Juno News - June 21, 2022


How does the next Conservative leader beat Justin Trudeau？


Episode Stats

Length

3 minutes

Words per Minute

196.7544

Word Count

780

Sentence Count

34


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 What I see, Hamish, especially from True North viewers and people in the comments section,
00:00:04.340 is a real excitement around the candidacy of Pierre Polyev,
00:00:08.320 even people who are longtime supporters, people who love Maxime Bernier,
00:00:12.320 and they want to see Bernier and Pierre kind of run together,
00:00:16.040 or a lot of people who have signed up for the Conservative Party who have never done it before because they're excited.
00:00:22.460 Not necessarily about, you know, what Pierre is saying, but just the way that he says it.
00:00:28.280 I mean, obviously what he's saying, but, you know, he seems like a fighter.
00:00:31.520 He seems like he's going to stand up for Canadians, marginalized Canadians.
00:00:34.820 The kind of people who would go to a protest party like the PPC because they're frustrated with the status quo,
00:00:39.920 well, they seem to be listening and Pierre seems to be appealing to them.
00:00:45.500 So I think that there's something to the idea that, you know, the party that morphs,
00:00:50.500 you can capture imagination with the right candidate speaking their language
00:00:54.740 and really appearing to be pushing back against the gatekeepers and the status quo like Pierre talks about.
00:01:01.000 Well, I guess just a final question for you, Hamish.
00:01:04.760 You know, there's always this sort of soul searching that happens and this reflection that happens after a party loses,
00:01:10.240 and it is good that we're having these kinds of conversations to help improve, you know,
00:01:14.520 what can happen in the next election.
00:01:17.340 What do you think the big takeaway for conservatives should be,
00:01:21.120 and do you think that there's any lasting damage in trying to say,
00:01:25.340 okay, we have the right strategy, we just have to tweak it a little bit
00:01:28.780 and keep with this idea that we need a moderate socially liberal candidate in order to beat Trudeau?
00:01:36.340 I mean, I think there's two important takeaways.
00:01:38.440 Number one is that you can't take the conservative base for granted.
00:01:43.360 You have to make sure that conservatives see themselves as part of your candidacy and your plan
00:01:48.560 and what hopefully will be your government.
00:01:50.620 So if conservatives, sort of activists, don't see themselves as part of that,
00:01:56.420 that's going to be a big problem.
00:01:58.680 That's number one.
00:01:59.620 Number two, I believe that if you're running to present change, you have to look like change.
00:02:05.160 You have to put on policies that are different.
00:02:08.960 Running and saying we agree with the government on,
00:02:11.220 this is true of any party of left, right, whatever situation it is.
00:02:14.540 If you're running and saying we agree on 98% of things,
00:02:17.100 we're doing a couple of little things different and our leader is a different sort of person,
00:02:21.740 that's not enough.
00:02:23.060 One of the reasons Trudeau was able, and I'm obviously not a fan of it,
00:02:25.900 one of the reasons Trudeau was able to win in 2015 wasn't just that he was young and dashing
00:02:31.200 and exciting and charismatic,
00:02:32.300 but he offered a distinctly different policy agenda
00:02:36.320 and one that frankly looked more like change than the NDP.
00:02:39.020 The NDP in 2015 ran unbalanced budgets.
00:02:41.700 They were trying to look more like mature, responsible choice.
00:02:45.440 The Canadians felt it was time for change and said,
00:02:47.160 what looks more like change?
00:02:48.440 Sure, there's an exciting new leader, Justin Trudeau,
00:02:50.580 but he's also saying he's going to do all these other different things.
00:02:52.680 Now, he ended up not doing a whole bunch of them
00:02:54.300 and I would argue many of those things he wanted to do were bad ideas,
00:02:58.020 but you have to offer change.
00:02:59.900 You have to, if you're saying we're going to be different, you have to be different.
00:03:03.960 Otherwise, people are going to say they're going to stick with the devil they know.
00:03:07.820 So that's the big takeaway that I take from all this stuff.
00:03:11.520 You have to offer something different and you can't ignore,
00:03:13.880 you can't just take the conservative base for granted,
00:03:16.680 or even as it seemed like at times during the O2 leadership,
00:03:20.240 run against your own base, demand that the party,
00:03:22.980 point out how your own party was somehow lacking.
00:03:25.620 That's not the way to build a winning coalition.
00:03:29.560 You should get more people into your party,
00:03:32.480 get them more excited about your party, bring in new folks.
00:03:35.660 That's why O2 will end up losing half a million votes.
00:03:38.060 But it's also why the Polyev's campaign has attracted so many people.
00:03:42.680 Signing up 312,000 people is a massive accomplishment.
00:03:46.260 Those aren't people who are all former conservative members or people.
00:03:49.860 Many of those people are new to politics and that's exciting.
00:03:53.420 And if you can build a movement and grow that movement, that's how you win.