Jamil Jivani on byelection win, media bias, and “liberal elites”
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Summary
In this episode of The Andrew Lawton Show, host Andrew Lawton sits down with Jameel Javani, the newly elected MP for the Conservative Party of Canada's candidate in the upcoming Ontario election, to discuss his campaign and what he plans to do now that he's in office.
Transcript
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so i mentioned earlier this week there was a big win in durham not altogether unsurprising as i
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said and i put the caveat there because it has been a conservative stronghold for 20 years but
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the margin of victory by which the conservative candidate jameel javani won was actually quite
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strong and i think there is a message in this to justin trudeau either that conservatives are in
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fact uh looking beyond or conservative voters voters in general are looking beyond all those
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evil scary conservative trump comparisons and also that the liberal vote is just not motivated to show
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up people that voted for justin trudeau in the last three elections and especially the last one
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election are just not motivated to show up and do it again so there's a lot to unpack there but i'd
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rather focus on the guy himself we've had him on the show in the past on a number of occasions in
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a number of different capacities both as a broadcaster as president of the canada strong and
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free network and now as the mp elect for durham jameel javani good to talk to you thanks for coming
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on and congratulations thank you andrew it's always good to good to chat with you and uh
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yeah being called an mp is still something i gotta get used to so well mp elect i don't want to jump
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on too much uh formality do you know when you are going to be uh sworn in i don't know yet no so
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elections canada still has to go through their process of ratification and stuff so once that's
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done that's when we can schedule the swearing in so we're sort of in their hands for the moment but
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it'll be soon it must be very exciting i know you've gone through in the last few years a lot of
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change i mean you've had to deal with cancer you obviously got fired from bell you turned around and
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tried to and i think successfully stick it to bell with a with a lawsuit you uh you know taken over
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the the canada strong and free network for a time like how do you begin to sort of decide what to do
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now when you get to ottawa well i mean the the good thing about this job is that uh we were elected to
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accomplish the goals that we set out so that's what i think our focus is you know it's uh it was a
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12 word uh promise that we made many many times during the campaign which is ax the tax build the
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homes fix the budget stop the crime that is the agenda and uh certainly at this point where our
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job is to hold the current government to account we want to focus as much as we can on pushing for
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ideas that we think are going to help accomplish those objectives and also for me locally you know
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here in durham to make sure that i'm a good strong voice for the issues that people care about we
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knocked on over a hundred and eleven thousand doors in the last few months and uh so i've talked to as
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many of our voters as possible as many of our community members as possible and i think i have a
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sense of what they want from me as the mp and that's what i'm out here to do one of the questions that
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always comes up in politics is how much of a candidate's performance is them and how much is
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the leader and you can never quantify it but i'm curious if you got a sense when you were out knocking
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on doors how pierre polyev is perceived or if if he's even perceived by people because obviously
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there's been a bit of a change this writing was formerly represented by erin o'toole who is the
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previous conservative leader we get from the media no shortage of claims about you know pierre polyev
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being the big evil scary conservative meanie how was that actually on the ground when you were
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talking to voters well i think people are very happy with what they've seen from you know pierre
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polyev up till this point you know since he became leader of the party i think a lot of folks unhappy
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with our current government and unhappy with our current economy in particular see pierre as the change
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leader that if you want something other than trudeau if you want an economy that as we say works for
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those who do the work that is actually responsive to the needs of middle class and working class
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families that pierre is the guy to make that change happen so on the ground a lot of support
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for pierre a growing amount of support as people get to know him better and the reality is that you
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know the reason we won by the big margin that we did the biggest margin in the 20-year history of
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the conservative party of canada in durham was won by us on monday and i think that is because you
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you know pierre polyev has become a symbol of change for people so we drew support from neighborhoods that
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conservative party in uh candidates in the past may not have been able to get as much support from
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because we are now seen as the change party so that's a very exciting thing for us you know nationally
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but also locally it's very exciting because i think people have expectations for us that we're going to
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deliver and now it's on us to actually hold up our end of the deal you made some waves on monday night
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when you took aim at liberal elites which i played the clip on the show and i think the audience was
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very much on your side on that one but i i was curious in in who you included in that because you
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weren't just talking about the capital l liberal party led by justin trudeau you talked about uh telecom
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companies you even talked about i mean what i read as the ontario pc government did you not well i
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specifically mentioned the ontario ministry of education because uh i mean the facts just bear it
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out they have upheld a policy agenda that is very similar to what you might have seen with a liberal
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government in power they have focused on a lot of virtue signaling uh they have focused on race politics
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meanwhile the average student in ontario is still struggling with math with reading with
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writing they have tried very hard to do in my view superficial things while the effects of pandemic
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school closures are still being felt by middle class and working class families you know my job as
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an mp is to care about what people in durham care about and i'm knocking on doors i'm talking to parents
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every day i'm talking to students every day and they're telling me the school system isn't working
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for us so i feel it's important to tell the truth and when i say liberal elite you're absolutely
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right andrew i'm not just talking about people who are in one political party a lot of our voters
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were former liberal voters and i don't hold them in contempt because i grew up in a community where
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i was taught the liberal party is where you belong and it took me a while to figure out that that wasn't
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true and it might take others a while to figure out that out too so i don't hold that against people
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but when i talk about liberal elites i'm talking about the people who have abandoned the middle class and
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the working class and as i said whether they're big bank ceos big telecom ceos the ministry of
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education the activists and academics pushing for um you know anti-law enforcement anti-public safety
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policies what all these folks have in common is that they are serving a privileged few while turning their
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backs on the majority of people in this country and i gotta tell the truth about that and if it ruffles
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feathers and it makes people unhappy get used to it because my job is to get is to work for the people
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of durham my job is not to worry about offending people in the halls of power who are actually
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making everybody's life harder one of the things you and i have spoken about this in the past and i
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know you've spoken about it in speeches when you were at bell as a radio host you there was kind of
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an expectation that was put on you that because you fit a certain demographic mold you would fit an
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ideological mold as well and i know that was one of the things you took aim at uh when you spoke out
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against them and i i can't help but notice that the narrative around you and your candidacy would
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be different if you had a different political view like i i'm convinced and you may disagree with me
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jamil that if you were a liberal you would be getting like the new york times style profile of you
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know this bootstrap guy that got himself into yale and is now trying to change the country but just to
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give you one headline from the globe and mail jameel javani will fit right in with activist
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populist conservatism of polyev so you just basically get distilled down into this and i'm curious what
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you think of the media's take on you i mean did they really cover you and did they cover you fairly
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well i i do not expect fairness from the media uh so lex and i learned even before i worked in it but
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certainly when working in it and just seeing all the pressure put on employees by these big media
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corporations to serve a certain agenda um you know it's it's not easy to be fair in the media you
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do have to sometimes put your career on the line because you've got management who doesn't want you
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to be fair and doesn't want you to be impartial and objective so i don't expect it to be fair the truth
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is this if you want to make a difference in this country right now you have to fight for the middle
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class you have to fight for the working class you got to fight for the people who are not represented
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in the media they don't work in the media it by by virtue of the type of training and education
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and lifestyle that the media rewards therefore the voices of the middle class and the working
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class are often not in these organizations whether it's a radio station or a tv station
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and there are exceptions to that but by and large it's just not the case so just look at the polls you
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know in every poll that comes out Pierre Polyev is at the top of the list because many many
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canadians a growing number want change but you don't see that reflected in news coverage because
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they're out of touch and our job is not to be beholden to out of touch media organizations they
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can call me names when justin trudeau was calling me names and and a twofer and all that nonsense most
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of these media organizations didn't cover that either they're not interested in providing an objective
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view of what's happening they have their own values they have their own agenda when i say liberal
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elites i am talking about the companies that own many of the media outlets that canadians rely on
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for information so this is why i'm always keen to do independent media like true north to do local
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media like we have here in durham we've got you know still a number of newspapers tv stations radio
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stations because this is where you get a more accurate sense of what's going on in the country
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and i'll tell you now as the mp elect for durham that is some that is wisdom i take into my new job
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i will not be someone who's going to get pushed around by journalists who think if they give me
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bad coverage i'm going to change my values i was elected because of my values and i will continue
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to stand for them let me just ask you about where you have to direct your attention now because you
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know unlike anyone who gets elected in a general election and has you know two three four years of
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breathing room you're being elected in a by-election which means you could see i mean you could theoretically
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find yourself campaigning in like a month's time it looks like it's probably going to be about a year
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a year and a half and until the next election but uh what pressure does that put on you to you know
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perform as an mp to navigate this new life this new world like you know figuring out everything from
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where the bathrooms are on parliament hill to you know how you can get a bill passed and then have to
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turn around and do it again yeah well it's one thing that a lot of people might not know is that
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getting elected to parliament there are things you have to do just like with any other job there's
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orientation and there's the tech guy who has to explain how you use your phone and log into your
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new email address like so there's a lot of those steps that i'm i'm just figuring out now and trying
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to learn you know how it all works as quickly as i can but you know the truth is that um the fact an
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election or general election could be coming so quickly is um you know this is exactly why we have to
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to stay close to our people close to our voters close to the community because i want i'm not going
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to be surprised i want to know what people want from their mp every step of the way i'm not going
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to be one of those politicians just comes and knocks on your door every few years i want to be someone who
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the public feels this guy has our back he's there to do a job he works just as hard as we do and we
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can trust him to speak for us so that's the mentality i come into the job with and that's why i have the
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confidence i have that you know we can take positions that the media might not like we can
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stand for things that the liberals are going to attack us on they can throw all their darts and all
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their stones all they want and i'm fine to take it because i really believe i have a sense of what
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people want what the majority of people in our community here want and that's what i'm trying to
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be accountable to uh is there like a bucket list thing that you'd love to achieve in your your first
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site i don't even want to call it a first term because it's like a partial term but is there
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there's something that you want to be able to get to the end of the the next you know 12 18 months and
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be able to say i i've done this when you go to campaign for re-election yeah well i guess there's
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two two things i have in mind one is you know i think nuclear energy is a really really important
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part of the future of canada um you know we've been sort of sold this idea that you know free market
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economics and the climate have to be at odds with each other that has opened the gates to a lot of
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bad policies like the carbon tax i don't support any of that i mean obviously we campaign on axing
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the carbon tax all the time but we do have you know lower emission options that will grow the economy
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especially for us here in ontario and uh you know in my area in particular there are over 3 000 people
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who are employed by our local nuclear plant so i think nuclear energy is a really big part of the
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future and i want to do my part as an mp to push for that and get us away from this sort of anti you
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know free market anti-economic growth approach that the liberals have taken and the other issue is i
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want to draw attention to some of the challenges facing boys and young men in our society you know
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andrew i commend you a great deal because you've been open with some of the challenges you faced as a
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man mental health is one of the biggest things that are going on that are happening with boys
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and young men we often don't talk about it often there aren't services available to a lot of us
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and i think we need to make sure that um you know the the funding that goes out to programming
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in our communities is accounting for the fact that you know the vast majority of people who are
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committing suicide the vast majority of people who are dying from overdoses these are men and i think
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that their stories need to be be told and heard and i know a lot of moms and grandmas who are
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expecting me to stand up for their sons and their grandsons so that's a big part of what i'd like to
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accomplish early on in this part of my journey as well well and i'm glad yeah you did tremendous work
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as an author on that file and i i hope you pick that up as a member of parliament and obviously i i'm
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available uh if you need anything but you've got that in in uh you seem to have that well handled and i
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look forward to hearing what you do with that so uh mp elect for durham jamil javani it's great to
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talk to you and congratulations again thank you very much andrew and i'm very happy for your
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continued success and i'm a big uh fan of the show so always happy to be here oh it's a good thing you
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didn't say that before the election you never would have won with an endorsement like that thanks a
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lot jamil take care thanks for listening to the andrew lawton show support the program by donating to