Juno News - February 22, 2024Independent MP considering run for Tories
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Summary
In this episode, I sit down with Independent MP for Spadina-Fort York, Kevin Vong, to discuss why he decided to leave the Liberal Party and become an independent. We also discuss the fallout from a false sexual assault allegation he faced as a member of the Canadian Armed Forces.
Transcript
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Welcome to Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show. This is the Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by True North.
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Welcome to the Andrew Lawton Show here on True North. This is a bit of a different show if you haven't been able to tell already by the setting.
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In politics, we often orient things around political parties. It's the Liberals versus the Conservatives versus the New Democrats.
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Independents do not historically have the best go of things in politics. Very few people have had success running as independents and winning.
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Oftentimes, people will get kicked out of a party caucus and finish out their term as an independent and then retire.
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But there are a few exceptions to that rule, and it's also important to look at what independents are able to do.
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So, I wanted to take a look at that with someone who has very quickly established himself as, I think, a very unique and effective figure in Canadian politics.
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And that is Kevin Vong, who is the Independent Member of Parliament for Spadina for York.
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And I was going to say he's joining me, but I'm joining you because we're in your home.
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So, Kevin, thank you very much for having me and for sitting down for this.
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No, it's my pleasure. Thanks for joining me here.
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So, let's discuss, first off, why you are an independent.
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You ran for the Liberals, but during the campaign were basically kicked out of the running after the ballots had already been printed.
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And you still won, which was quite an achievement.
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And I want to hear, in your words, what happened there.
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Sure. So, there was a bogus allegation made against me years ago that was withdrawn by the court.
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They realized that the false allegation of sexual assault was completely bogus.
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So, it was completely withdrawn, no conditions, not in the public interest to pursue, was the prosecutor's words.
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Which I think a lot of people appreciate that when it comes to lawyers, they're very intentional with the words that they use.
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And they didn't say no reasonable prospect of conviction or any of that.
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So, that was withdrawn, dealt with, until magically, four days before the election, it resurfaced again.
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And so, I guess in the throes of the general election and the final few days, the Liberals made the decision that while we were supposed to be scheduled to have a chat about it and get the full debrief,
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my opinion was, at the end of the day, if an allegation of charge is withdrawn, it no longer exists.
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And so, three days before the election, I got essentially an email that says,
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Kevin, you are no longer a Liberal, which was really hard at the time.
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I was new to politics, new to partisan politics, but I guess has been a bit of a blessing in disguise.
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Just to not gloss over this part, there were also issues about disclosing it to the Liberal Party and also to the Navy, where you were and are a reservist.
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And you have said that was a mistake on your part in past interviews, have you not?
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So, there is, you know, as a reservist, as a member of the Canadian Armed Forces, we have the obligation to disclose a charge.
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Even if you're innocent like I was, and, you know, ignorance is not an excuse.
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That is something that I should have done, and even though the charge was ultimately withdrawn,
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and that's something where I accept the military's ruling.
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We went through a summary hearing, and obviously there was a consequence for that.
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I have responsibility for that, and I would suggest I've probably paid for it in spades.
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One of the things that comes up in politics, as anyone who's been a candidate can tell you,
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is that you're very much a casualty of a war that is bigger than you in a lot of ways.
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And, you know, people that don't like the Liberals see this guy, and they think he's the weak link of the Liberal campaign,
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so that motivates the Liberals to cut bait in the way that they did.
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Because it was not personal for the people that just didn't like you because you were a politician or a Liberal.
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But when you're in the midst of that, that's an incredibly personal fight for you and for your family.
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Well, yes, and to be fair, Andrew, I was a card-carrying Liberal for all of, like, I don't know, three, four weeks.
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To see your name dragged through the mud by people that you've never met was tough.
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And I think even harder was to see people that you thought were your friends and family who were there joining the Kevin parade when, you know,
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I was, quote-unquote, a rising star to then turn around and try to climb off my, you know, my carcass with the knives that they stabbed in my back.
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And I think one of the things that came out of that was Elizabeth, my wife and I, were very lucky to find out who our real friends were.
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And we're very grateful for them who have been with us and have supported us in, you know, every step of the way since.
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You mentioned having been a card-carrying Liberal for just a few weeks.
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Why did you decide to, both to get into politics when you did, but why did you decide to run as a Liberal?
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So, my predecessor was retiring, and basically, I got a call a few days before Canada Day.
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You know, I was involved in my local community.
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You know, this was a city and a community that I belonged to and at the time had lived for over a decade and just was involved in giving back, just wanted to make our community better.
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He's like, listen, I'm retiring, and I think you should be the next MP.
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And so, up until that point, I was never a partisan person.
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I had only ever run in 2018 when a bunch of people encouraged me to run because there were supposed to be new seats downtown.
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Obviously, Premier Doug Ford decided to change that and cut city council in half.
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But at the time, I really liked the idea of city council because it was nonpartisan.
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I just, you know, I think every party has good ideas and, you know, a good idea is a good idea.
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And so, when the Liberals asked me to run, I was like, well, is Justin Trudeau really completely aligned my values?
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But I think God knows the Liberals could use people that have experience in terms of what it's like to start a business and build it from the ground up.
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And as a Naval Reservist, sure, I wasn't in the regular force.
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But I think there was a perspective there, particularly from a naval perspective that I had learned in my, I think at the time, seven.
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Come next month, I will serve nine years as a Naval Reserve officer.
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And I thought that was a perspective that I could contribute.
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Obviously, I was very naive to politics, having been new to partisan politics in particular, and none of that came to pass.
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Canada will welcome them when other countries are closing their borders and people need.
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And so that was actually my primary motivation for joining the need, because I wanted to give back to the country that's given my family so much.
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And so when the opportunity came up to potentially serve as a member of parliament, I was like, man, that's freaking awesome to be able to not just serve part time in uniform, but also to do it as part of my day job.
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If you had been, not even as a candidate, if you had been a voter in a riding that was a perfect three-way split, NDP, Conservative, Liberal, any one of them could have won.
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It's a, I can't say a coin toss, but if there were a three-sided coin, it would have been a three-sided coin toss.
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Would you have voted Liberal in that election, naturally?
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Because part of the problem in some cities is that if you're going to run as a candidate, there are only a couple of options that could be available to you as a winner,
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and not to besmirch whoever the Conservative is going to be in Spadina for York.
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So would you have aligned with the Liberals under that scenario I just laid out?
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I know I can tell you for a fact I wouldn't vote for the NDP.
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I think like a majority of Canadians, I'm pretty centrist.
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This is where I think it would depend on the candidate itself, which is how our system should work.
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You know, I was mentioning to you, Andrew, before I guess we started rolling, you know, in 2019, Andrew Scheer's team asked me to run for the Conservatives.
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They're just, at the time, they had asked me to run in a place that was not viable.
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And so in this case, I guess when the Liberals came asking for me to run and they invited me to do so,
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it was in a riding where I knew that if I worked hard enough as an individual candidate, that I could win.
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So when the Conservatives came to you with that ask in 2019, notwithstanding the riding wouldn't have been one that they were likely to carry or did carry,
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was that something that you could have seen fitting?
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Was that something you could have seen working for you to run for that party?
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So under your scenario where it was kind of like, you know, every party has an equal footing and where I think it's up to the candidate.
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And if someone can outwork others, which I believe I could do, I would have ran for Andrew Scheer's team.
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One of the interesting things, just to fast forward to you being an independent in Parliament,
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is you spoke up and I think very eloquently took aim at what's become one of the Liberals' flagship policies, which is the carbon tax.
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And you were actually, I'd say, very cruelly mocked by Justin Trudeau in response to that question by saying, you know,
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your voters voted for a carbon tax, was basically what he was saying, and you're parroting Conservative talking points.
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And I'm curious what you thought about that, both the tone but also that substance,
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that you would have, in a different universe, been running on and governing on a carbon tax,
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that now you're standing up and saying, this isn't doing it for Canadians.
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So there's two things I'll say to that, Andrew.
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That entire question period, Justin Trudeau was, his kind of response back to the Conservatives in particular,
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It's supposed to be about the policy of Canadians.
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And then came my question, and then he did hypocritically exactly what he criticized the Conservatives to do,
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Now, what I will say about the Prime Minister is, he is unfortunately so far out of touch that he doesn't realize that,
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yes, I think all MPs now had run on a platform of some form of a carbon tax,
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but a lot had changed from when we had run in 2021 to at that time in 2023, right?
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because the reality is, since those two years at the time of when we had that question,
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food inflation was the highest as it had ever been in 40 years, right?
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You should be able to adapt to the realities that everyday Canadians are facing.
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You know, the carbon tax clearly now, unfortunately, has shown that it's not effective.
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Why would you continue to do something that is making it more painful for Canadians?
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And I think the reality is the Prime Minister doesn't know what it's like to have to worry about making next month's rent
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or putting food on the table, whereas my family has.
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You're right that there's a past dependency in politics,
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and I find a lot of the time that there's so much wisdom that suggests you can't admit you were wrong,
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you can't be wrong, and you have to just go all in, full steam ahead on whatever you said previously.
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And I mean, on one hand, we don't like politicians who flip-flop for reasons that look more like
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they're political in nature rather than earnest,
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but you're also describing something there, which I think is a big failing of the political system,
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which is that very few people are willing to take a step back and say,
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OK, this didn't work, or this isn't working, or, you know what, even if you support a carbon tax,
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which I've been pretty clear on the show I don't, but even if you support one,
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And the number of people in the Liberal caucus that have done that is basically one,
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So there must be privately, and I'm curious about this,
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some more misgivings that people are not willing to share publicly.
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So I have heard from kind of liberals of the grapevine that I said, you know,
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that I am articulating a lot of positions, whether it is on the Israel and Hamas war
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or the carbon tax, a position that they share, but for one reason or another,
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And that's a shame, right, that they're in a position where they can't speak up
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for their constituents who are struggling to make ends meet, right?
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Then, you know, they'll continue to parrot these lines either by choice
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or because they've been whipped to do so, you know, in spite of what the evidence
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and the facts show, the Departmentary Budget Officer has said
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that the carbon tax, contrary to what the Liberal line is,
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actually hurts more Canadians than it helps, whereas the Liberal line somehow flips that.
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Yeah, they basically say everyone's profiting from the carbon tax,
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which I don't think people buy when they go to the gas station, but nevertheless.
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Exactly. And they're getting taxed twice, right?
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So HSC is also applied on top of the carbon tax.
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And, you know, everyone's heating bill is basically double
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because if you look at the line items, the carbon tax is half.
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So going back to your election, you are elected as a Liberal.
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You know that you're not going to be sitting in the Liberal caucus, at least right away.
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Was that a bittersweet night or was it all positive
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and that you've been dragged through the ringer and you beat it?
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You know, if you ask my father-in-law, he's recounted this to me
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because it was a very long election in the sense that the ballots were being counted.
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The lines for the voting stations were actually really long in mind.
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And I remember fielding text messages from constituents and friends who live in Iran.
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And I would have to kind of go through that process of explaining, actually, I'm no longer a Liberal.
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It'll still say Liberal on the ballot, but I'm independent now.
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I know you and I want to support you and I'm going to vote for you.
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I just wanted to know, you know, what the deal is.
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And I'm grateful to all those people who, you know, had spent 10 years living in the community.
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And so that night, I ended up kind of just going to bed.
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I was like, you know, it was kind of painful watching reruns of them, kind of the newscasts,
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going through, oh, you know, Kevin's kicked out and all this.
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And my father-in-law told me, him and my mother-in-law had stayed up and we were with
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And in the morning when they saw that I had won, they knocked on the door and were like,
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And they're like, apparently, I then just rolled back over.
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Because you've got to put yourself in, you know, I'm the son of immigrants, refugees.
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We had to work hard to build up everything that we had.
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And in this case, the one thing that all of us have is really our name and our reputation.
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And I spent 30 plus years building it up only for a false allegation to basically have it
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kind of tossed aside and dragged through the mud.
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And the hardest thing for me, too, is at that time, I had spent six and a half years, I think,
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contributing to the Navy and helping to kind of build up the Navy's awareness and reach
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And because of one mistake, which, again, I own, I basically kind of washed all of that
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So, you know, I had, I was so proud of my service in the Navy.
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Now, I was the one who had kind of hurt the Navy.
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And, and I had hurt my family, my friends who, who had supported me.
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And, and I, it was just so, I don't know how to describe it now, but it was just, you
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Did you have a sense that, you know what, once I get to Ottawa, this will all be sorted
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The liberals will welcome me back after a month in the penalty box.
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Did you have a, you will either a presumption or, or even a calculation of likelihood that
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you'd be welcomed into the liberal caucus at some point in the near future?
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Well, so at the time I was like, well, you know, sure.
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I was card carrying member for three, four weeks, but that's also the only team that
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I kind of quote unquote was officially a part of, right?
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It was either whether they would forgive you or whether you'd be living what you're living
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So, you know, at the time I was like, well, you know, maybe through hard work.
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Um, and you know, folks had told me, you know, Kevin, like most independents would have
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just kind of kept their head down, cast their check.
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And then just kind of wrote out however long the mandate would be.
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And for me, I was like, well, that's just not who I am.
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Um, I was, I, I volunteered to serve both, you know, that was a case for the Navy and that
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And I remember when I was kind of talking to friends about, you know, when my predecessor
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asked me to run, uh, and the liberals had wanted me to be your candidate, people were
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Why would you, you know, our, our startup, uh, was doing really well.
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They're like, why would you get off the rocket ship?
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You're, I w I was teaching at Western at the time, uh, our alma mater.
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I was serving in the Navy and then my Naval career was going well, uh, and the business
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Why would you get off the rocket ship and, and, you know, often otherwise great private
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civilian career and subject yourself to the vulgarity of public office.
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Um, and in many respects they were right, but I naively was like, well, this is about giving
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back to the country that gave my family so much.
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Um, and, and so, you know, I, I had already given that up to be able to serve in public
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And that means going out and doing the hard work and setting up for the issues that are
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important, um, to my community and what I believe to be important to the country.
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Did you view being an independent as a handicap at first, or did you relatively early see,
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you know what, this could actually be an advantage?
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Um, because when, when a normal, I guess, typical MP is elected, they have a support system,
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That the party provides that kind of guides you through that.
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The house of commons has that too for everyone, but it is not as in depth.
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And so I kind of had to muddle through and figure out stuff on my own.
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Well, you still, to be frank, had a toxicity about you as well at the time where some people
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that even thought you were wrong, probably wouldn't want to be caught in a photo with
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And, and there were times where I would be walking the riding, doing what I think an MP
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should be knocking on doors, checking into small businesses.
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And, you know, random people would, would kind of start yelling at me and accosting me.
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I think the worst part, and one of the things that I, I think I regret not doing at the time
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was, you know, there's a recorder from CBC and a few others that would have cost my wife
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than my, uh, my girlfriend when she was walking our dog.
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Uh, you know, there's a CBC reporter, like tabloid style, kind of outside our condo, um,
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And I regret not, um, reporting that to, to the CBC ombudsman and, and, and the, uh,
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What was it for you that maybe flipped that switch where you started to have the attitude
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that you seem to express now, which is that being an independent is actually a bit of an
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Maybe it's not ideal, but it opens up doors that you don't have when you're whipped, when
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you're, uh, you know, kind of glued to a platform.
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Was there a specific issue that kind of caused you to view that differently?
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I think, uh, I think the carbon tax is where we started and, you know, I was one of the
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first, I think, to call for temporary relief, right?
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The Paul Martin government did that, um, when gas prices were really high with the GSC relief.
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Why couldn't the Trudeau government do the same when their people were suffering food bank
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lines were so long and food inflation was the highest in my lifetime and the lifetime of
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But then it, foreign interference started to, to really rise as an issue.
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And that's where I was able to, to speak up in a way where I know I wouldn't have been
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able to, I was still a member of the liberal caucus.
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I don't think it's a coincidence that when I was starting to stand up very strongly on
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foreign interference, that that's when we got our first bomb threat.
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So, I, I think depending on who you speak to, there are, uh, individuals who believe
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that what happened to me was not, uh, an, an incident by way of just kind of one bogus
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Um, you know, that false allegation against me, um, could have been part of a machination
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over, uh, something much more, uh, broader and, and longer term.
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And that's because you don't have to be a political scientist to realize that me being
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the, you know, son of refugees, um, who were persecuted by communists, um, who were run out
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of their country, um, by communists that took everything, um, would not be sympathetic to
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the Chinese, uh, communist party and their agenda.
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And I've spoken since to quite a number of, of kind of experts in that field where they've
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described people like me, uh, I, uh, Canadian born Chinese, um, as kind of being one of
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the CCP's kind of worst nightmares because you, you, you're someone who's from the Chinese
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Canadian diaspora and that community, not parroting their lines.
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They instead want to see kind of people who were born in the mainland, um, who would be
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And, and so, you know, by the time I was sworn in as a member of parliament, that was the
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second time I had sworn an oath of allegiance and service to the country.
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And the first being when I joined the Navy, for me, I could not be more proud to be a
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That means standing up for our values, whether or not it's, it's, uh, easy or not.
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Now, when you say this could have been a, an influence operation or a disruption operation,
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are you talking about the, the sexual assault allegation itself or the kind of digging it
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Um, some people say, listen, this fits the MO of Chinese communist party in terms of the,
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Um, I think the sad reality for me when I reflect on it all is, uh, when I kind of met the complainant,
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I was simply looking for someone to share my life with.
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And then by a random encounter, although some people, I thought it was a random encounter.
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Some people said it wasn't, um, that I bumped into her again.
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And, um, the whole kind of incident happened when she invited me over, uh, only for her
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to ask, uh, essentially have a random person come in the middle of the night that told me
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And then when I went home, I woke up in the morning to two voicemails from Toronto police
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that said, um, someone had made an allegation of sexual assault against me.
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And why would you have been on the radar then in your view?
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So in 2018, I had run for city council, um, and the election was in October.
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Um, and in 2019, uh, correction, a month later or a few weeks later after my municipal election
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is when I had met, uh, the, the woman who would eventually false, falsely accused me of
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And so, you know, we were dating for a few months and we started, we stopped dating in
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And then I, I thought I randomly bumped into her again in March.
00:24:55.880
And so when she invited me over, uh, this is now was early April.
00:25:00.840
Um, you know, she, she invited me over, offered to give me a ride.
00:25:08.160
And so, you know, when I got to, to her place, we were going to watch a movie and hang out.
00:25:14.100
And so without going into all the details, we essentially were in bed, uh, we fell asleep
00:25:20.260
And in the middle of the night, she woke up and she was like, oh, checks her phone.
00:25:25.840
So she wakes me up and she's like, oh, my friend needs me.
00:25:28.720
And I was like, okay, this is, this is still winter.
00:25:36.220
I was like, okay, can I stay here, sleep and wake up in the morning and leave as I have
00:25:42.640
So she leaves, I guess, to tell her to see her friend, because that's what she told me.
00:25:51.260
I'm woken up by a strange woman that I had never seen before.
00:25:55.400
And so she steps out of the condom so I can get dressed.
00:26:02.780
And so I call an Uber, actually, as a Lyft, and, and I leave.
00:26:06.080
And that is what I learned in our criminal justice system, despite what I think the majority
00:26:11.200
of Canadians believe, where, you know, innocent who proven guilty, police talk to both sides.
00:26:15.840
I learned that through the false allegation of one individual, the police can lay a charge
00:26:23.560
And I was like, this is, it was, I mean, I, I didn't even know what to do.
00:26:29.080
I, I had to call my best friend who told me, Kevin, you need to get a defense lawyer.
00:26:33.220
And I was like, I don't even know where I start.
00:26:36.020
So I called another friend who recommended somebody and who arranged for me to surrender
00:26:42.160
myself the next day to, I guess, to be booked by Toronto police, right?
00:26:44.980
And they let me out the same day, like a few hours after they booked me.
00:26:50.060
And then seven months later, I never actually, you know, the criminal defense lawyer is like,
00:27:00.460
And so I tried to focus on, you know, stuff I was doing in the community and all that sort
00:27:04.760
of stuff. And, uh, seven months later, which I'm told in the criminal justice system,
00:27:09.480
apparently is very fast. Um, but it didn't feel like, not when it's hanging over you,
00:27:14.100
like that's right. Seven months later, the, the crown completely withdraw with, uh, withdrew
00:27:19.640
the single charge. Uh, there was no, um, kind of special considerations or anything like that.
00:27:26.140
They completely took it off. And cause I didn't even get my day in court, right? I didn't even get
00:27:30.100
a chance to fight it and be declared innocent. They were just like, Nope, we're not even going to
00:27:33.860
take this to court, which, you know, I kind of wish it did because then I'd have a definitive
00:27:39.140
kind of an acquittal is, is more definitive than just we're not prosecuting. Yeah. It's
00:27:44.800
completely withdrawn. Right. But the issue is if, if you want to weaponize a false allegation like
00:27:51.040
this, all you need to do is make, make a false accusation and the media runs with the story.
00:27:57.300
Um, and you know, the Toronto star, uh, you know, I spoke to one of the three reporters in the bylines
00:28:04.300
later within the context of foreign interference. Uh, and they admitted to me, they never even spoke
00:28:08.980
to the complainant themselves. And I was like, that's nuts. So you, you put your name to an
00:28:13.600
article without having ever spoken to the person. Uh, and you just ran the story as it was told to
00:28:18.800
you like, really? So do you, you said earlier that some people think this was interference.
00:28:25.980
Are you one of those people? Do you think this was a, an operation? Um, I, I think the more I
00:28:32.660
have learned about foreign interference, the more that that is also my opinion. Right. And, and this
00:28:38.140
isn't a secret so I can, you know, I've, I've sat down and spoken with CSIS, uh, as well to share
00:28:44.800
what, what my observations are, my experiences and, and what other members of, of the Chinese
00:28:50.760
diaspora and in my community have brought to me. Um, I, I remember, uh, when I requested to,
00:28:56.440
to meet with them, um, you know, I thought I'd meet with them in Ottawa and they're like, no, no,
00:29:01.120
you're going to meet in Toronto with, with our people who are, uh, specializing in this. And I
00:29:07.100
thought it'd be in half an hour meeting and it was two hours. Hmm. So to go back to how you've taken
00:29:13.660
this experience in, I think the foreign interference issue was probably one of the
00:29:17.580
first where you really started to, in my view, and the timeline's a little bit muddled now for
00:29:22.560
the last couple of years, stand out as, as someone who, wow, this is a guy that that's actually using
00:29:27.760
his position, even in a not ideal situation, being an independent and trying to advocate for,
00:29:34.020
for real change on this. It also made you, I think, very popular, certainly online among a lot
00:29:40.100
of conservatives, people that, you know, love the optics of, oh, you know, here's a guy that
00:29:44.100
ran as a liberal, sticking it to the liberals. And, and you're feeding into sort of a partisan
00:29:47.660
framework, even, even with that. But you've also found a lot of support from people on the right
00:29:52.860
for your stance on, on Israel and your criticism of antisemitism. Uh, when I kind of had the idea of
00:29:58.360
doing this interview, you had, uh, kind of given a very thoughtful thread on how your thinking has
00:30:02.220
evolved on the use of the emergencies act. And we can talk about that as well, but, but I'm curious
00:30:06.580
how you felt about that, of finding this, this support in, in a way from, you know, people that
00:30:12.540
had you been elected in the liberal caucus and stayed in the liberal caucus, probably wouldn't
00:30:15.980
have had much time for you. Yeah, I think I'm, I'm, as an independent, I'm grateful for, for any
00:30:21.320
support that anyone offers. I, you know, I'm willing to work with anyone if it means being able to
00:30:27.020
kind of advance things that I believe are important to Canadians. Um, that, for me, that's
00:30:32.200
affordability, that's housing and fighting foreign interference and setting up for our values. And I
0.72
00:30:36.520
think that's where the, the Israel Hamas, uh, conflict has really, um, made it, you know, for
00:30:43.060
better, for worse, very easy for Canadians now to be able to see who truly shares their values. Um,
00:30:49.320
whether it's standing up for, frankly, just for rule of law here in the streets of, of Canada,
00:30:56.400
um, nevermind what's happening in the Middle East. Right. And unfortunately, it's
00:31:02.200
especially here in the city of Toronto, where we have 25 members of parliament, 25 MPPs and 25 city
00:31:07.200
councillors, not including the mayor. I can probably count on one hand, Andrew, how many people of the
00:31:12.000
76 who have spoken out against antisemitism. And this is a very difficult for a lot of liberal
00:31:19.460
MPs. And I, I don't know too, too many on a, on a personal level, but I just know that there have
00:31:24.600
been a lot, even some Jewish MPs that have been somewhat quiet and equivocal on this. Uh, people like
00:31:29.960
Anthony House father, who's a liberal MP who's been quite outspoken on this, have been very much
00:31:34.680
in the minority. And I'm, I'm wondering, well, it's two parts to this question. Firstly, I'm just
00:31:39.460
wondering what your relationships are like with, with liberals and with MPs from other parties,
00:31:43.280
one-on-one in Ottawa, but also, you know, are these MPs that fundamentally believe something
00:31:51.460
different from you? They fundamentally believe it, or are there MPs that have been shamed and
00:31:54.980
silenced into not saying what they think, which is what you're saying? So, so there are a few kind
00:32:00.660
of, uh, liberals who are kind of quote unquote, the mavericks or people that have been, um, willing
00:32:07.420
to speak up. Anthony House father, I've gotten to know in part because he kind of sat near me. Um,
00:32:13.060
and, and we've since seen one another at the rallies in support of Canada's Jewish community. Um, there,
00:32:19.220
there are a few others like Joel Lightbound and others who had at times kind of voted, um, despite
00:32:25.740
what the party whip, um, had said. And, um, I actually have, have a lot of respect for, for Joel
00:32:31.820
and, um, he, he is, I think a great public policy thinker and, um, I hope he has a great leadership
00:32:39.520
role, whatever that might be in the liberal at some point. I've gotten to know, I think a lot of
00:32:44.220
my conservative colleagues and the reality is we are aligned on a lot of policy positions
00:32:49.900
that I think frankly, if liberals weren't whipped would probably share too. Um, what do you mean
00:32:56.360
apart from the carbon tax? Well, so I, well, it's funny. So the carbon tax is one example that,
00:33:03.120
that I do want to speak about because there was, um, you know, a liberal MP and, and, and I won't name
00:33:08.080
them, but I remember asking, you know, I was trying to have like a constructive conversation. I was like,
00:33:13.200
listen, help me to understand your position because the reality is, um, the carbon tax dries up gas
00:33:21.160
prices and there are people, you know, this is an individual who represents, um, the GTA riding
00:33:27.760
and not everyone has public transit as an option. People have to drive. And I think that's a reasonable
00:33:36.020
position. And he said to me, it's like, well, Kevin, they should just drive less. And I was like,
00:33:40.220
buddy, you're riding as like majority drivers. How, how could you be so disconnected? Right. And
00:33:46.860
this individual is, is a parliamentary secondary. Um, and, and it just, for me, it's so challenging.
00:33:54.000
You know, I've, I've tried to talk to the greens as well, where I was like, Hey, help me to understand
00:33:58.600
you support Ukraine. We're aligned on that. Yes. Okay. Great. Um, don't you think it would make
00:34:04.860
sense for Canada to get our natural gas to tide water so that the world buys it from us instead
00:34:12.500
of Russia? And also, by the way, gives us the revenue and the money to fund the advancements
00:34:19.240
in the industry that you want to put more money in. And, you know, they'll follow my fact pattern
00:34:25.540
there and be like, yes, yes. Up and until building more in Canada. And it just, they just like flip
00:34:32.260
the table. And I'm just like, I don't understand it. It breaks the brain when you go that far.
00:34:36.180
How do you reconcile that? Right. And, and that, those are the people where I think, you know,
00:34:40.120
I, at a personal level, I can get along with, I think, majority of people, but when it comes
00:34:44.680
to these positions, they're just so ideological and I don't get it. Um, the other one, um, you know,
00:34:50.280
and you brought her up, um, Yara Sacks. Yes. Um, you know, let's park the context of the Jewish
00:34:56.340
community for a moment and just look at safe supply and the ideological fixation with giving
00:35:02.040
out drugs that are proven to not only, uh, you know, within the euphemism of harm reduction,
00:35:08.720
but really is harm facilitation. Not only now for the users themselves, because harm reduction without
00:35:14.700
treatment doesn't break the cycle of addiction. Um, it's now wreaking havoc in local communities,
00:35:20.260
that host these sites, including, uh, my, my riding is home to, or immediately adjacent to every
00:35:26.940
single of these injection sites in the city of Toronto. And they are just have become kind of
00:35:34.420
these magnets of, of not just penny crime, but now drug dealers and it's needles are being found
00:35:40.920
everywhere. Uh, you know, people who sadly die from overdose being found at their bodies being found
00:35:46.960
at children's playgrounds. Right. And, you know, I try to raise this, you know, um, there's a question
00:35:54.040
I raised, um, in the house specifically around safe supply where experts, clinicians special specializing
00:36:01.240
in addiction medicine, we're trying to sound the alarm to the minister of mental health and
00:36:06.100
addiction, Yara Sacks. And she turns around, she starts, you know, lambasting and yelling at me,
0.99
00:36:10.520
how dare you? People are dying. And I was like, yeah, I know people are dying, you know, and your
00:36:16.060
safe supply strategy has not reversed the trend. The amount of people dying keeps going up. And yet
00:36:22.100
they have these ideological kind of blinders on and they refuse to admit that the strategy that they
00:36:28.920
have put forward is not working. They won't adapt it. Even though people are dying.
00:36:33.220
And I remember you posted about it on social media a few days ago. There was that, uh, very tense,
00:36:39.200
uh, council meeting in Richmond, British Columbia, where you had a, an Asian man who was speaking
00:36:44.000
about exactly what you're speaking about, just the concerns he has from his community about
00:36:47.980
these things. And he's yelled at for, you know, with, with all of the most, you know, horrific slurs
00:36:53.000
you could use against an immigrant, go back where you came from, you're not Canadian. And that's what
0.97
00:36:57.500
this debate has been distilled down to, that you're not allowed to say, you know what, I actually don't
00:37:01.760
like drug users on the playground my kids are, are playing on.
00:37:05.500
Yeah. It's, you know, it's sad because these are the same individuals often from the ideological
00:37:10.700
spectrum, the left that will talk about, oh, we need to be inclusive. We need to be diverse.
00:37:15.680
Up until you dare to stand up and articulate a position that they don't agree with, then all of
00:37:21.260
a sudden they'll, they'll call you any number of names. You mentioned having, you know, made some
00:37:25.620
friends in the conservative caucus. So I have to ask you the obvious question. Would you join them?
00:37:29.920
You know, that's a good question. I think if there was an opportunity to be able to,
00:37:34.440
to serve in, in the government and all polls show that, yeah, I think to consider it as
00:37:40.020
a will for the next government, who wouldn't want the opportunity to be able to contribute
00:37:43.360
and I think course correct and right the ship of the direction that Canada has been going,
00:37:48.060
which I don't think has been in steered in the right direction.
00:37:51.380
Yeah. Have you had any conversations, even informal with anyone in that party about either
00:37:55.260
joining their caucus or running for them as a candidate?
00:37:58.180
I think the door has, has always been open, uh, from, from my side. I've chatted with people
00:38:02.780
and they're like, yeah, Kevin, I think you'd fit right into caucus, but you know, it's not just up
00:38:07.060
to me. I think it's up to, to party brass and the leadership as well to, to, to find a fit and
00:38:12.260
So you've had no conversations with the, with the leadership or with people in the higher ranks?
00:38:16.900
Listen, I, I've had a chance to be able to chat with, with the leader Pierre on occasion,
00:38:20.940
on the margins. Um, I think, you know, if that's something that they want to pursue, listen,
00:38:28.300
I'm curious in a way about why, because you've had a unique experience the last four years and
00:38:33.520
that you've been unshackled by, by partisanship. And I'm wondering from the sensibilities you've,
00:38:38.080
you've shared here and, and at other interviews, whether you'd ever be comfortable going into that
00:38:44.800
No. And, and that's, that's a fair question. I think for me, I've always been, um, a team player.
00:38:50.020
That's especially in the military, you know, you operate as, as a team, uh, and you're always
00:38:55.120
stronger together. I have not had that opportunity, uh, to be able to do that. And, you know, I hope
00:39:01.840
that maybe there will be to be able to show how I could add value as part of a team. Cause, cause
00:39:08.160
the reality is if you look at what we've been able to, um, I think, uh, to be able to deliver
00:39:13.660
as an independent office, I think we've been pretty high impact, but there is only so much
00:39:18.360
you can do without the support of a party of, of a caucus with a whole network of resources.
00:39:24.400
There is, I think, a ceiling. Um, and there are a lot of challenges that Canadians are facing and
00:39:31.720
How effectively have you been able to help your constituents on, on files? And what I mean by that
00:39:36.860
is that if you're an MP in government, you're kind of hanging out with the ministers. So you could
00:39:40.940
just go up to them and be like, Oh, you know, minister, someone in my riding and they say, Oh,
00:39:44.220
we'll look into it. And, and you don't necessarily have that. I mean, you can still try to pin a
00:39:47.600
minister down in the house of commons, but have you been able to still get progress on these
00:39:53.400
constituency files that come to your, come across your desk?
00:39:56.160
A good example, I think is during last summer, we had, um, refugees that were on the street in
00:40:02.720
Toronto. That was in my riding just down the street from my office. And so that's something that
00:40:08.020
I think I was able to raise in a way that no other liberal MP would have been able to do so and,
00:40:15.240
and raise awareness and highlight for media, the issues and the gaps in terms of, Hey,
00:40:22.920
the federal government, despite my warnings had decided to cut money, uh, for refugees and shelters
00:40:29.620
at large, um, completely. And I raised the alarm both in March, April, and May, and they ignored it.
00:40:36.000
And what we're seeing now in the summer is a direct consequence of that. Right. And ultimately
00:40:40.640
we were able to shame the government into doing the right thing and stepping up and giving the city
00:40:45.480
the funding that they needed. You know, no one can really call out, uh, the hypocrisy that we see,
00:40:51.360
right. Where Justin Truro will love to claim the moral high ground of yes, I'm helping refugees and
00:40:56.440
people in need, which I think most Canadians would support, but you can't do that and say that
00:41:01.660
without actually providing the funding needed. Yeah. Right. Um, and yet they were trying to have
00:41:06.760
their cake and eat it too. And so I was in a position to be able to call that out. And,
00:41:10.980
you know, I'm happy to say that we ultimately were able to shame them into doing the right thing and
00:41:14.980
giving the city. And, and we since seen kind of the funding from the federal government flow to other
00:41:20.200
cities that are facing that onslaught of, of people. Yeah. The, the door is not, let's say opened
00:41:27.240
on the conservative party side of the equation. If you're not welcomed into that party, would you
00:41:31.220
run again as an independent? Yes. Um, I, I will run again. Um, you know, hopefully it's, it's
00:41:38.100
with the opportunity of being able to be a part of a team and contribute to that. But if that's not
00:41:43.340
the case, I will run again because I, I think we have a track record now. And I think it's important
00:41:47.580
that, um, we, we at least be another voice out there to call out particularly the hypocrisies in
00:41:55.000
different positions, um, that Canadians need to know. As I mentioned at the outset, it's not
00:42:00.760
entirely unheard of for independence to win. There was a, in Ontario last election, Bobby Ann
00:42:05.480
Brady that, uh, won in Haldeman Norfolk as an independent. I think famously at the federal
00:42:09.700
level, Jody Wilson-Raybould in, in Vancouver, Granville. Uh, you know, when you see the history
00:42:15.100
of, of independence winning, is there any lesson that you take from that, uh, on what would let you
00:42:21.320
beat the odds if you do have to stand for, for reelection as an independent? Uh, I think
00:42:26.620
Andrew, the reality is the odds aren't in my favor. Um, it's not easy. There are a lot
00:42:32.100
of systemic barriers. Like I can't, for example, um, raise money in between, uh, elections or
00:42:38.600
writ periods as any other MP in a party would be able to do. Um, anyone who might want to donate,
00:42:44.300
uh, to a riding association that actually my team and I are in the midst of starting, um,
00:42:49.660
can donate, but they won't get a tax receipt. Hmm. Right. And that's. So you, you can actually
00:42:54.520
have an independent riding association. I wasn't aware of that. Um, but, but it, there isn't,
00:42:59.360
the weird thing is there aren't any rules that say I can't do it. Uh, it's just that, you know,
00:43:04.400
I guess the Canadian bureaucrat, uh, kind of instinct is if there are no rules saying that
00:43:09.460
I can't explicitly do it, they just assume I can't do it. So you almost need to create like
00:43:13.200
the Kevin Vong party and run as the candidate for Kevin Vong. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and so, you know,
00:43:18.940
it's, it's interesting kind of going through that experience right now. And I, I think Canadian
0.99
00:43:24.660
democracy more broadly would probably benefit from a little bit more independence within the parties.
00:43:30.800
I think that's a good thing. I think the UK is a prime example of that, where there is a lot more
00:43:35.980
independence within parties for MPs to be able to speak up. And you can see that on my voting records.
00:43:41.480
Sometimes I do vote with the government, uh, more increasingly I vote against, but that is
00:43:46.740
largely really driven by what my constituents, uh, positions are. They will call in, they will
00:43:52.820
write in about different positions. And in the absence of them having a particular yes or no,
00:43:57.520
or in support of or not, uh, my team and I will sit back and assess the merits of the policy or the
00:44:03.840
bill and, and vote accordingly. Would that be your ideal scenario that, you know, we still keep
00:44:08.620
political parties, but the parties themselves loosen the, the, the stranglehold that they have
00:44:13.900
over their, their caucus members. So I think conceptually, yes. Um, and, and I only say
00:44:20.100
conceptually because I haven't had the experience of being part of a party to be able to say like,
00:44:24.060
I'm, I'm really going based off of what people tell me in terms of what their, their kind of
00:44:28.960
party experience has been. And so you can kind of see it when everyone is standing up and voting in
00:44:33.640
a certain way, when, you know, you've had conversations with so-and-so that they might not
00:44:37.400
be too, too jazzed about that. Yeah. So it's interesting because I, I, you know, whenever there's a vote
00:44:42.200
and I, and I sit at my desk and, and my, my desk, um, is, is beside the greens and, and the liberals.
00:44:48.440
And I remember one liberal member who would come in and so for, in advance of every vote,
00:44:53.860
the pages would go around, they put a piece of paper on, on every desk of the liberals,
00:44:58.240
essentially telling them how to vote. And he would always come. I always cracked up when he said he
00:45:01.980
would kind of, he was right beside me. He'd go to his desk, he would look down and be like, oh,
00:45:05.740
it looks like I've made up my mind. Um, and I think a lot of Canadians don't realize that that's,
00:45:12.200
actually how currently a lot of the, the votes happen, right? They are largely whipped.
00:45:18.660
I think every party does it, um, you know, to the conservatives credit, cause I've seen their
00:45:23.640
paper too. It at least articulates their rationale for why they vote the way they do. Uh, which I
00:45:29.500
think is a step up from what the liberals are, which is like, you're either in favor or you're
00:45:33.380
not no thinking required. Yeah. So maybe, maybe one little minor thing that we could do is just
00:45:38.420
ban pieces of paper. Get, or take the printers out of the house of commons and then every MP has to
00:45:42.420
make up their mind, but that's the pipe dream, I guess. Well, it's interesting because, you know,
00:45:46.320
sometimes like there are different, uh, opposition motions. And I remember there was a conservative
00:45:50.340
motion saying that Canada should, um, uh, fulfill our international commitment to NATO and hit 2%.
00:45:58.400
And the liberal instinct always is, you know, if it's a conservative, it's bad. So vote against it.
00:46:03.580
Don't even listen to the policy. It's opposition motion. No. However, this time they actually decided
00:46:08.800
to vote with it. Um, and there was a liberal who was remote. And so I guess didn't get the piece
00:46:16.620
of paper. And so by instinct voted against it, uh, and then had to change it afterwards. And it's,
00:46:22.560
you know, it's kind of like, you know, shouldn't you be thinking, shouldn't you be at least evaluating
00:46:27.960
the, every policy, every vote on its merits, but it's not always the case.
00:46:33.540
If the supply and confidence agreement between the NDP and the liberals hold, you've got about a year
00:46:39.120
and a half left in, in your current term. What is it you'd like to achieve in that time? What's the,
00:46:46.180
So for me, I think it's always been trying to stand up for, for the city. Um, I'm a Toronto MP and it's
00:46:53.160
setting up for, for the people who not only elected me, but what's good for the city writ large.
00:46:57.960
You know, when 2021, um, in that election campaign, the liberals had promised to give
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Toronto, um, its due. And that's something that the 24 other liberal MPs seem to have forgotten.
00:47:11.600
Um, it's also standing up for people who are struggling to make ends meet. And so
00:47:15.640
listen, I think every MP probably wants to support the environment, um, and recognizes that there have
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been challenges in the climate in Toronto. We've had flooding, um, and, and extreme rains in a way
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that we never had before. We need to do that to that. Right. But what the current policy is around
00:47:35.460
the carbon tax isn't working. And so for me, that is hopefully being able to help to support that
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movement. And it, it is true that the conservatives and I think Pierre Polyev are, are kind of leading the
00:47:49.020
charge on that, but I think it helps if there's an urban MP from Toronto that is also a part of that
00:47:54.760
message, which is, this is not working. Uh, the carbon tax is making it harder for more Canadians
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than it's helping. We need to find another way to be able to address that. Um, as well as in a way
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that helps to lift up all Canadians in our prosperity, independent member of parliament, Kevin Vong.
00:48:13.040
Thank you. Thanks for having me, Andrew. Thanks for listening to the Andrew Lawton Show. Support the
00:48:17.700
program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.