of

00:12:55.340 the past and to understand how we as a country and how we as a society got to the place we are in

00:13:01.420 now. And you can't do that if you don't respect or recognize the people who championed that and

00:13:08.980 spearheaded that, of which in a national context, Sir John A. Macdonald is the most notable.

00:13:14.560 Remember, confederation was not a given. The Canada we know today was not a given.

00:13:19.020 Macdonald had to fight for it. He could have easily just packed up and gone back to the United

00:13:24.180 Kingdom, but he didn't. He fought for it. And even at times when it seemed like the Canadian existence 0.99

00:13:29.580 was hanging by a thread held together with you know paper and duct tape he pursued he persisted

00:13:36.140 and the Canada we have today exists because of John A. Macdonald the problem with that is that

00:13:44.180 a lot of these hordes of activists and the angry mobbers they hate Canada they hate the Canada

00:13:50.140 that exists today they hate the Canada that's existed for the last 153 years they hate every

00:13:54.960 part of Canada so you can't really appeal to them by that sense of well hang on the country we have

00:14:01.620 today is because of him because they hate that so then the question is what are you wanting to build

00:14:07.020 and this is the point that I raised when the first round of riots was going on around the United

00:14:11.540 States a couple of months back I said okay you want to take down you want to dismantle you want

00:14:15.500 to destroy fine what is it you want to build they can tell you all the things they hate about the

00:14:21.920 country. They can tell you all the things they hate about the history, all the things they hate

00:14:24.940 about this statue and that statue, but they can't actually tell you the country they want to build

00:14:29.780 and how they plan to build it. They can't tell you how they're going to be a founding mother,

00:14:34.780 founding father, or founding, you know, a gender non-binary leader. They can't tell you because

00:14:42.120 they don't know. They are not in the building business. They are not in the creation business.

00:14:47.380 They are not in the peacemaking business. They are in the business of destruction.

00:14:52.640 And yes, it is a rebuke of history.

00:14:55.280 Yes, it is a rebuke of John A. Macdonald.

00:14:57.400 And yes, it is a rebuke of everything that made this country what it is today.

00:15:01.740 A country which has the freedom for angry hordes of mobs to roam the streets.

00:15:07.620 That's the part of Canada that they failed to acknowledge

00:15:10.840 that their right to be deadbeats, their right to be destroyers, 0.56

00:15:15.360 the fact that they were not gunned down as they would in the Soviet Union

00:15:19.320 if they were taking down a statue as they would in Iraq

00:15:22.140 if they were taking down a statue or Iran or North Korea.

00:15:25.320 That very freedom comes from the country

00:15:29.640 which was founded by the people that they claim to deplore.

00:15:35.960 So how do you fight this?

00:15:39.600 You have to prove that you are willing to stand up for your history.

00:15:44.240 You have to prove that you are willing to defend your history,

00:15:48.120 defend your historic figures and do what Jason Kenney and Aaron O'Toole and all of these other

00:15:53.600 people including Francois Legault are doing and standing up for that part of Canada and telling

00:15:58.320 them that if you knock it down we will build it up we will still reinforce it we will protect it

00:16:02.660 and we will arrest the people that take it down. You know it's funny when you talk about the

00:16:08.020 destroyers these are not strong people. The one most amusing part of the video which made me sad

00:16:13.960 in so many ways was right after the statue falls the head comes off and one of the protesters goes

00:16:20.000 and tries to pick up the head and this little just weak beta male and I say this realizing I'm not

00:16:26.880 exactly the paragon of masculinity just can't even pick up the head admittedly it would be very heavy

00:16:31.760 and he misjudged it but maybe that's the great metaphor they misjudge their own strength he goes

00:16:36.060 he can't picks up the head so instead he just throws his hands in the air celebrates and walks

00:16:40.460 away because all right well I can't pick up the head like it's the head of Jebediah Springfield

00:16:44.860 but okay at least I can just take down the statue by pulling a cord with a bunch of people as

00:16:50.240 individuals if you take them away from the mob as individuals these people are meaningless and 0.99

00:16:54.920 feckless and pathetic as a mob they are still feckless and pathetic and meaningless but they 0.97

00:17:00.300 have the illusion of power which is what needs to be taken away from them you know I had to ask over 1.00

00:17:06.660 the weekend. Where on earth was Justin Trudeau in all of this? Because here's a guy who has never

00:17:12.080 hesitated to jump in on the social justice bandwagon causes in the past, even in some cases

00:17:18.360 jumping in to comment on something that ended up being a hoax. I'm thinking mainly of that time in

00:17:23.500 Toronto that a young girl claimed her hijab was ripped off by someone and that ended up being

00:17:28.700 just a fake hate crime. Justin Trudeau has always jumped in on these things whenever he can grandstand

00:17:34.460 and virtue signal. But when the statue of Sir John A. Macdonald was decapitated in Montreal,

00:17:39.040 he was nowhere to be found until he was asked about it by a reporter on Monday morning. And

00:17:45.220 this morning, he actually gave what I thought was a reasonably decent statement. It was less

00:17:49.780 equivocal than I thought it would be. Let's roll that clip. Like the mayor of Montreal,

00:17:55.200 like a minister, Stephen Guilbeault, our minister of heritage, I was deeply disappointed by the

00:18:02.360 vandalism that took place over the weekend.

00:18:05.100 I understand the impatience, the frustration of Canadians who faced systemic discrimination

00:18:10.920 and racism throughout their lives, and they're concerned that we act quickly on that.

00:18:16.880 And they're impatience, because I myself am impatient.

00:18:19.800 We need to move forward quickly and in the right ways on countering systemic discrimination,

00:18:25.080 and our government will do just that.

00:18:28.560 But we are a country of laws and we are a country that needs to respect those laws even

00:18:35.220 as we seek to improve and change them.

00:18:38.820 Those kinds of acts of vandalism are not advancing the path towards greater justice and

00:18:46.360 equality in this country.

00:18:48.560 Now we've seen following that people on either sides of the spectrum trying to use these

00:18:54.660 elements as a way of furthering debates, I'm more interested in using the real frustrations

00:19:02.560 that people have as motivations to continue to make the big changes necessary.

00:19:07.900 We have an awful lot to do as a country and part of it needs to have a clear eye towards

00:19:12.160 the past and mistakes made by previous generations of people who built this country.

00:19:17.260 But our focus needs to be on how we improve things today and for the days to come for

00:19:23.400 all canadians and that means tackling systemic discrimination everywhere it exists taking

00:19:28.840 significant measures to make sure that canadians are safe and aren't facing extra barriers that are

00:19:35.480 inherently unfair we have a lot of work to do but choices like this to rely on vandalism to

00:19:45.000 advance causes is not going to help anyone move forward the right way so what i like about that

00:19:51.560 is he condemns it as an act of vandalism so he doesn't mince words about that he says it's not

00:19:56.520 helping anyone but when he talks about understanding the frustration and how he's impatient as well

00:20:02.200 again i go back to something i mentioned months ago you are the system you can't be protesting

00:20:07.320 the system that you are a part of what are you doing about it i mean the people that are impatient

00:20:11.800 waiting for government to act on x y and z are waiting for you prime minister to act so if you're

00:20:17.240 impatient, well great, you've got a government right now. I'm sure that a lot of the parties

00:20:21.160 would back you if you said you wanted to fix whatever the grievance was. But what this reveals

00:20:26.220 is that the grievance is not always all that clear. When the initial Black Lives Matter protest

00:20:32.200 happened this year, so this wave of them, it was pretty clear. It was in response to the George

00:20:37.200 Floyd killing. It was in response to a lot of the systemic racism they claim exists in every

00:20:42.240 department. And even that was not entirely clear. And this is why, what do you think of systemic

00:20:48.140 racism became such a question that was asked by media to pretty much any and every politician.

00:20:54.180 Aaron O'Toole got hit with it on Sunday night when he did an interview on Global News' West

00:20:58.680 Block, and he didn't take the bait. He didn't say, yes, I think systemic racism is real. He said,

00:21:03.540 no, because when you use that term, you're actually maligning a lot of good people that

00:21:07.760 are not racist and are not part of anything wrong with Canada. But to go back to Trudeau's statement,

00:21:14.340 so he talks about the act of vandalism and he says, you know, we need to find better ways and

00:21:18.620 we need to, you know, do all of this stuff. And then he starts talking about mistakes made in

00:21:22.520 past generations. So even then there isn't a celebration, let alone a defense of John A.

00:21:28.900 McDonald. And I wish that Trudeau in his comment, while condemning the act of vandalism, which I'm

00:21:34.180 glad he did. I wish he would actually honor John A. MacDonald because the point of it is that when

00:21:39.760 he comes out and says, well, you know, listen, I get all of your issues, but I don't think that's

00:21:44.040 the way you should express them. He's not dealing with the root of the problem. And the root of the

00:21:49.340 problem, as I've mentioned over the course of the show to this point, is the people who are devoid

00:21:54.240 of history and historic knowledge and historic understanding who are doing this because they

00:22:00.340 think that John A. Macdonald is a villain of history rather than a hero of history. And for

00:22:06.040 a guy who occupies the role of Prime Minister of Canada, a role that so few people in this country's

00:22:11.240 history have had, it would be nice if he could actually celebrate his predecessor, the one who

00:22:16.140 made his role today possible, Sir John A. Macdonald. And I know it sounds like I'm splitting hairs here

00:22:22.480 and I'm not trying to just nitpick on every single thing Justin Trudeau says, because as I noted,

00:22:27.380 I am actually happy that he condemned the vandalism.

00:22:30.040 I thought he would be really equivocal

00:22:32.380 and wishy-washy about it,

00:22:33.820 and he wasn't to the extent that I thought he would.

00:22:36.560 But you have to celebrate the history itself,

00:22:39.660 not just say this isn't the way to go about it.

00:22:43.480 Because if you do that,

00:22:44.760 there are gonna be people that think

00:22:45.800 it's kind of a wink-wink of,

00:22:47.040 okay, but he agrees that Johnny McDonald is problematic.

00:22:50.060 And then that leads itself to all of the other things,

00:22:52.600 the slippery slope argument of turning this name

00:22:55.140 of this office into something else

00:22:56.800 and changing the name of this bridge.

00:22:58.380 And like when Trudeau changed the name

00:23:00.600 of the prime minister's office from the Langevin bloc

00:23:02.840 to the whatever it is called now.

00:23:04.780 So that's why you have to reject the premise

00:23:07.840 that the attacks and the vandalism are based on,

00:23:12.280 not just the acts of vandalism themselves.

00:23:16.560 Because otherwise it just becomes about

00:23:18.520 how do we express this grievance rather than,

00:23:20.980 hey, you are just plain wrong.

00:23:23.300 And you can find there are issues in Canada today

00:23:26.060 that need to be dealt with while also recognizing that John A. Macdonald is not someone who should

00:23:31.320 be vilified for that. That is the whole point of history and that is the whole point of its future

00:23:36.820 counterpart progress. So fight for this if you have any pride in your country or its history

00:23:43.020 or history itself because if you don't there will be nothing left to fight for before long.

00:23:50.500 We'll be back in a moment. More of The Andrew Lawton Show here on True North.

00:23:56.060 you're tuned in to the andrew lawton show

00:24:01.360 well it's been a little over two years since maxim bernier left the conservative party of

00:24:10.960 canada to chart his own path as leader of the people's party of canada since that we've had

00:24:17.020 an election and also a conservative leadership race and there has been no doubt there's been

00:24:22.780 no second guessing. Monsieur Bernier said at a press conference after Aaron O'Toole was elected

00:24:28.100 Conservative leader, he has no regrets and he's more confident than ever that he made the right

00:24:32.640 choice. He joins me on the line now. Maxime, good to talk to you again. Thanks very much for coming

00:24:37.600 on today. Thank you, Andrew. I appreciate it. When you first left to form the PPC, a lot of people

00:24:44.500 thought it was going to be a flash in the pan that eventually everyone would see the error of their

00:24:49.160 ways. You'd be welcomed back into the fold. That's not happening. And it seems like, especially from

00:24:53.800 your press conference last week and other developments that have happened in the PPC

00:24:57.740 and the CPC, like you're actually moving further and further away from that idea of reuniting the

00:25:03.760 parties like they did in 2013 or 2003 rather. First of all, I must say that, you know, I'm a real

00:25:12.700 conservative. And if you look at our platform and the platform of the Conservative Party of Canada,

00:25:18.320 There's a huge difference. So, yes, you're right. After the leadership contest, Aaron O'Toole won. But I'm looking at what he said and what the Conservative Party of Canada said during the last campaign.

00:25:32.620 And, you know, I was very disappointed, and I think a lot of conservatives will be disappointed

00:25:38.300 also, because in his first speech early Monday morning, he said that his goal was to reach

00:25:45.980 to liberals voters and NDP voters.

00:25:50.080 So that party is now a central-left political party, and Erin O'Toole is a real red Tory.

00:25:57.620 establishment wanted that they have a red tori as a leader a progressive conservative and i was

00:26:04.660 disappointed because you know we had a very important crisis in this country if you look at

00:26:10.740 the western alienation and uh o'toole didn't say anything about that uh and he is not ready to fix

00:26:19.220 the equalization formula to be less generous and the formula that would be fair for everybody

00:26:24.820 is for the Paris Accord with more taxes, more regulations.

00:26:29.520 So the goal of the Conservatives right now with Aaron O'Toole

00:26:32.820 is to be a centre-left political party,

00:26:36.980 and they want to be like the Liberals.

00:26:40.260 And that's why I think a lot of Conservatives would be disappointed.

00:26:44.020 Hang on though, Maxime, I've got to ask you about that.

00:26:46.660 I've got to call you on that, if I may,

00:26:48.060 because when I hear you say that you don't like that Aaron O'Toole

00:26:51.600 is trying to reach out to Liberal voters or NDP voters.

00:26:55.580 In 2018, I think it was, you had said to Mercedes Stevenson on Global,

00:27:00.020 and I have the story in front of me right here,

00:27:02.020 we want to attract people from other parties also like the NDP.

00:27:06.660 So how is that any different than what you're saying is evidence of centrism

00:27:10.560 or of diluting conservative values in Erin O'Toole?

00:27:13.520 No, I'm not saying people from other parties.

00:27:15.620 I'm saying people who share our values.

00:27:17.540 we're the only party who is doing politics that doing politics differently no pandering you know

00:27:23.940 errone utour did pender to the cartel of dairy producer to be uh to be the the leader of the

00:27:30.100 conservative party it's okay that's the way to do politics we don't do that we'll do that we're

00:27:35.380 doing politics by principles we try to uh have policies that would be good for all canadians

00:27:41.380 and not focusing on special interest group so yes i want more people to support the ppc

00:27:47.140 but i want people who come to support us because they like our ideas they share our ideas that's

00:27:52.580 the most important if they don't like what we are saying i'm telling them stay at home or vote for

00:27:57.860 another for another party like the conservative or the liberals so we don't do any any pandering to

00:28:05.220 have their votes but the conservatives that is in their dna they are doing that their goal is to be

00:28:12.020 in government but you know i was a conservative we had a majority government in 2011 and what is

00:28:18.900 the legacy of stephen hopper tell me andrew what is his legacy nothing he tried to reunite the

00:28:25.940 right and he was successful but after that because you know he governed like a centrist and a liberal

00:28:33.860 political party we were not able to win in 2015 but there's no legacy i'm not in politics to be

00:28:41.220 in government just to be in government i'm in politics to have real debates about the the

00:28:46.180 important challenges that we are having in this country that other political parties like the

00:28:51.140 liberal and the conservatives won't speak about you know that's i think that's a huge difference

00:28:57.300 between us and the traditional established political parties you know even with as you say

00:29:04.180 going after the center the conservatives have trouble winning elections and and certainly

00:29:08.500 majority elections seem harder and harder to come by are there enough people in the country that

00:29:14.660 share the ppc's values to deliver a ppc government i mean last time i know you're a new party and

00:29:19.940 you've talked about how it took the green party 30 years to accomplish what you did in a couple

00:29:24.340 years but simply put when you look at demographics are there enough people in the country that can

00:29:29.700 vote in alignment with the values that your party is standing up for i think so but answering your

00:29:35.540 question, you know, I'm very realistic. I won't be prime minister after the next election,

00:29:42.740 but, you know, my goal is to be elected with a couple of our candidates and we can change

00:29:49.220 things if we are in Ottawa, when we'll be in Ottawa. Look at the Reform Party. They were

00:29:55.140 not in government, but they pushed the Chrétien and Martin government to balance the budget.

00:30:01.540 that was a principal official opposition. And they were able to change the debate in our society

00:30:08.980 without being in government. And look at the green. They have only two members of parliament,

00:30:15.380 but all the established political parties, like the liberal and the conservative,

00:30:20.180 have a huge green platform. So we can say that they want the debate. We need to be out there.

00:30:26.580 we need our ideas to be discussed and that's what i'm doing and you know if when we'll be elected

00:30:33.140 when i'll be elected we will be able to speak loudly and and pushing the debates uh toward

00:30:40.660 more freedom and a smaller government that's our goal at the end but i hope a day i'll be prime

00:30:45.780 minister but i'm realistic that it won't be after the next election so you just have to speak about

00:30:51.060 what you believe with passion and conviction and you have support look about the best example is

00:30:56.740 the cartel in supply management when i started to speak about that only five percent of the

00:31:01.940 population were on my side now if you do a survey maybe 35 45 percent of them will be on the side of

00:31:09.940 freedom so that's that's the way to do politics doing politics by conviction and utul you know

00:31:17.140 is just an opportunist politician like Trudeau and all the others.

00:31:22.740 Are there any circumstances under which you would be open to merging the PPC with the CPC?

00:31:29.960 And the reason I ask that is because obviously we had Derek Sloan and Lesley Lewis in the race,

00:31:35.040 and they seem to very much want to reach out to a lot of people that left for the PPC.

00:31:40.240 That was a part of the plan that they wanted to bring forward.

00:31:43.300 were they successful. And while they didn't win, they did have a significant chunk of the votes

00:31:48.820 and of the points. And we hope anyway, they're going to be included or incorporated in the party

00:31:53.360 moving forward. And I guess that's just making me think, would you ever even entertain a reunion

00:31:58.660 of these parties similar to the 2003 merger between the PC and the Alliance? No, no. First

00:32:05.400 of all, you know, I had 49% of the votes. I had the support of the members of the Conservative

00:32:12.160 party at the last leadership run. I didn't win, and that's okay. You know, I respect the democracy.

00:32:19.800 I didn't have the support of a lot of caucus members at that time. I think I had only five

00:32:24.600 MPs on 99 MPs that supported me as the candidate for the leadership of the Conservative Party of

00:32:31.580 Canada. But look at the score that they had. It's less than 49%. With 49% of the votes,

00:32:39.940 i was not able to influence the establishment of the conservative party at that time that's why i

00:32:45.860 left the party that was i said this party is just there to be in government and they they don't have

00:32:51.460 any uh philosophy or principles and they they don't want to do have the real debates about the

00:32:58.420 challenges that we're having in this country so i left i said the party is morally and intellectually

00:33:03.860 corrupt and i still believe that so what i'm telling to leslie and derek they will be they

00:33:10.900 will fight inside the party for their ideas to be adopted but i doubt because o'too his goal is to be

00:33:18.260 in government and to be in government he will need to have more support downtown toronto downtown

00:33:22.820 montreal downtown vancouver and he he has to be a central uh left political party and that's that's

00:33:30.100 his goal. So these people will be disappointed. So my offer to them today and to their supporters

00:33:35.860 is to come with us. We won't do any compromise. We are the real conservative principle

00:33:43.200 alternative to the old establishment politicians. When you look at your decision to leave when you

00:33:52.980 did, a lot of people have put forward the thought that if you hung around, if you stuck around and

00:33:58.160 and ran in the 2019 election as a conservative MP you would be an MP right now but also you would

00:34:04.400 probably be the leader of the conservative party right now once Andrew Scheer had stepped down you

00:34:09.360 would have been a very clear front runner do you think that's true no I don't think so because

00:34:15.360 first of all you know remember on 99 MP I had only five MPs who supported me at that time

00:34:22.800 including myself. So, you know, winning the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada,

00:34:31.340 it would have been very difficult for me to put forward our ideas because I didn't have the

00:34:37.400 support of the caucus. And look what happened to Stockwell Day when he was the leader of the

00:34:45.580 Canadian Alliance. He didn't have the support of his caucus. So my answer to that is no, I took

00:34:51.560 the right decision at that time, and I'm very happy. We're building something, like you said

00:34:55.900 in the beginning. It took 20 years and six elections for the Green Party to have more

00:35:00.160 than 1.6% of the votes. We are the only party that didn't have any deficit at the end of

00:35:06.900 the last campaign. We have a surplus in bank. We are raising money. People like our ideas.

00:35:12.680 And I will travel across the country to meet our people and rebuild the party to be ready

00:35:17.400 for the next election we'll have 338 candidates in every riding at the next election so we will

00:35:25.880 be there and we will be able to elect a couple of our candidates and that's the way to change

00:35:31.880 politics in canada i tried inside the conservative party of canada for a long time and i was not

00:35:38.600 successful because their philosophy is not is not a real conservative philosophy you know

00:35:45.480 They want to tell you what you want to hear without challenging the statu quo.

00:35:51.080 They're afraid to start challenging the statu quo.

00:35:53.860 So that's not my way of doing politics, and I think we have a great future.

00:35:58.940 But we have to be patient.

00:36:00.440 Yes, I won't be prime minister after the next election, but I hope I'll be prime minister a day.

00:36:06.960 One of the things that I've noticed about the work that you've been doing after the election,

00:36:11.480 you've launched the Max Bernier show.

00:36:13.440 I know the PPC is starting Campus Club, so doing a lot of things to really shift the cultural discussion out in the real world, not necessarily in the political process.

00:36:23.560 And I'm wondering if you think that is almost more important right now, to start selling these values in the media, in alternative media, out in the world, and then hope that downstream of that, people will start to vote along with those values.

00:36:38.200 absolutely andrew you're right what we will say at the next election will ask people to vote for

00:36:44.600 what they believe in not to vote against something to vote for their values and that's why we need to

00:36:50.360 be out there that's why you know i wanted to start the tour across the country in february but

00:36:56.200 because of kobe 19 i was not able to do that and i will start that this fall but we use social media

00:37:03.080 i'm very pleased that i have this opportunity to do an interview with you uh i did a press

00:37:07.800 conference in ottawa monday i think it was well covered by the traditional mainstream media and

00:37:14.120 i need to travel across the country and in the campuses also you're right to speak about freedom

00:37:19.720 to speak about you know in this society you need to debate ideas and we don't debate ideas anymore

00:37:25.800 um and so we have to start and i'll start doing that again with the young people in university

00:37:34.760 campuses and before chamber of commerce i will do some some speeches in from chamber of commerce

00:37:42.120 across the country so that's the goal we need to be our biggest challenge andrew is about maybe

00:37:48.680 80 percent of the population don't know that we exist when they know that we exist and and they're

00:37:54.280 listening to our ideas you know we are fighting for the western civilization values we are fighting

00:37:59.640 for fewer immigrants we are fighting for uh keeping our identity we are fighting for putting

00:38:05.560 canada first and all that it is not a slogan it is not a buzzword it is our reality i ask people

00:38:13.400 to go and see on our platform at people's party of canada.ca they'll be able to read that we're

00:38:18.840 the only party who said we need to have a moratorium on immigration right now because the

00:38:23.560 official unemployment rate, it's about 13%. But you and I know that the real unemployment rate,

00:38:29.640 it must be about 18%. So it's not time to have 350,000 newcomers every year when you have an

00:38:37.560 unemployment rate so high like that. We are asking for a moratorium. What was the position on the

00:38:43.720 RNO2 on that? The statu quo. The statu quo on immigration, the statu quo on the equalization

00:38:51.320 formula the statu quo on pipelines he doesn't want to use the constitution to impose and i'm

00:38:57.560 using the word impose to impose the pipelines on provinces that don't want a pipeline that's

00:39:04.520 important it's under the federal jurisdiction he's not talking about that with with erin utul it

00:39:10.840 would be the same thing like andrew shea with a new face and they won't have the courage to speak

00:39:15.800 about that. And the Western alienation will be worse than it is right now. So I think we have

00:39:21.680 a great future and, you know, I'm looking forward for that. Going into the 2019 election, you had

00:39:28.960 momentum. The party was new. No one knew what it was going to become. You had just been a sitting

00:39:34.020 member of parliament. Going into the next election, whenever it is, how do you build on what you did

00:39:39.880 in 2019 and not just kind of dissipate basically because that was when you had the momentum and

00:39:46.380 that was when a lot of people were really interested in wondering what the first

00:39:50.440 result was going to be how do you build going forward but you know we must admit that the

00:39:56.300 result my personal result of the election I wasn't elected with 28 percent of the vote

00:40:01.840 I was disappointed and a lot of our supporters also but you know it's part of the political life

00:40:08.420 We need to build from there.

00:40:10.220 And I think we have a strong base right now.

00:40:12.720 Now we are about 4% in the pool and the Green Party is at 6%.

00:40:17.120 So we just need to be out there and speak about what we believe.

00:40:20.800 So I'm looking for the next election.

00:40:26.900 I'm very optimistic.

00:40:28.460 I think we are able to raise money.

00:40:30.560 That's the name of the game.

00:40:32.980 If you don't have any money, you won't be able to do advertising

00:40:35.740 and to travel across the country.

00:40:37.680 So that's very encouraging that our people are still donated to us and they're very generous.

00:40:44.240 So that being said, the same momentum right now, you know, it's not there.

00:40:49.760 People are preoccupated with their jobs.

00:40:52.360 I think that's the most important.

00:40:54.260 But early before the election, and I think in a couple of months, people will look at politics a little bit closer, right?

00:41:02.360 And that will help us.

00:41:03.760 That's why, you know, our challenge is to be out there, speak to social media and traditional media.

00:41:10.360 That's why I started the Max Bernier Show on the YouTube channel.

00:41:14.360 It's a YouTube People's Party of Canada slash official YouTube channel.

00:41:19.000 I'm doing some interviews, but also I'm doing I'm very active and speaking about what is it, what is important for this country.

00:41:28.440 And so it's a nice time for us.

00:41:31.200 We just have to build from there

00:41:32.880 and we'll see what will happen.

00:41:34.980 Maxime Bernier, leader of the People's Party of Canada.

00:41:37.580 Good to talk to you again, Maxime.

00:41:38.740 Thanks very much.

00:41:40.080 Thank you, Andrew.

00:41:40.760 Have a nice day.

00:41:41.720 My thanks to Maxime Bernier

00:41:43.080 and all of you who have tuned in to today's show.

00:41:45.920 This is Canada's most irreverent talk show.

00:41:48.660 Remember, never lose sight of history

00:41:51.340 because understanding and respecting history

00:41:53.820 is a vision to understanding and respecting

00:41:56.180 where you want to go from here.

00:41:58.020 My thanks to you all again.

00:41:59.040 We'll talk to you soon.

00:41:59.760 Thank you, God bless, and good day, Canada.

00:42:29.760 You

Juno News - August 31, 2020

Decapitating John A. Macdonald

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