00:03:31.480I would call it the summer of Royal Rumble or Summer Slam for the Conservative Party of Canada.
00:03:37.440But it's healthy to have these conversations, especially after losing four consecutive elections.
00:03:46.180Okay, I want to quote you something from a column in the National Post today.
00:03:53.200It says that Pierre Polyev has reshaped the Conservatives into a very different coalition from the one his predecessors led, and one perhaps that you were part of.
00:04:03.180What's more often missed amid all the media feasting on squabbling this summer
00:04:09.500among various party factions is that the Conservative Party is undergoing the
00:04:13.920messy process of reinventing itself. They're talking about appealing to more
00:04:19.080younger Conservatives, many younger men. We saw Mr. Polyev and the Conservatives
00:04:25.900get somewhere like 41% of the popular vote. Harper never got that. What do you
00:04:32.040suppose that's about? So first of all, you're absolutely right. Mr. Poiliev's election result
00:04:40.240in 2025 was historic. It was the highest percentage in probably three decades. Brian
00:04:48.420Maloney was probably the last one in the 1980s. But what if he would have gotten 48% and his
00:04:56.420opponent would have gotten 49%. At the end of the day, it's about winning. It's about forming
00:05:02.000government in order to implement your agenda, in order to make decisions, in order to take the
00:05:07.120country in the direction that you deem is the best one. Another element, all political parties
00:05:12.780evolve. You know, oftentimes people talk about the difference between the progressive Conservative
00:05:19.040party under Brian Mulroney and because the word progressive was in it it somehow it somehow made
00:05:26.360it more red Tory if you want to call it I will remind you because history matters that that
00:05:32.240progressive conservative party there was a debate on capital punishment at the time there was a
00:05:38.800debate on abortion so I would say the conservative party of Canada of today is much more progressive
00:05:45.280by those standards than the progressive party in the 1980s all parties evolve and evolution is
00:05:51.720important and evolution is natural just like the NDP has evolved look where that's gotten them
00:05:57.540just like the liberal party evolved if you want to call it evolution between December of 2024
00:06:04.580when they were surely going to lose government and March 2025 when they won a minority government
00:06:13.200that was a razor thin, almost a majority.
00:08:30.180who was Mr. Poiliev's Director of Communications, feels?
00:08:32.540How do you think Anthony Koch, who was also a supporter and the director of communication of Mr. Poiliev's leadership race, how does Ben Woodfinden feel?
00:09:16.800We had chirping back in the day as well.
00:09:18.760Not everybody supported Mr. Harper's leadership.
00:09:21.760We had Belinda Stronick leave, for example.0.60
00:09:23.820She crossed the floor to the Liberals.
00:09:25.440Do you know what we did the day that Ms. Stronick crossed the floor to go to the Liberals?
00:09:28.500we didn't launch full-fledged attacks calling her a traitor and you know she betrayed the voters
00:09:35.020you know what we said don't let the door hit you on the way out good luck with everything
00:09:39.180full disclosure cory is my former boss at sun news um but he's also been attacking
00:09:48.620here polyev on various podcasts on on cbc wherever he's appeared and i guess well how
00:09:58.120did this start and you know how do you end it i mean so i guess you could make the case that in
00:10:04.420the in the case of making that statement about liberal lobbyists from eastern canada he was
00:10:09.720he appeared to be rubbing cory tonight's face in it i get that argument but you know he's also
00:10:16.420faced the slings and arrows coming from that direction in the past and so you know we're in
00:10:22.420a situation here where whoever started it it's now kind of tit for tat but no it's it's not no
00:10:30.820it's not no no it's not and I'll tell you why uh we're not uh in a schoolyard during lunchtime
00:10:37.040tit for tat you started it but I'll finish it you're continuing so I will keep going um one
00:10:42.900person Corey Tanike um is a party member a conservative whether we like it or not Corey
00:10:50.200is a conservative who may not agree with the current leadership. The other person is supposed
00:10:56.880to be the prime minister in waiting. Why is he wasting time on Corey Tanaik? Why? Ms. Byrne,
00:11:05.100for example, another former colleague of mine, went after Erin O'Toole, took down Erin O'Toole1.00
00:11:11.240successfully. These are party members. These are longtime conservatives. So what's good
00:11:20.160for the goose is good for the gander but when you are the leader when you are the prime minister in
00:11:25.080waiting you ignore that noise you demonstrate you show that not only you're able to lead and to be
00:11:32.020the best opposition leader this country has ever had you also have to persuade those the rest who
00:11:38.260didn't vote for you that you're also the prime minister in waiting and that you are a better
00:11:42.920alternative than what is currently on offering you know politics is simple it's not complicated
00:11:50.720you gotta it's not just and Mr. Poilievre I'll be very blunt on this probably the hardest working
00:11:56.940politician I have ever met and I've known Mr. Poilievre since 2002 we've known each other for
00:12:02.72024 years disclosure just like you disclose Mr. Poilievre and I I would easily say we were friends
00:12:10.220we were good friends. We used to speak often. Obviously, since I wrote the op-ed a year ago,
00:12:15.560why did I write that op-ed, by the way, a year ago? A conservative, a basic conservative principle
00:12:21.060is law and order. What does that mean? It means the police does its work. It lays charges. It
00:12:26.760goes to court and a judge decides. What, what, I guess what, what bothered me a year ago is,
00:12:33.800when Mr. Poilievre, number one, criticized the RCMP as an institution. Is the RCMP perfect? No,
00:12:42.220it is not. Does the RCMP need improvements? Absolutely. But you cannot say that the RCMP
00:12:49.240is covering up for Justin Trudeau and then to take it a step further and say that Justin Trudeau
00:12:54.440should have been in jail because of the SNC-Lavalin scandal, because of the Aga Khan scandal.
00:12:59.500let the police do its work, lay charges, go to court, let a judge decide. So I obviously haven't
00:13:06.920spoken with Mr. Poiliev for about a year now. What I believe many conservatives want to see
00:13:14.740is Mr. Poiliev maybe work a little less hard and work a little bit smarter because sometimes
00:13:22.120working smartly beats working hard all right speaking say as a as a political operative
00:13:29.900somebody with a lot of experience in communications how would you fix the current situation the
00:13:35.400current rift between all the various various parties and you know them all you know all the
00:13:40.160players and you were friends with some of them still are friends and with others what would you
00:13:46.940do now if you could say get all parties together hammer this out and have a united front heading
00:13:54.300into the next election so so here's here's the challenge right now sir um you do that kind of
00:14:01.500stuff when you're 25 points ahead when you're 20 points ahead you do that kind of stuff when you're
00:14:07.900virtually tied um the challenge right now is that this has been going on for a very long time for
00:14:14.940no reason to be completely honest with you where was john bear during the last election campaign
00:14:19.900um sidelined um i i think that all these things could have been avoided and and i do see
00:14:31.260this new reality that exists you know juno news is is a brand new media organization with the
00:14:36.460evolution of technology and it's a good thing by the way because canadians need to get information
00:14:41.100not just from traditional media but there's also just as much on the left than on the right
00:14:49.260there's there's this new reality that contains half information and plenty of disinformation
00:14:55.500there's that new element as well uh in in in our public debate these days so the challenge to your
00:15:02.620question on how do you fix this now um it may be too late to fix it with those people but it also
00:15:11.180may be irrelevant all i would say is ignore um is it too late to grab a cup of coffee uh with with
00:15:18.540mr tonight is it too i don't know i i don't know that's that's a question of leadership and the
00:15:24.060ability to say enough is enough but if some people aren't willing to bury the hatchet the way that
00:15:29.580miss burn for example was not willing to bury the hatchet with erin o'toole and she wanted to take
00:15:34.060him down come hell or high water um sometimes just ignoring and and proving demonstrating
00:15:40.940that not only are you the best leader of the official opposition buddy prime minister and
00:15:44.780waiting and i'll give you small examples what's the purpose to what end uh of putting out a video
00:15:51.660talking about the price of hamburgers 30 years ago versus today at a dairy queen
00:15:55.740What is the purpose of doing a video with a deck of cards to make a point that Mark Carney, which he has, Mark Carney has made concession after concession after concession and has gotten nothing in return.
00:16:08.860And the point that I make is if you look at the 2025 election campaign platform, and I've said this repeatedly, it is one of the best platforms I have seen on offering from the Conservative Party of Canada, including when we were in government.
00:16:24.360It is so good that the Liberals have adopted it in part.