Juno News - November 03, 2019Is this the end of the Andrew Scheer era？
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Summary
The Conservative Party of Canada's leadership review, which may well turn into a leadership race after the conservatives showing in the 2019 election, is Andrew Sheeran the man to lead the Conservative party in the next election?
Transcript
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hey andrew lawton with true north in studio with candace malcolm we don't often get the chance
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to be in the same room so we wanted to take advantage of it to talk about one of the biggest
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issues not just facing the conservative movement but really the broader political narrative in
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canada right now and that is the conservative party of canada's leadership review which may well turn
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into a leadership race after the conservatives showing in the 2019 election does andrew sheer
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deserve another kick at the can canis thanks for sitting down with me for this yeah no it's good
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to be here so let's talk about just the top line here every leader after the election said that
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they won justin trudeau got reduced to a minority he said it was a victory jagmeet singh lost a huge
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number of seats he said it was a victory came on dancing on stage yeah he really really said it
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was a victory and andrew sheer who's the only one apart from the bloc québécois which actually i'd
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say did have a victory to gain seats really has said this is a win for conservatives so is that enough
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his supporters are saying yes he reduced trudeau to a minority he's got to stick around a lot of people
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i find both from the left side of the conservative party and the right side are saying that he's not
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the guy and i want to talk about this and i i'm gonna say quite candidly here i don't have a side
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on this i think there are arguments on both angles but what's your perspective with what happened well
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so look let's just be completely honest andrew sheer there's flaws with him i don't think that
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he ran a perfect campaign i think he ran a pretty good campaign there's definitely some things that i
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would have changed if i was advising him i would have wanted him to go harder on some of the issues i
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would have wanted him to fight back against a biased media and call them out when it happens
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i would want him to you know just take a stronger position on some issues like certain times sheer
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seemed a little wishy-washy he didn't always know what he stood for sometimes he just didn't really
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fight back enough like when the media were going over the top criticizing him for being uh pro-life or
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or his his former positions on same-sex marriage you know you kind of wanted him to push back and give
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better explanations now all that said i think that we're now in a position where we don't want to let
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perfect be the enemy of the good um i think that going forward the last thing that conservatives want
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to get dragged into is another leadership race where you have you know a bunch of candidates that
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all have flaws everyone's vulnerable in certain ways at least with andrew sheer at this point now
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he's a known commodity like if he's going to go into the next election what are they going to do the
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whole shtick again about whether about his 10 year old clip about gay marriage and you know whether or not
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he's pro-life personally i i think i think that that's kind of run its course now in that in that
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way sheer's in a much better position to run the next election and i agree on the key metrics sheer
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did win the election he picked up the most seats he won more votes than anyone else the popular vote
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not that that really matters but he did reduce the prime minister to a minority so no it wasn't a
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perfect campaign it wasn't a perfect outcome but i i think that that really the last thing that
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conservatives want at this point is again to just be have people drag through the mud have you know
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different conservatives in fighting i think the conservatives are much better united that's that's
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my personal opinion well and that's actually a valid point especially in a minority situation where
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there is an argument to you could be going to the polls at any moment now you know if i were the
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liberals and the conservatives announce a leadership race that's when you trigger the fall of your own
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government i mean if the conservatives are in the midst of a search for a leader you basically could
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throw them into entire chaos by saying all right we're going to have an election we're going to
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engineer a non-confidence and i mean obviously you'd hope that a party won't go to those tricks but
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listen i mean that's a guaranteed way uh to to win by saying that you know the conservative leader
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running in this election might not be the conservative leader who governs if they win but i i guess my
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big issue right now is that there seems to be two conflicting narratives i hear a lot from social
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conservative groups that were instrumental in getting andrew sheer elected as leader feeling like they were
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betrayed and then you have also the red tory saying oh we don't like this idea of a socially
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conservative leader and jagmeet singh had made that comment the other day that a social conservative
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can't be prime minister well social conservatives comprise millions of canadians they might not be a
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majority position but they're a part of this country it's a belief system that's shared by pretty
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much every mainstream faith group no one's questioning the muslim candidates the orthodox jewish
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voters and candidates no one's questioning them or how about seek yes jagmeet singh is clearly a very
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observant religious man he must hold many social conservative views but somehow you know we boil
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it down to these few really hot button issues to define what a social conservative is yeah you're
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right so but you've got these two conflicting narratives where you've got the red tory saying
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we don't like a socon you've got the social conservative saying uh he was actually just a squishy
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red tory and i don't know what happens if those two sides manage to get what they want which is
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sheer gone and this goes back to what you said about the leadership race it will be messy if it
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becomes the old basically reform versus pc battle right yeah i think that people were worried i mean
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think about it wasn't that long ago that stephen harper united these two very different fractions
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within the conservative movement or conservative canada and i think that we have to tread carefully
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like sure andrewshire isn't perfect for some of the reasons that uh we've talked about and you
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mentioned but what's the counterfactual like if we replaced andrewshire with someone who is is even
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even more entrenched in one of those two views you could risk completely alienating uh the other
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faction and having them leave and you know it's interesting we're at our true north retreat here
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in toronto last night we were watching some old videos um of the attack ads that the conservatives
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used to create about uh former candidates that were running against harper and specifically
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stefan dion you know a lot of the attack ads that were put out against him
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came from the liberal uh debates when they were choosing their leader and because you have that
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image of liberals on stage fighting and you know they're they're kind of already doing the opposition
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research for you so just imagine if a bunch of conservatives are on stage uh this year or early
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in 2020 you know tearing into each other again showing the factions within the conservative movement
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you know those are really easy for the liberals to then turn and use against conservatives in the next
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general election so i think that there are just a lot of red flags um that that we should be cautious
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about when when we go ahead and say you know should we give sheer the axe well you know what's what's
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next might be a lot worse for everyone yeah i mean you have evidence on both sides of that i know in
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ontario when patrick brown stepped down in 2018 as pc leader the conservatives had a leadership race uh that
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selected someone in march and then in june they win a majority but there were also circumstances
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there that we don't have nationally and i would caution anyone that no one in a leadership race
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especially if there are people that are unhappy with how the campaign went is going to come out
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unbloodied and i mean the best case scenario is you know they all you know duke it out and and you
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know everyone falls in line behind the leader but if there are people that have these drastically
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different visions for the conservative party even if let's say andrew sheer were to win another
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leadership race he's going to come out with like you mentioned a lot of those attacks against him
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and i know there are going to be a lot of people that are watching this that are saying all right
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you're just you know shilling for sheer it's not about that it's that if you want a vehicle to
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champion conservative ideas the infighting has to remain inward and and that is not something
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that's going to happen under these circumstances well yeah and i just want to say i think it's healthy
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i think it's really healthy to have an open critical discussion i think that there were major
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flaws in the way that andrew sheer ran his campaign i think there's some things that canadians and
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conservatives would want to see differently you know some of the things i mentioned off the top
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about fighting back and standing up articulating a conservative worldview really coming up with you
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know policies that not only speak to conservatives but to broader canadian uh population and and and
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and really you know encompass uh our values so i think that it's good to be able to openly
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criticize sheer and we should have these conversations that we should have these criticisms andrew sheer
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should do some soul searching his campaign should could should go over and consider uh you know
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why didn't they win more seats in quebec what happened in the gta uh these are really important
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questions to ask but again i think the last thing uh that the conservatives would want at this point
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would be to open up a bloody uh civil war within the party yeah and i would i would qualify that by
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saying and the conservative constitution says this it's essential the members do get to review his
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leadership i i don't think that you know any people talking around a table saying uh we think that a
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leadership race will be bad i don't think they get to make that decision i think the members
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as they're going to vote at the next conservative convention get to say do we want to have a
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leadership race but i i would hope that by then most of them will be thinking not just of do we like
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the campaign or not did we like sheer's leadership or not but thinking of all of these factors and
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it's not to say you can't still decide listen we need a leadership race but think of it in the
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context of not just that knee-jerk reaction to the campaign but also that idea of okay what would a
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leadership race do who would come up what issues would emerge and and i would love to see come up
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conservatives saying exactly what you're saying here listen you need to push more on immigration
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you need to punch back against the media i think the one thing we saw in this election campaign
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more than in recent ones is that the media is not the friend of conservatism and conservatives have
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to stop have to stop trying to win that affection and win that support push back if they're showing
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their bias yeah exactly and you know one of the things andrew sure does really well is he's very
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well spoken when he gets up in the house of commons and he delivers a uh you know we rails against
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justin trudeau it's it's good he's very articulate he's great at punchy lines i think again some
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conservatives would just like to see more of that from him uh specific not just against justin trudeau
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but again yeah against the media against other parties and and on the issues that he is sensitive
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to you know he should really come up with a a very thorough uh reason why he doesn't want to go to
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gay pride parades and he should articulate that he should talk about a bit more about uh you know some
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of the issues that were really getting him into the hot seat during the election and and the one thing i
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would say for what it's worth is that everyone knows you're a social conservative everyone knows
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you're pro-life if you're trying to shuffle your way around it it's going to look bad to both sides
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the the people that are social conservative are going to think that you're uh wavering on it the
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people that aren't are not going to be convinced i would say there's a real opportunity there that he
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needed to take and still could take against justin trudeau why are you imposing a values test on
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canadians why are you imposing this litmus test like you did with canada summer jobs funding like
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you're doing with all of this other stuff why are you doing that and trudeau has never really been
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forced to answer to why they're the ones that are trying to really pit people with different value
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sets against each other so uh any final thoughts on this well yeah exactly trudeau is in line with
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what the media believe when it comes to that issue but he's not necessarily in line with what most
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canadians look there's millions of canadians that are pro-life that that have very deeply held
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a problem with the practice of abortion and even people who aren't uh might have some concerns about
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what you're saying the bullying that goes around uh people who have those views so you know you can
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you can take stands without saying we're going to reopen the debate or we're going to change any of
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the laws or anything like that which i think most canadians even you know people who might hold pro-life
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views don't really have the appetite for um but at least show that you're standing up for them and
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that you care about them and that you understand their their beliefs and that you're going to fight back
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against the justin trudeau and the rosemary bartons of the world i think again those those are the kind of
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things that conservatives would like to see out of a leader absolutely and do let us know what you
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think in the comments one way or another about the conservative leadership about andrew sheer's
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leadership candace thanks very much for doing this all right thanks andrew for true north i'm andrew lawton