00:00:00.000Welcome to Canada's most irreverent talk show. This is the Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by True North.
00:00:12.880Coming up, Aaron O'Toole is the new Conservative Party of Canada leader. How does it happen? What does it mean? And where does the party go from here?
00:00:22.620The Andrew Lawton Show starts right now.
00:00:26.060Hello and welcome to another edition of the Andrew Lawton Show, Canada's most irreverent talk show here on True North, the first day of Aaron O'Toole's leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada.
00:00:42.000It is Monday, August 24th, conveniently the same day that I wrapped up the last show because I was doing, alongside my friend and colleague Candice Malcolm, the True North Live Conservative Leadership Results Show, which we thought would be over and done with on Sunday.
00:00:55.800And ended up stretching into the ungodly hours of Monday morning.
00:01:00.300But it is a big day, a big week for Conservative politics and by extension for Canadian politics.
00:01:06.560So I want to get to some of the big stories. The big one, yes, Aaron O'Toole emerged victorious on the third ballot.
00:01:13.860He won with a pretty decisive margin, although up until the votes were finally revealed,
00:01:19.880which came after a delay that I'll get to in a little while.
00:01:24.640I don't think many people knew just how decisive it was going to be.
00:01:29.720And I had spoken ahead of the results show yesterday and actually during the show as well with Fred Delory, who was Aaron O'Toole's campaign manager.
00:01:37.660And he was predicting an Aaron O'Toole win, but he was predicting a win on the third ballot.
00:01:42.640So he, again, didn't think it was going to be some blowout on the first ballot or even the second ballot.
00:01:48.000But what we saw was down ballot support from Derek Sloan went to Leslyn Lewis and Leslyn Lewis's support overwhelmingly went to Aaron O'Toole.
00:01:57.440And that part of the story makes Leslyn Lewis not just a formidable candidate in her own right, but very much the kingmaker.
00:02:05.260She delivered that victory to Aaron O'Toole, and I think that means that a message has been sent about her, about the values she's standing up for,
00:02:14.440the values that Peter McKay called a stinking albatross around the neck of the conservative movement in Canada.
00:02:22.000So that is the top-level story that I think emerged from the race.
00:02:26.700And certainly everyone online, even a lot of people from the mainstream media, are lauding Leslyn Lewis for her campaign and lauding her campaign manager, Steve Outhouse,
00:02:36.360who we've spoken to a number of times as well.
00:02:38.780I want to talk about a couple of the aspects of this that came out.
00:02:42.140But first, I want to share a section from Aaron O'Toole's acceptance speech, his victory speech, which was delivered after 1 a.m.
00:02:49.380Like I said earlier, when all was said and done, it took a very long time.
00:02:53.140And we started our show at 5.30 p.m. Eastern Time, and it was expected that we would have a little 30-minute window to do a pre-show,
00:03:01.900and then the party would take over at 6, and then we'd do a little bit of a recap after.
00:03:06.680And it ended up being where the joke was on us, because I signed off at, I believe, 1.40 a.m.
00:03:12.940So it was 8 hours and 9 minutes, which I believe is the longest I've ever spoken uninterrupted.
00:03:18.720My wife may say that I've spoken longer than that, or it feels like I speak longer than that.
00:03:23.660But I believe that is an ultimate record for me for speaking.
00:03:26.620With no commercial breaks, we had a few videos we could throw to, but it was Candace and I the whole way through,
00:03:31.720right up until just a few hours ago, actually, as a matter of fact, because I'm recording this Monday morning.
00:03:37.620But don't worry, I have the coffee. We are good to go.
00:03:40.060But I want to share some of Aaron O'Toole's acceptance speech to give you a sense of the tone that he's charting,
00:03:46.920because he was running as a true blue conservative, but his acceptance speech was one that said he's trying to unite.
00:03:54.280He is standing up for all of the values that he talked about in the leadership race,
00:03:58.240but he is going to be winning support from everyone.
00:04:01.480That was the goal. That was the message.
00:04:03.540And there was something in that that I thought was very interesting. Let's roll that.
00:04:07.460We need a leader who puts Canadians first and will stand up for Canada and our interests in a challenging world
00:04:14.480where we've lost the respect of our friends and allies.
00:04:19.200The world still needs more Canada. It just needs less Justin Trudeau.