Juno News - January 17, 2020


Is it time for an outsider to enter the CPC Leadership Race？


Episode Stats

Length

4 minutes

Words per Minute

202.96138

Word Count

827

Sentence Count

26


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 A lot of people in the broader federal conservative family were waiting to see
00:00:09.320 what the rules would be for the conservative leadership race. When the
00:00:13.000 timelines would be, when the deadline would happen, and this, the moolah, what's
00:00:17.840 the cash going to be? Well we've now learned that the rules are that there
00:00:21.000 will be a $200,000 non-refundable entry fee, that's just the cover price at the
00:00:27.240 door, and that before February 27th, in a few weeks time, you have to cobble
00:00:32.320 together 3,000 signatures from people all across the country and a whole bunch
00:00:37.620 of different writings must represent, I think it is, at least seven provinces and
00:00:42.120 or territories. What does all of this mean? I mean if you want to become Prime
00:00:46.740 Minister in Canada, if you want to be Conservative leader, you better be able
00:00:49.920 to raise at least a few hundred grand of course, because if you can't do that, how
00:00:53.480 can you raise the millions of dollars needed for a war chest to fund a whole
00:00:57.180 party? And of course getting 3,000 signatures, I mean you're gonna be
00:01:00.600 looking for millions of votes, so 3,000 doesn't initially seem all that
00:01:04.800 much. Or is it? How do you actually get to these people? How do you know who the
00:01:09.500 names are? You can sign up new people in a short period of time, good luck with that
00:01:13.320 for sure, or maybe you can get the lists out there of who prominent donors are,
00:01:17.800 previous donors are, who current party members are, people who are currently
00:01:21.240 organized in the grassroots and so forth. Well to do that, you're probably gonna need
00:01:25.140 some backroom boys, some seasoned operators and so forth, which has led a lot
00:01:28.560 of people to say, hold on a second, were these rules written in a way to push out
00:01:32.960 new voices, mavericks, outsiders, people who are going to do things differently? And
00:01:37.560 is this a time when the grassroots actually wants to hear from some
00:01:41.660 outsiders? You know, I will never forget those numbers. Back in 2017, Kevin O'Leary, he
00:01:46.380 was in a lot of polls, and every single poll, whether it was polling Conservative
00:01:50.980 members or polling the General Electorate, Kevin O'Leary came out on top. He came out
00:01:56.440 in first place. I'm not personally endorsing him, I would not have been advocating for
00:02:01.260 him to win that leadership, become Prime Minister and so forth, but I think it's
00:02:04.320 telling that people wanted to hear from this outsider. And even though Kevin O'Leary is
00:02:08.980 an influential and wealthy man, in certain corners of the world out there, in the business
00:02:13.900 community and the media landscape that he operates in, he was not sort of an old-school
00:02:19.520 Conservative Party figure. So he would have had some challenges. I mean, perhaps
00:02:23.200 if he was getting in the race right now, he would not actually be able to do those
00:02:27.440 things with the signatures. I don't know, maybe he'd pull it together, but I think it
00:02:30.520 would be more of a challenge for him there. I get the argument, and it makes sense to
00:02:35.680 me that this is a minority government situation. You want to get someone tested
00:02:39.960 who can quickly come in and be ready to defeat Trudeau at any time. I also get the
00:02:44.680 idea that you don't want some wingnut to pay the $500 entry fee and get up and hog a
00:02:49.360 bunch of time and make an embarrassment and just create a bunch of clips for other
00:02:53.160 media to make fun of the Conservative Party. I get all of that. But one also
00:02:57.820 wonders, if you are a party, this is more of a one-member, one-vote system. I mean, it's
00:03:02.480 ranked according to writings, of course, but they're trying to be a lot more leaning
00:03:06.900 towards one-member, one-vote. Not one of those delegated, backroom, brokered
00:03:11.280 conventions. Are these high thresholds the right way to go? I don't know. Personally, I'm not
00:03:16.780 a member of any political party because I'm in the media and I want to be free
00:03:19.620 to say positive or negative things about anyone and everyone out there, so I'm not
00:03:23.940 joining the party. But were I a member and I look at the landscape I see right now, I
00:03:27.400 would probably be supporting one of those more high-profile names that we
00:03:31.700 already know about, one of the establishment names. But the fact that the
00:03:35.960 rules have been set to discourage another outside name from coming in, is that a
00:03:40.860 good thing? Is that a healthy thing? I don't fully have the answer to that
00:03:44.900 question. What do you think? Let me know. Leave your comments and send me your
00:03:48.240 emails and so forth. Do you want a more open-source, conservative party? Or are
00:03:53.300 you happy with the lid being a little tight on this one this time around? It'll
00:03:58.340 be curious to see what result this setup actually brings for the party.