Juno News - October 31, 2018EXCLUSIVE： Andrew Lawton sits down with Maxime Bernier
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Summary
Maxime Vernier, leader of the People s Party of Canada and former leadership candidate for the Conservatives, joins me to talk about immigration in Canada. We talk about his views on immigration and why he thinks we need to have less immigration.
Transcript
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Andrew Lawton here with another True North Initiative exclusive interview.
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Very pleased to be joined by Maxime Vernier, leader of the People's Party of Canada, formerly
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a leadership candidate for the Conservative Party of Canada.
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A lot's changed, though, in the last year and a half.
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We'll talk about that with Maxime, but thank you for joining me.
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You know, it's always a privilege for me to be able to speak with you and with your people,
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One of the big issues for us at the True North Initiative has always been immigration
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in Canada, wanting a policy-based approach to immigration, but one that doesn't really
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resort to, I think, what you described very accurately this past summer, which is cult
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of diversity and very forced and contrived diversity.
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And I'm wondering why that issue has become so contentious in Canada, because you were
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speaking the truth on a lot of issues, and I didn't find anything.
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I disagreed with about it, but you were still subjected to the name-calling of the racism
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and the xenophobia and all of these other isms.
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Why is that, that that issue has become so powerful in that space?
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I think, first of all, because we are the only party who speaks for less immigration,
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and as you know, we're against mass immigration.
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Justin Trudeau and the Conservative Party of Canada, Andrew Scheer, and the NDP, they're
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So, I think the press and everybody is used to having more and more immigrants every year,
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and when you have a political party like our party, the People's Party of Canada, we are
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But I think we are in line with 49 percent of the population, because 49 percent of the
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population, they want less immigration in Canada.
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They want to be sure that people who are coming here, they will integrate to our society, they
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So, and I'm very proud to have that position, and we'll see what will happen.
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But what we, and we're very serious about it, because we were saying for the last couple
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About the average that we had under the opera government, 250,000 new immigrants a year.
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And like that, we'll be able to integrate them, and so that's our position.
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But it's too bad that some people are saying that maybe we, and personally, I'm a racist
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I think it's, first of all, it's not true, but it is not helping the cause.
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We need to have a real debate about immigration.
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Those criticisms were also put towards Stephen Harper and Jason Kenney, but the Conservative
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government under Stephen Harper was actually very pro-immigration.
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I mean, immigrant numbers steadily increased in Canada.
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Do you think that was done responsibly, or do you think that that was bad policy?
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It was a good policy, and that's why it was very successful.
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And we focused at that time for more economic immigrants, and I think that's great.
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You know there's three kinds of immigration in Canada, the economic immigration, the reunification
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So what we want, we want a little bit less of refugees, less of unification of family,
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and more economic immigrants, because the Canadian society, we need that.
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So it's a policy that is in line with Canadians.
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It's in line also with the needs of our economy.
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And when we were in government, that was actually what we did.
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So we just want to go back for what we did the last 75 years.
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That's only just St. Trudeau the last four years that is changing that with mass immigration.
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And so it is not this country has been built by immigrants, but with the same system that
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I want us to promote the same system that we had the last 75 years.
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But you said a few moments ago, you're the only party pushing for fewer immigrants.
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Why is that important to get that net number down if you're saying that economic immigrants
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Yeah, I'm saying that because I want to be sure that people who are coming here are coming
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And if it is an economic immigrant, that person will have a job that would be good for her or
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And first of all, integrate to our society, sharing our Canadian values, that's important.
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Our Canadian values are the Western civilization values.
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And people who came in Canada 75 years ago, they were coming to Canada because of freedom
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And I don't want also why we just want to have less immigration.
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And I'm looking what's happening right now in Europe, in certain countries in Europe.
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They have a big challenge to integrate their immigrants.
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So I don't want Canada to be that in 20 years from now.
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And I think it's time to question that for being sure that in 20 years from now or 25 years
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from now, we will be the country that we are right now.
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Yeah, Europe has always been a tremendously important thing to watch because in a number
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of demographic senses, Canada is 10, 15 years behind Europe.
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And we saw Germany already face some monumental challenges because of what was very sloppy
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Are there countries in particular in Europe that you think Canada is on track to emulate
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Well, I cannot predict the future, but I think that's why I don't want that kind of future.
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So I think if we are serious about immigration and we are going back of what we did, very
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successful in the past, we won't have the challenges that they're having.
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And actually, the debate may be in English Canada, it can be new about less immigration.
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But in Quebec, as you know, we have a new Quebec government, CACIS government, Coalition
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And one of the very important part of their program, it was for less immigration.
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And, you know, he was elected and nobody thinks that Mr. Legault is a racist.
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So they were arguing for 40,000 new immigrants in Quebec instead of 50,000, so 10,000 less.
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So I think people are ready in Quebec, and I think the same thing in English Canada.
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They're ready for that because they don't want our country being like some countries
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Now, you're from Quebec, obviously, but you have obviously traveled the country.
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I think your nickname, the Albertan from Quebec, suggests you've got a proud appeal there.
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But in Quebec, there's always been a sense of openness to discuss the issues of values
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and to discuss national identity and to discuss even the intersection of religion and cultural
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We saw it with Nick Cabs and all of these other things.
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Why is that discussion allowed in Quebec, but in English Canada, no one's prepared to
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I mean, that ban on religious symbols in the public sector was contentious in Quebec,
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yes, but that would never happen in Ontario, in BC.
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Well, I think because maybe the majority of the Francophone, the majority Francophone in
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Quebec, they want to keep their culture and their values, what they believe in, and that's
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They are a minority in North America, or in America, so for Quebecers, and also English-speaking
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Quebecers, they're part of the society in Quebec, and they build that society with us.
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I think they understand also, and that's not new with the PEQ and all the debate about the
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independence of Quebec, Quebec having a, being a distinct society at that time.
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So now we are past that, and the independence of Quebec, nobody wants that right now, but
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they want to keep their culture, and maybe that's why they're ready to have this kind
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And I think in English-Canada, they are ready also.
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Maybe it's only the journalists or, you know, when you have 49 percent of Canadians that want
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to have less immigration, we must listen to them, and that's what we are doing.
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The People's Party of Canada, the Parti Populaire de Canada, not a Quebec party, it's a national
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You've said you want to run candidates in all 338 ridings, but there are a number of people,
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even Conservatives, that have a level of apprehension about another Quebec leader.
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And I've heard this, and I don't share it, but it's something that you're going to be up against.
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Yes, I'm coming from Quebec, I'm a Francophone, I'm speaking English with an accent.
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And my writing is both, but my writing is the most conservative writing in the province
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You won with what, 59 percent of the vote last time?
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I hope I will be successful at the next election.
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But no, me coming from Quebec, people outside Quebec, in Western Canada, in Alberta, BC,
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The most important is to promote the values that we believe in.
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And I'm doing that, and I will do that until the election.
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The program is very coherent, based on four principles, individual freedom, personal responsibility,
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Yes, I'm coming from Quebec, but because they are sharing the same values that I'm promoting,
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And that's why they call me the Albertan from Quebec, because I'm a free market politician.
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Let's talk about your strategy heading into the election.
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And when you look at ridings that the Conservatives won in 2011, when Harper won a majority, and
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ridings that they then lost in 2015, particularly around the greater Toronto area, a lot of those
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ridings were won by the Conservatives with a margin of 2,000 votes.
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You throw another party that's going after, in many respects, votes from the right.
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How are you not just going to be a spoiler for Conservatives?
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First of all, before I resigned from the Conservative Party of Canada and we formed the People's
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Party of Canada, Andrew Scheer was at 31% in the poll and Justin Trudeau at 39%.
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But what we want to do, we want to be sure to have Conservatives that will vote for us,
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but also people who didn't vote at the last election.
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The 30% of the population at the last election didn't bother to go to vote because they didn't
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So we are doing politics differently, and I think that we'll be able to attract these
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So I think people coming from the Conservative Party of Canada, people coming from other parties
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and people who didn't vote, we can build a kind of coalition and being an alternative.
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And I'm saying to these people who want to be sure to get rid of Justin Trudeau, just watch us.
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You know, there's 10% of the population in Canada right now that they're looking to vote for us.
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So 10%, and we just started that, in three, four, five months from now, I think we can grow from there.
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So I'm saying to them who are not sure, come with us and we'll...
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Because if you vote for Andrew Scheer right now and Justin Trudeau, for me that's the same.
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They want to impose strict regulation for carbon emission.
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But, you know, they believe in that Paris Accord.
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They don't believe in free markets for poultry, dairy and eggs.
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They want to protect 15,000 producers under the cartel of supply management.
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And Canadians are paying twice the price for that, artificial high prices for these products.
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What they're doing right now, they're looking at a poll, they're looking at some survey, and they try to please everybody.
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If you like what we are saying, come and come with us and be a member and vote for us.
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You know, there's other parties and you can vote for the other ones.
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So that's a big difference between us and these two old parties.
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And I'm saying to them, if you want to be sure to be Justin Trudeau and you're a real conservative, come with us.
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But even so, that 10%, let's say you can increase it to 15 or even 20%, that's not enough to win a majority.
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So let me ask you, would you enter into a coalition government with the Conservative Party?
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You're not thinking about it or you wouldn't do it?
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You know, we won't do any compromise with our principle.
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So I quit the Conservative Party of Canada because they didn't have any principle anymore.
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People like the authenticity of our campaign and so we'll be authentic.
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And if we have, I don't know, 35 or 40 or 60 members of parliament, we'll deal with that.
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But right now, the focus of our party is to be sure to have organization all across the country, in every region.
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So we want to do that before the end of December, having a writing association up and running.
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And after that, we'll look for good candidates.
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Our goal is to have all our candidates before the end of May next year.
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And after that, we'll be ready for the election.
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But I don't know what will be the result of that election.
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For me, I will ask people to, for once, vote for your values.
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Do you think the Conservative Party of Canada has changed from two years ago, before Andrew Scheer was the leader, to today?
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Or do you think it is fundamentally the same party it was before he was the leader?
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Well, I think that we had a lot of debates when I was a Conservative, and we had the leadership campaign.
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And at that time, you know, after Harper, we had, as a leader, Ronald Ambrose.
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But the party was not, ideologically, was not trying to change anything.
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It's just during the leadership campaign, we had a lot of candidates, and I was part of that.
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But after the campaign, when Andrew Scheer became the leader of the party, what I tried to do, I tried to push the ideas that I put forward during the leadership campaign.
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Because 49 percent of the members, they like it, they voted for that.
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And I think at that time that I would be able to influence the party.
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I would be able to change the philosophy of the party, to change the platform of the party.
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I had a conversation with Andrew Scheer, and he told me, Maxime, all your ideas, bold ideas, a big reform, but it won't be part of our platform for the next campaign.
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So, there's the Conservative Party of Canada under Stephen Harper, and after that, the leadership campaign, a lot of ideas.
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And the leader decided, a year after that, not to take any of the ideas that we put forward.
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So, for me, I had two choices, to go back in the private sector, or if I want to stay in politics, to create our own party.
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But even, let's take supply management as an issue here.
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The Conservatives under Stephen Harper were still supporting supply management.
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I know that frustrated you, but you did defend it as a minister.
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But even other issues that you're raising now have always been conservative issues.
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That's something that Stephen Harper was big on.
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So, the challenge for a lot of people, I think, on the right, is that it looks like the party that you're calling morally and intellectually corrupt
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isn't all that different from the party that you served as a minister in.
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Yeah, but when I was a minister, I tried to change that.
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But, you know, my colleagues were telling me, Maxime, first of all, you must convince the members of our party,
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because the members supported the supply management system.
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And after that, it must be part of our platform.
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I was the minister who gave a lot of subsidies to big corporations.
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But, you know, I tried around the cabinet table to abolish that.
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And that's why, after all that, you know, we are building a real party who believes in free markets and without any compromise.
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And I didn't have time to waste with the conservative.
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And like you said also, yes, I was defending when I was a minister the supply management system.
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But like I wrote, I said, I won't do that again.
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I'm speaking for what I believe with passion, with conviction.
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And I was in a position to do that because I was a minister.
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And I was very pleased when I started the leadership.
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That was my first policy announcement for the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada
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when I said no more corporate welfare but no more supply management.
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If you believe in free markets, you cannot say, oh, yeah, free market is good for all the other industry.
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But, no, for poultry, eggs, and dairy producer, they must have a socialist system.
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So, we are current with the free market principle.
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And I think that's why we are able to attract people.
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So, I get that when you talk about these frustrations and trying to work within the system.
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You famously took aim at fake conservatives who signed up to block you.
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And that's, unfortunately, a part of leaderships and nominations.
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Let's say that Andrew Scheer had lost and you had emerged victorious.
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He said, you know what, I want these policies, so I'm going to create my own party.
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How would you, as conservative leader, have responded to that?
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First of all, for me, winning with 51-49, because I lost with 49 and Andrew win with 51.
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So, being in that position, it would have been very difficult for me.
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First of all, because I was the candidate for change, for big reform.
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I had only six members of parliament who supported me during the leadership on 98 members, conservative
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So, being at that position 51-49, I would have been in a position to have Andrew Scheer as
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my number two and bring him in board to be able to manage a caucus, to be able to have
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compromise with the platform, our platform and his platform.
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He didn't ask me to come and be his number two.
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But what he did after that, Christine Elliott, she's the number two.
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And Andrew didn't do that after the leadership.
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And after a year, I said, I cannot have any input, so I'm going to quit.
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But for me, the way to deal with Andrew Scheer number two would have been to integrate him
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in our team, like Doug Ford is doing here in Ontario.
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I backed you in your leadership bit, and I have no regrets about that.
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You're the only one that was putting forward really liberty-focused ideas.
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And when you started tweeting this summer about things that were sort of disenfranchising
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you from the media and from the party establishment, I still supported you because I still have
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not found anything in that that I disagreed with.
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When you launched your own party, I said, I'm going to take a wait-and-see approach, which
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And that's one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you today, because I've got questions myself
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And one of the big ones is how you, who have been in politics for a while, feel about doing
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what the Conservative Party spent years trying to recover from, which was a fractured right.
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I mean, it wasn't that long ago that the reform and then the alliance were blocking the PCs.
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And we had the party reunited for, what, 12 years?
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First of all, when you are speaking about splitting the right, for me right now, the
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Conservative Party of Canada, it is not a right-wing party.
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Like I told you, on supply management, on Paris Accord, on foreign affairs, the Trudeau
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government, they're giving a billion, million of dollars to other countries to fight climate
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For me, it is not the role of the Canadian government to do that.
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But the Conservatives, they're sharing that, giving subsidies to businesses.
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So the Conservative Party of Canada, it is not a right-wing party right now.
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So what I'm telling you, if you really want to have big reform and reform based on free-market
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And if you want to be strategic and you want to be sure that Justin Trudeau won't be the prime
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Minister in a year from now, come with us right now and help us to build that momentum
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When you launched your party with the name People's Party of Canada, a lot of people,
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well, some people took issue with it because they said it sounded very left-wing, People's
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But I wanted to ask you, I mean, what is the vision of your coalition?
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You mentioned people that are not voters typically coming out.
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But right now you're saying that it's the only right-wing party.
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Are you trying to go after people that aren't conventionally Conservatives?
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I think the majority of our supporters will be that.
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But I spoke with one of our members in Newfoundland and he said, Maxime, I voted NDP last time
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Because you want to get rid of supply management and that would be good for the poor.
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It's a regressive tax on poor and you want to abolish corporate welfare.
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And you're the only one who's speaking about that.
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So we can have, but people must share our principle.
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And if they share our principle, perfect, they will come in our party.
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We've talked about supply management and some of the free market ideas.
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What are the other visions that you want to bring to Canadian politics through the People's Party of Canada?
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We, when I was a Conservative and I was part of the Opera government, we did that to win election.
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So we were taxing people and used their money to give that to a special interest group,
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So that's why the People's Party of Canada, we want to work for the people, with the people.
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One at 15% for people earning more than $15,000 to $100,000.
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And for the poor, we will increase the personal exemption from $11,000 to $15,000.
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So two tax rates that will help the poor, that will be fair for everybody.
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But we'll be able to do that by abolishing corporate welfare.
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And it's very different than when the upper government did.
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And we don't want to please a special interest group.
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I like to say, you know, I was with a group, a Muslim group, and they told me, Maxime, during my leadership campaign,
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and they told me, Maxime, you must come to visit us.
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We have a lot of Muslims that are conservative, and they're ready to support a candidate.
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We have a lot of questions for every candidate.
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And they were asking me questions, and they said, you know, we're going to publish that on our website,
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and our members will decide, and they will vote.
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So I did the interview, like all the other candidates.
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And the last question was, what are you going to do for the Muslim community in Canada?
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So, yes, I will do something for you because you are Canadians.
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So I don't try to please every special interest group.
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That's the big difference with us and all the other parties.
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Do you think in the Canadian political system it's possible to win elections without buying
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And that's why we have people that didn't vote at the last election.
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So that's why, you know, people are not stupid.
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And the journalist said when we launched a party, the People's Party of Canada, like you
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said, it's a little bit maybe a socialist name.
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I said, you know, nobody will believe that Maxine Bernie is a socialist.
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But that being said, we choose that name because we are working for the people.
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So I think that people are ready for a big change.
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They did the change with the CAC government, the Coalition Avenir Québec.
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They are very small parties that receive a lot of votes.
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Your support's going to come from the average people, not from the elites.
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But at the same time, you don't seem to have any support from your caucus colleagues
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or former caucus colleagues, none of the provincial Conservative Party leaders.
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Do you think that that sends a message to people that you're an army of one?
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Well, first of all, yes, I don't have any support from my ex-Conservative colleagues.
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And I had only six of them who supported me during the leadership.
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And I'm not spending any energy to have their support.
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I'm too busy to work with the membership of our party.
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The Green Party, they had about 20,000 members, but they are there for the last 35 years.
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The Conservative Party of Canada are having 100,000 members.
00:28:21.860
And not only in the House, but outside the House of Commons, we have a lot of support.
00:28:26.860
And I'm saying to people, oh, some journalists said, Maxime, you are kind of a populist politician.
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I said, yeah, you can call me like that, but I'm a smart populist politician.
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Because I'm speaking to the intelligence of Canadians.
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That's a difference with other populist politicians.
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I'm speaking to their intelligence with bold reform, serious reform.
00:28:51.860
So with that, with the ideas, and nobody can stop an idea when it's the right idea.
00:28:58.860
We want to be sure that all our reforms that maybe are not popular today.
00:29:02.860
When I'm speaking about, I don't know, health care, I said we must stop to transfer money.
00:29:12.860
The federal government must stop to transfer money to provinces for health care.
00:29:15.860
And we must lower our taxes at the federal level and lend them tax for their own responsibility.
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Maybe we don't have 50 percent of the population behind that idea.
00:29:27.860
But my goal and my motivation, it is the right thing to do.
00:29:32.860
We're the only country after Cuba and China that you cannot spend your own money for your own health insurance.
00:29:42.860
So all the other countries in Europe, they have both systems, the private system and the public system.
00:29:50.860
I'm not speaking about the U.S., it's different.
00:29:55.860
So it may be not popular at 51 percent with the population right now.
00:30:00.860
But for the other parties, like I said, they are looking at poll.
00:30:04.860
But for me, I think I know that it's the best policy for this country, for the population.
00:30:12.860
So my challenge is to speak about it and having more support.
00:30:17.860
If I have only 10 percent of the population on my side, okay, good.
00:30:25.860
Let's talk very briefly, if we can, about freedom.
00:30:32.860
You've also been very vocal on free speech in a way that I think we very much need politicians to take the issue up.
00:30:40.860
I mean, Doug Ford in Ontario has put a policy forward that would basically require universities to protect free speech because they're getting public money.
00:30:48.860
Where do you think the federal government's role is and a federal party's role is in making sure that free speech isn't hindered?
00:31:00.860
I don't want to interfere in provincial jurisdiction.
00:31:03.860
That's part of our platform, respect for respect to taxpayers and respect the constitution.
00:31:07.860
So what Doug Ford is doing, that's the solution.
00:31:10.860
I cannot impose something on campus because it's a provincial jurisdiction.
00:31:19.860
But at the federal government, under our jurisdiction, we need to show that we are promoting freedom of speech.
00:31:29.860
But if there's a conflict in another jurisdiction, in one of our responsibilities, we must act.
00:31:36.860
But right now, the challenge is more at the university level all across the country.
00:31:41.860
So it's more a provincial jurisdiction like Doug Ford.
00:31:44.860
And the provinces, they can put forward the solution.
00:31:48.860
So what I can do at the federal level is just to incitate and ask provincial government to do that and to act like that and to do like the Ontario government.
00:31:57.860
We don't need to interfere at the federal level to be sure to have that on campus.
00:32:03.860
And I prefer to respect the constitution and to encourage other provincial government to do the same like they did in Ontario.
00:32:10.860
Do you think we need more areas in government where the federal level is saying we're going to just walk back and let provinces handle that?
00:32:17.860
Because you've talked about it with health care, which is supposed to be provincial jurisdiction anyway, but the federal government has pushed it.
00:32:26.860
But are there other areas where you think the federal government is involved that it shouldn't be right now?
00:32:32.860
The health care, the equalization formula, you know, the federal government is giving a lot of money to provinces.
00:32:49.860
We have a lot of, I think it's about $20 billion that the federal government is transferring to provinces for social and social transfer.
00:33:01.860
So my position on that is just lower tax at the federal level, less provinces taxes.
00:33:06.860
But the opposition would say, oh, Maxime, a tax dollar in Ontario, a tax point in Ontario, it isn't the same one that a tax point in New Brunswick.
00:33:16.860
Because there are more rich people in Ontario and less a little bit in New Brunswick.
00:33:21.860
We're going to stop the transferring social transfer money and health care money.
00:33:28.860
We'll use the equalization formula to give a little bit more to a poor province for that province to be able to offer the same kind of services.
00:33:37.860
But right now what I'm saying that we have the equalization formula, but the formula is unfair.
00:33:45.860
So like in Quebec, you don't put the hydroelectricity part of the formula, but all the fossil energy, the petroleum and oil and gas, it's part of the formula.
00:33:58.860
You must change a formula, having a formula that will be respect all provinces.
00:34:03.860
And after that, using that formula to be able to give money to provinces that they need.
00:34:08.860
But you don't need to tax every Canadians and giving a big social transfer to every provinces.
00:34:16.860
Maxime Bernier, leader of the People's Party of Canada.