Juno News - Journalists are still obsessing over Poilievre's Westjet speech

00:00:00.000 Transcription by CastingWords

00:00:30.000 Thank you.

00:01:00.000 welcome to canada's most irreverent talk show this is the andrew lawton show brought to you by true

00:01:20.360 north hello and welcome to you all canada's most irreverent talk show here the andrew lawton show

00:01:30.680 on true north it is a fantastic day it is thursday we have made it through our first week on the new

00:01:37.680 schedule it is just after 1 p.m eastern time 11 a.m mountain time and i won't do like the whole

00:01:43.800 around the world in time zones uh shtick because when i've done that when i guest host for mark

00:01:49.760 stein it's a big thing he likes to do it takes like the first 15 minutes of the show to go from

00:01:54.360 you know all the way up to kira to maddie or whatever where i think it is no i'm not going

00:01:58.700 to do it i'm not going to get suckered into telling you the time everywhere around the world

00:02:02.640 but what i will tell you is that it is covid time yesterday we heard from teresa tam that we are all

00:02:09.960 to get our masks ready so take that like dusty box that's at the back of the cupboard in your

00:02:15.340 bathroom get it out uh blow actually no you can't blow the dust off because then you're just

00:02:19.600 spreading COVID and dust mites everywhere. You've got to wipe it off with a hypoallergenic

00:02:24.080 alcohol swab. Do those exist? I'm just kind of making stuff up now, which is exactly what our

00:02:29.620 public health officials do. And then you've got to open the mask and you've got to put on one,

00:02:33.780 you've got to put on one mask for every booster you've gotten, actually. That's how it works. So

00:02:37.520 if you're up to your seventh booster, I'm sorry to say that is seven masks, but you can mix and

00:02:42.580 match a little bit. You can do like two N95s and five regulars. You can do one cloth, four paper,

00:02:49.140 and two N95s. You can have some fun with it. It's all about getting into the rotation. Variety is 0.98

00:02:54.860 the spice of life. That's why we have so many variants. But it is, of course, back to school

00:03:00.600 time, which means kids are going to do what kids do, which means in addition to making noise and

00:03:06.660 spilling food and getting sticky, which are all part of the charm, I'm told, they will also share

00:03:12.680 COVID and germs and bacteria and viruses because that is what kids do. They run around

00:03:17.920 unconstrained by the naysaying of the Nillie Kaplan-Mersa of the world, and kids get sick. 0.89

00:03:23.840 This is the one thing that we can always say has been with us since the dawn of time

00:03:27.820 and will be with us until the end of it, is that kids are going to get sick.

00:03:32.800 So I saw this tweet the other, not the other day, it was like 10 minutes ago. What am I doing?

00:03:37.560 The passage of time is a subjective thing in this day and age. I saw this tweet earlier,

00:03:42.000 and I had to share with you, this is from a mother by the name of Tracy Valcourt. I don't

00:03:47.320 know her. She's got a PhD in humanities, and she is a concerned mother. And I don't begrudge anyone

00:03:53.400 who is concerned about their children, but she's lamenting that two weeks into school, her kid is

00:03:59.700 COVID positive, despite being the lone mask wearer in class. The mom writes, I'm so angry, I take every

00:04:06.840 precaution possible, but the exchange for her education is her health. Second infection, she had

00:04:12.700 the tiniest bit of congestion and I tested her. Now, then we go to this other tweet. I won't go

00:04:20.820 through all the tweets, but there's another tweet here in which she writes that, where is it here?

00:04:26.780 I've lost the one that I was going to. Oh yes, thanks to the father who tweeted about testing

00:04:32.460 his kid with the tiniest amount of congestion. It's because of him that I tested my daughter.

00:04:36.880 She is not even blowing her nose, just sounds a bit stuffy when she talks.

00:04:42.960 Imagine how many kids are attending school with similar systems.

00:04:47.000 And then Tracy writes that she and her son tested negative.

00:04:51.160 So here we have, I think, a bit of a question that I would ask that I would hope any sensible

00:04:55.820 person would ask, which is that if these symptoms, if the crisis of COVID is limited to a tiniest

00:05:02.460 bit of congestion. So tiny, you don't even need to blow your nose. So tiny that the only thing

00:05:09.400 you experience is that it sounds a little bit stuffy when you talk, which is basically my

00:05:14.300 resting position. Nine times out of 10 is that I sound stuffier nasally when I talk without even

00:05:19.440 having the excuse of being sick. That is all again. That is all it takes to get her so angry 0.99

00:05:25.360 at the irresponsibility that has allowed COVID to proliferate. I'm like doing my own portmanteaus

00:05:32.220 here proliferate in school see maybe I've got the vocabulary variant where I failed to be able to

00:05:38.000 get a word out but this is the level of craziness that we're dealing with here from the people that

00:05:43.560 believe we should be masked up until the end of time from the people who believe that getting

00:05:48.020 the sniffles in this case not even the sniffles it's just like it's the piffles really is a crisis

00:05:53.980 that warrants some sort of state intervention these are people that go well beyond what COVID

00:06:00.180 zero folks are all about these are people that will never be satisfied until we all live like

00:06:05.700 it's april 2020 until our dying days that is not what i wanted to talk about today but that is i

00:06:11.460 guess the one upside of the covet discussions now is that those people are the only ones calling for

00:06:18.260 a return of masks and restrictions these people are the only ones that are pushing for that life

00:06:23.460 so even the sensible moderates of which i think there are more now than historically there have

00:06:27.940 been are saying yeah i don't want anything to do with that i'd rather just go and live my life now

00:06:33.140 it's hard to live your life completely normally in the political era when the smallest things become

00:06:38.180 blown up into the big things i shared with you earlier this week that conservative leader pierre

00:06:42.740 polyev had a little bit of an opportunity at the microphone so to speak on a west jet flight

00:06:49.380 taking over the pa system to share this hello everyone this is pierre poly i'm happy to join

00:06:56.100 you for a wonderful WestJet flight back to my hometown of Calgary. Who's ready for a home you

00:07:02.740 can afford? Who's ready for some common sense? Who's ready to give a big thank you to the

00:07:13.700 WestJet pilots and crew? This is your captain warning a little bit of turbulence but it will

00:07:24.500 only last about two years and wind shine will have a totally new crew and pilot in charge of

00:07:32.340 the plane we'll pierce through the storm safely land in our home the country we know and love

00:07:39.540 your home my home our home let's bring it home

00:07:46.980 so i didn't hear anyone booing there and admittedly on airplanes now just not having

00:07:53.300 to hear the safety demonstration in both official languages is a nice departure from the norm. So

00:07:59.220 any presentation, if someone wanted to get up there and give a recipe for cornbread, it would

00:08:02.920 be more interesting than the usual monotony of airplane announcements. But Pierre Polyev spoke.

00:08:08.040 It had been arranged with WestJet ahead of time. The cabin crew ultimately said, yeah, that's fine.

00:08:12.720 They let him speak. And the plane was overwhelmingly, if not exclusively, filled with people who had

00:08:19.020 been at the Conservative Convention in Quebec City. That was a flight that WestJet doesn't

00:08:24.660 normally offer from Quebec City to whereabouts, Calgary, without having to connect in Toronto or

00:08:31.620 Montreal or something like that. They do this, and Quebec City passengers to Calgary get to hear

00:08:38.220 from Pierre Polyev. If you didn't like it, you just shrugged your shoulders and went back to your

00:08:42.320 stale pretzels. If you did like it, you could cheer and go along with the whole bring it home

00:08:46.860 message, but no one was harmed by this. And I'd say everyone or almost everyone was probably quite

00:08:52.540 delighted. Now that should have been the end of the story, but it wasn't because that would just

00:08:57.100 be too easy. No. First we had, as we discussed Monday, a wave of nasty activist responses saying,

00:09:04.860 I'm never flying WestJet again. Like Jan Arden, who you may remember from, well, actually you

00:09:09.520 probably don't remember her at all, but Jan Arden, the Canadian singer songwriter had said that she

00:09:14.840 is never going to fly WestJet again. She's never going to do business with WestJet ever again.

00:09:20.960 It's so ridiculously disappointing. She might have even said they were being insensitive. And if

00:09:26.680 you're one of the four people who got that joke, it means that you've been listening to too much

00:09:30.660 crappy Canadian CanCon music. But that was Jan Arden. Jan Arden depriving WestJet of the privilege

00:09:37.980 of her business. But the funny thing is I actually have as many hits as Jan Arden does in the last

00:09:43.320 10 years, which is to say zero. And also I pick on Jan Arden because most of the people that were

00:09:49.840 responding were actually just as unhinged as she was on that. And nevertheless, that should have

00:09:57.120 been the end of it. Everyone shrugs their shoulders and moves on. But then WestJet's union for its

00:10:02.900 flight attendants got involved. This is QP Local 4070, which put out a statement on Twitter

00:10:09.080 denouncing the use of the WestJet flight PA system by opposition leader Pierre Polyev. The

00:10:15.280 statement says that the work rules prohibit anyone who's not a part of the operating crew from using

00:10:21.840 it. The plane's cabin crew should never have to put a political stance in place. They showed bad

00:10:28.160 judgment, but moreover, they want an apology from Pierre Polyev, which he has so far not given,

00:10:33.960 and from WestJet, which WestJet has so far not given.

00:10:37.740 Now, WestJet's statement or president did put out a statement saying

00:10:41.420 they'll take a look at their policies on this in the future.

00:10:44.520 But give me a break.

00:10:46.200 This is the least story-ish of all the non-stories we've had

00:10:50.620 coming out of the Conservative Convention.

00:10:52.960 So why am I talking about it?

00:10:54.500 Well, I'd love to be talking about, you know,

00:10:56.240 crazed COVID zero fanaticism for the whole show, to be honest,

00:10:59.500 or Canadian energy policy, like we'll be discussing in a few moments' time

00:11:03.280 with Jarrett Coles. But the reason I'm talking about this is because the media has decided to

00:11:08.500 make this like the pivotal moment in Pierre Polyev's premiership. This is one tweet from

00:11:15.920 someone who, well, from CTV, saying that CTV, again, a big media company in Canada,

00:11:22.540 is looking to speak with non-delegates aboard the WestJet flight from Quebec City to Calgary

00:11:28.580 that saw Pierre Polyev speak on the PA system.

00:11:31.560 If you were there, you're to email that reporter, Tyson Fedor or Fedor.

00:11:37.200 That is, so if you were a non-delegate on that flight, CTV wants to talk to you.

00:11:42.960 The fact that in the four days since this flight has taken place,

00:11:46.520 I've not seen a single complaint from anyone who was actually on that flight,

00:11:52.460 that tells me something very important here, which is that no one cares.

00:11:57.940 He spoke, even if someone on the flight didn't really like it, they would just move on.

00:12:02.940 For example, I was on Monday or on Sunday when I was coming back from the conservative

00:12:07.860 convention.

00:12:08.280 I was at the airport and I was seeing Jagmeet Singh.

00:12:12.700 Jagmeet Singh was walking by and I saw him and I said, oh, it's Jagmeet Singh, the NDP

00:12:16.680 leader.

00:12:17.140 I didn't feel offended by his presence.

00:12:19.700 Had he gotten up and spoke to people in the terminal, I would have just sort of shrugged.

00:12:23.800 I would have wondered why.

00:12:24.800 I would have wondered if anyone had invited him.

00:12:26.440 but in that particular case, I would have just shrugged my shoulders and moved on. It wouldn't

00:12:30.460 have offended me because it's just like, oh, I saw someone in the universe that I don't normally see

00:12:35.840 in the universe. In this particular case, it was a flight full of conservatives. It was a home field

00:12:42.420 advantage, and that was not the airline taking a political position because I have no doubt that

00:12:47.660 if Justin Trudeau were there and he wanted to do one of his blackface minstrel shows to delegates

00:12:52.620 from the Liberal Convention, he would have been able to, that he would have had the opportunity

00:12:56.540 if he were speaking to a friendly crowd, especially when the airline had just allowed him

00:13:02.100 to do whatever it was that he wanted to do. That is basically what's happened here. This is

00:13:07.200 an example of corporations being forced into the cancel culture mill by association,

00:13:13.500 not even for making a political statement, just for not being anti-conservative. That's what the

00:13:19.100 activists want. They don't want WestJet to simply be politically neutral. They want them to be

00:13:25.240 anti-conservative. They want them to resist and eschew association with conservatives. And this

00:13:31.860 is why you have so many organizations that devote their effort to trying to boycott advertisers of

00:13:37.740 conservative or conservative adjacent media. You see it in the US in particular with, for example,

00:13:44.200 people trying to boycott Fox News advertisers or Breitbart advertisers or Daily Wire advertisers.

00:13:52.380 And it just becomes very tired and very tiresome. We have a media in this country that should be

00:13:59.940 holding the government to account, but focuses instead on not even holding the opposition to

00:14:04.980 account, like holding the airline on which the opposition leader flew one day to account. And I

00:14:12.080 don't even know if Polyev is a WestJet guy. For all I know, he was just taking that flight because

00:14:16.560 they offered it and he thought it would be a nice thing to do. Like it wasn't this, because when I

00:14:20.920 first saw it, I thought it was this authentic organic moment, which it wasn't. If this had

00:14:25.500 been cleared in advance with WestJet, it means that someone in Polyev's office decided this was

00:14:30.760 something they wanted to do. Now, obviously that gets into that whole sort of rote, is this just

00:14:35.980 politics where everything's theatrical and everything's prearranged? And that's a legitimate

00:14:40.540 enough discussion if you want to have it. But this is not a problem with WestJet. In fact,

00:14:45.160 it's only a problem with the media that just does not get that no one cares about stuff like this.

00:14:52.620 So with that being said, I hope to never have to talk about this again. Although who knows,

00:14:57.440 maybe I'm flying on Air Canada in a couple of weeks. So maybe I'll just get up there and do

00:15:02.200 my own show and then everyone can denounce Air Canada. Then Jan Arden will have nowhere to fly 1.00

00:15:06.200 because she'll have to like boycott WestJet. She'll have to boycott Air Canada. She'll be like 0.56

00:15:10.000 stuck with Lufthansa or something and just has to go like, you know, Toronto to Frankfurt

00:15:14.140 and then Frankfurt to Calgary just because everyone else has been such a scary, scary, 0.68

00:15:18.400 evil, meanie conservative. But the things that really matter, speaking of Western Canada,

00:15:23.360 are the health and wellness of Canada's oil and gas sector. Yesterday, we spoke about how

00:15:29.040 energy efficiency regulations are driving up the cost of housing. Today, we have a story that I

00:15:34.940 found kind of interesting from Germany, where Volkswagen has laid off a significant number of

00:15:41.840 its electric vehicle manufacturing employees because demand in electric vehicles has dropped

00:15:47.140 thanks to Germany dropping subsidies of them, which makes me wonder. Well, I didn't have to

00:15:53.500 wonder. I already sort of knew that electric vehicle production is an absolute racket. It's

00:15:57.740 only viable as long as it is being subsidized. And you look in a Canadian context and see the

00:16:03.800 billions of dollars that the Liberal government and Ontario PC government, I should also say,

00:16:10.160 have put into electric vehicle manufacturing here, which will only have a market and a consumer

00:16:17.000 base when electric vehicle purchases are being subsidized. So this may not even be as magically

00:16:23.700 transformative to the labor force as we're being told to justify this money. And this is adjacent

00:16:30.780 to a discussion I wanted to have on this show about a new grassroots group that's formed called

00:16:34.920 Energy United, which has at its core set out to tell the story of Canada's energy sector. And this

00:16:42.020 is a story that very much needs to be told because of how much misinformation there is

00:16:46.500 about it, certainly in much of the legacy media's coverage. Joining me from Energy United is the

00:16:52.460 campaign manager, Jarrett Coles. Jarrett, good to talk to you. Thanks for coming on today.

00:16:57.200 Thanks, Andrew. It's great to be here.

00:16:59.120 So I gave like the one sentence summary, but I'll let you in your words explain what Energy United is.

00:17:05.240 Yeah, so we're a grassroots advocacy organization with a mission to promote practical environmental and energy policy in Canada.

00:17:11.320 You know, we're not just a drill baby drill organization or an anti-environmental or just straight up energy advocacy organization.

00:17:19.720 we believe that we just need to have much more practical policy around energy and environmental

00:17:24.600 policies, especially how we develop our natural resource and utilize our land. And unfortunately,

00:17:29.480 that story is just not being told. You see a lot of the vocal minority pushing the policies these

00:17:36.380 days that are really ideologically driven, and they're holding back our economy and they're

00:17:41.320 hurting Canadians. And we felt at Energy United that that story just wasn't out there enough

00:17:46.080 and the impacts to Canadians on affordability, on reliability just wasn't being examined or

00:17:52.480 discussed. And, you know, there are always trade-offs to everything. And, you know,

00:17:56.980 it's good to have important environmental and strong environmental ambitions, but, you know,

00:18:01.440 we still have to have rational discussions about the trade-offs. I know you've particularly weighed

00:18:06.360 in on these electricity regulations, which there's been some pushback on, notably from Alberta.

00:18:12.540 Premier Danielle Smith's government has been sounding the alarm about this, but not as much from other provinces to the same degree.

00:18:19.220 And I think they should be. Why is this one you've decided to seize?

00:18:23.080 Well, you know, just like any good campaign, it's really top of mind.

00:18:26.460 The federal government just released their draft regulations last month in August 2023.

00:18:30.820 They're currently in a 75 day consultation period asking Canadians what they think about these electricity regulations.

00:18:37.700 and in our opinion, just the way that they're proposed and the aggressive timelines and then

00:18:42.820 the way the mandates are structured, they could have serious impacts to our grid's reliability

00:18:47.420 and to the impacts on affordability with Canadians. So that's one thing. I mean,

00:18:51.900 energy is essential. We all need energy to just do our daily lives. I think a lot of us in Canada

00:18:56.920 have taken it for granted and electricity is going to be essential as we move forward,

00:19:01.920 as things continue to electrify. But getting rid of natural gas, which is one of the most

00:19:06.280 sustainable and affordable, reliable forms of electricity, we think is a very serious error

00:19:12.100 in judgment that will hurt our ability to grow our economy, create jobs and just maintain reliable

00:19:17.640 and affordable power. I mentioned in the lead into this, the electric vehicle thing. But what

00:19:24.260 I find notable about that is that there you have government policies and subsidies that are

00:19:28.600 trying to manufacture a demand. And as a result, then you have justification for all of these

00:19:34.420 additional subsidies to ramp up production to meet that demand. With oil and gas, you have an

00:19:39.800 existing demand in the world. And it's actually government regulations that are blocking producers

00:19:45.880 from meeting that demand. Yeah. And I didn't major in economics. I'm not an economist by trade. But

00:19:53.820 to me, restricting the supply of something that is inelastic that just has this demand just doesn't

00:20:00.240 seem like it's going to reduce demand for it. It's just going to increase costs.

00:20:04.420 going to reduce energy security if we're relying on other countries to import it so it's just one

00:20:10.980 of those situations where it doesn't make a lot of sense for us it's not really a common sense

00:20:14.740 solution if you look at the campaign that we're running we mentioned that the federal government

00:20:19.300 did a forced phase out of coal-fired electricity a lot of those provinces switched to natural gas

00:20:24.580 because it's a cleaner burning fuel it's more sustainable and they reduced their emissions

00:20:29.140 in the united states for instance the largest emissions reductions they've had are from

00:20:32.580 switching from coal to natural gas now as they're still going through that 2030 coal phase out the

00:20:37.460 government's moved the goalposts on these provinces again saying that you can't have any new natural

00:20:41.140 gas commissioned after 2025 unless it has carbon capture and storage but they've even admitted that

00:20:46.340 that technology isn't available yet so we're really playing like a hope and wait game that

00:20:51.140 could have serious impacts on canadians you know i think one of the most telling examples of this

00:20:56.500 problem was Germany coming hat in hand, basically saying, we need natural gas. We need to replace,

00:21:03.040 we need LNG, we need this. And Canada looking and saying, all right, well, we've now been already so

00:21:08.320 far behind, we couldn't just flip a switch and meet that demand. And the problem that I have with

00:21:13.900 this debate and this discussion is that oftentimes it's years too late when we realize that we've

00:21:20.460 missed an opportunity, that we failed by not investing in the infrastructure ahead of time.

00:21:25.360 And I guess the question I would ask is, is it too late?

00:21:28.020 Has that ship already sailed?

00:21:30.040 I don't think it's too late at all.

00:21:31.460 And I don't think that ship has sailed.

00:21:32.860 I have a similar frustration with you when they say, you know, we're years too late.

00:21:37.100 And then you see critics of our ability to export our products or critics of the industry say,

00:21:42.640 you know, it doesn't make sense economically.

00:21:44.180 But when they're talking about the economics of the project,

00:21:46.720 they never talk about the regulatory burden that is increasing costs far beyond what they should be in this country

00:21:51.960 relative to other jurisdictions like the United States.

00:21:54.440 Like the United States can build an LNG train facility in way less time than we can in Canada.

00:22:00.380 Our first one was announced right around the same time that the United States started building LNG facilities, LNG Canada and Kitimat.

00:22:08.280 That still is under construction. And now the United States is the largest exporter in the world of LNG.

00:22:13.360 And you see other countries signing long term agreements well past 2050 to maintain natural gas supplies,

00:22:19.360 where in Canada we have a very singular focused approach on just renewables or nothing.

00:22:24.440 and it's really more than all of the above situation that we need with the growing demand

00:22:29.180 for energy yeah and just on that demand i mean you know the one thing that a lot of the activists

00:22:33.940 and the governments that seem to be beholden to activists missed is that you don't stop demand

00:22:39.860 by restricting supply and so basically it means the question is who's going to fill that void and

00:22:45.180 who's going to supply that demand and as your organization has pointed out it's you know almost

00:22:49.520 always these dictatorial regimes that aren't as beholden to these environmental pet causes saudi

00:22:55.320 arabia china uh you know iran to some parts of the world and and russia yeah venezuela is still

00:23:02.920 up there qatar qatar is like one of the biggest producers of lng of the top 10 oil producers in

00:23:08.100 the world like united states canada i mean norway are up there is like democratic and free countries

00:23:13.340 who do you want to trust to actually move forward to create a more sustainable product that we

00:23:18.280 actually essentially need i mean you know we can't just say that no oil and gas is good because we're

00:23:25.000 going to need that product and if we import it who do you trust to actually make sure that that's

00:23:29.000 going to be doing environmental sustainability if you look at someone like saudi arabia

00:23:33.320 saudi aramco couldn't even be listed on the new york stock exchange because they wouldn't

00:23:37.160 provide the transparency necessary to to earn that listing so so what is it that you would like to

00:23:46.920 see from i mean let's start with the federal government and then we can talk about provinces

00:23:51.400 but from the federal government what would be your top priorities for them on this

00:23:54.820 i think it's uh you know they're just moving too far too fast on on too many things i know

00:24:00.320 there's been a lot of talk lately about the carbon tax and the impacts of canadians on that but

00:24:04.520 if you really look at everything that they've done uh with respect there's the carbon tax

00:24:08.600 there's a clean fuel regulation there's a methane reduction targets there's the emissions cap there's

00:24:13.460 the Sustainable Jobs Act, there's C69, the Impact Assessment Act, there's the C48, No More Tankers. 1.00

00:24:19.200 There's also just this kind of lukewarm support for the industry, which turns away investors and

00:24:25.780 people that want to make long term capital commitments. So really, it's one of those

00:24:29.220 things where it's like, you know, you got to wait and let these policies kind of see and how they're

00:24:32.640 working before you add additional layers of regulation that are just going to hurt investment

00:24:36.860 and competitiveness and drive it elsewhere. And it's just going to end up hurting Canada in the

00:24:40.580 long run. So I think it's kind of just a slow down, let these policies take effect and let

00:24:46.040 companies catch up and show, I would say, progress in what they're doing before you hit them with

00:24:52.560 another policy, especially the stick policies that Canada has been using relative to the

00:24:57.400 incentive-based policies, the carrots in the United States. To look at the provincial level,

00:25:01.980 one of the problems we have, just as a matter of geography, is that it's the coastal provinces that

00:25:07.300 have been often the most resistant to the oil and gas sector bc on the west and quebec on the east

00:25:12.860 so what is it you need to see from the provincial landscape to fix this or at least work towards a

00:25:18.520 better model i mean if you ever look at that's like a really good question i think you see the

00:25:24.800 premiers getting on side a lot more with certain interprovincial trade issues i know energy has

00:25:29.900 just become more of a it's almost like a religious sort of thing now where it's just it's a very

00:25:35.660 moral argument and less of an economic argument um so i think just kind of understanding those

00:25:41.180 rational and fact-based arguments understanding that you know there are going to be impacts on

00:25:45.480 affordability i mean a lot of what i see uh today is people talking about the 20 to 25 years in the

00:25:51.740 future and not focusing on the issues today and what we can do to manage those issues today

00:25:55.200 so even focusing on more so in the present and how we can work on those policies to work on

00:25:59.980 affordability today and less on like we're going to be doing this by 2050 when who knows what's

00:26:05.120 going to be happening within the next five to ten years i mean the last five years shows that

00:26:08.560 we live in a pretty volatile time so i think it's just kind of that slow down

00:26:12.200 the cooperation um you know it's it's one of those situations with energy where

00:26:17.360 you know good politics often collides with good policy

00:26:20.640 so i think it's just that leadership where we have to put forward that good policy even if it's

00:26:26.100 not great politics jared coles from energy united you can check them out at energy united.ca jared

00:26:32.920 thank you so much for coming on today. Really appreciate it, Andrew. Anytime. Thank you so much.

00:26:37.180 Yeah, we'd love to have you back on this. This is an issue that's near and dear to my heart and that

00:26:40.860 of many of those listening. So thank you for that, Jarrett. This has been a bit of a weird week.

00:26:47.360 We've started a new schedule and I guess to some extent a new format on this show, but also we had

00:26:53.240 in the weekend much of our team in Quebec City covering the Conservative Convention. So we've

00:26:59.040 been bringing you since then all of the stories that matters, like I believe Pierre Polyev actually

00:27:05.220 might have had an extra bag of pretzels on his WestJet flight. WestJet was just pandering to

00:27:11.540 that evil, scary conservative. The flight attendant walked by. They said, you, sir, look like a 0.86

00:27:17.280 conservative leader. We want to give some extra pretzels to. And they might have even given him

00:27:21.000 like a third ice cube in his water cup, which if you've traveled in commercial air in Canada,

00:27:27.220 you know is like unheard of you uh the cup just barely has any room for anything but i know we've

00:27:31.780 been covering the real stuff the policy uh declarations and resolutions and also uh some

00:27:36.740 of our conversations with people at the convention about the state of the conservative party and what

00:27:42.740 they want to see moving forward one of those that we sat down with was jamil giovanni who i've known

00:27:49.540 in a non-political context more so because he was the president of the canada strong and free network

00:27:55.220 He also was a former colleague in broadcasting, and I've appeared on stage with him before.

00:28:00.860 We've always had a great relationship, and it was interesting to sit down with him now that he's wearing a different hat.

00:28:07.500 We are at the Conservative Convention, where more than 2,500, I think pushing 3,000 according to some numbers,

00:28:13.940 of Conservative members and activists from around the country are descending.

00:28:18.040 And the kickoff was very lively on Thursday night.

00:28:21.740 I'll play what clip from one of the speakers here, Jamil Giovanni.

00:28:25.220 We had a deal in this country for a long time, didn't we?

00:28:27.700 You remember that?

00:28:28.340 Feels like a long time ago.

00:28:29.320 It wasn't that long ago.

00:28:30.620 It was a deal that you work hard, you follow the laws,

00:28:34.600 you get a good house and a good, safe neighborhood.

00:28:38.440 You make a good living for your family, and you have a great life.

00:28:42.180 But that deal, like many other things under the Trudeau government, is now broken.

00:28:47.960 We have 35-year-olds like me, people I could have went to high school with,

00:28:52.160 living in their parents' basements because the cost of housing, of mortgage payments, rent payments, down payments

00:28:59.120 has literally doubled under Trudeau's watch.

00:29:02.900 It now takes around 25 years to save for a down payment on a house in Toronto.

00:29:08.980 And I'm not too young to remember there was a time where in 25 years you could be expected to pay off your mortgage.

00:29:16.180 That's not the case in Canada anymore.

00:29:18.800 And all the liberals have to offer when we ask them, how are we going to fix this,

00:29:23.920 are excuses and promises that they're going to think about it. Imagine that, liberals thinking,

00:29:30.880 I mean, how much confidence can we have in that, right? But they are not coming up with concrete

00:29:38.080 actions. And they're failing not just young people, they're also failing seniors. When I knock on doors

00:29:43.920 in Clarington, in Oshawa, in Scugog, I meet many seniors, many of whom cannot afford to

00:29:50.480 live in the house they've been in for years. They're struggling in this crisis as well,

00:29:55.040 some of them even being evicted from their homes because of the neglect of our government.

00:30:01.280 The time for excuses and empty liberal promises is over. It's time for conservative solutions.

00:30:08.880 Yes. Yes. You know what better kind of solution is there?

00:30:13.840 That clip has been making the rounds, a very poignant message that I think would resonate with people all across this country, whether they're political or not.

00:30:22.880 Welcome, Jamil. It's good to talk to you now. I've had you on the show before, and this is a bit of a different flavour now because you are a Conservative candidate in Durham.

00:30:30.120 Yes. Some things have changed recently.

00:30:31.580 Congratulations. What were you getting at in that message?

00:30:35.120 Well, you know, the phrase we hear a lot right now is that, you know, Canada is broken.

00:30:39.660 The system is broken. Things aren't working.

00:30:41.960 And I think, as you said, that's not a partisan message.

00:30:44.860 That's not a message that only resonates with people who call themselves conservatives.

00:30:48.780 It is a message that people across the country, but especially my age and younger, really feel right now.

00:30:54.880 Right. And so when we talk about the deal no longer being in place, it's the sense that a lot of people came to Canada from all over the world.

00:31:02.080 My grandpa came from Scotland.

00:31:03.520 My dad came from Kenya.

00:31:05.140 And the idea was that you work hard and you give your kids a better life.

00:31:08.740 And right now, I don't think people see Canada as a place where your kids are necessarily getting a better life.

00:31:14.300 You have, and you've talked about this at great length in the past, a tremendous life story.

00:31:18.680 You kind of beat the socioeconomic odds and went to Yale and became a lawyer and have been very successful.

00:31:24.780 And you're now standing for Parliament.

00:31:26.080 Do you think under the current climate, you would have been able to replicate that if you were 10 years younger?

00:31:31.860 It's a great question because I struggled in school with a lot of the basics you need to be successful.

00:31:37.320 You need to be able to read.

00:31:38.420 You need to be able to write.

00:31:39.360 You need to be able to think and articulate yourself.

00:31:42.300 And unfortunately, I think the school system is kind of getting further away from that, not closer.

00:31:47.120 So I do wonder, you know, if the school system saw a kid like me, would I be encouraged to actually work hard and improve my skills and become the best version of myself?

00:31:56.380 Or would people be saying, well, you know what, Jamil, the reason you're not doing well in school is because of systemic racism.

00:32:01.140 So just don't even bother to try. So I do think about that a lot. You know, what is the message

00:32:05.140 we're sending to kids struggling like me? You know, I will say that I think that there's still

00:32:09.480 reason to be hopeful. I really do. I mean, I wouldn't have, you know, put my name on a ballot

00:32:13.060 if I didn't think that. But I do worry a lot about kids who, you know, feel like a better life isn't

00:32:18.160 necessarily guaranteed for them and wonder, you know, does the country care about them anymore?

00:32:22.540 Are they priorities? Are there going to be any change with them in mind, right? Because it does

00:32:26.860 feel like, at least under the current government, people who are struggling are being asked to keep

00:32:31.080 their mouths shut and we're being asked to celebrate an economy that's just not working

00:32:34.500 for the majority of people. Going back a few years at the beginning of COVID in particular I think it

00:32:40.120 was easy for people on the right to feel like they had just lost. I mean big government was

00:32:44.180 getting out of control and even nominally conservative governments were not exactly

00:32:48.200 going down the road that people would have hoped. You fast forward now you're here as a candidate

00:32:53.720 you've got Pierre Polyev who's tremendously popular with conservatives. Danielle Smith in

00:32:57.720 Alberta very similar story and I know you and she like me were all kind of in radio around the same

00:33:02.580 time I was wondering what your sense is overall of the conservative movement because you're jumping

00:33:07.800 into this role having been president of an organization that was focused on building and

00:33:11.880 fostering the movement side rather than the party side yeah it's a great question because a few years

00:33:17.480 ago I think it did feel like the middle class the working class in this country was being you know

00:33:22.600 forgotten and being marginalized yeah policies you know we used to say being made for the zoom

00:33:26.660 class, the laptop class, right? Policies were being made that just didn't have the majority

00:33:31.740 of people in mind. And I do think what we're seeing right now is that conservatives have

00:33:35.580 filled that void. It's a remarkable thing. I talked to some of my friends in other countries

00:33:39.360 in the UK and the US, and they say, wow, you guys are the ones talking about housing. You guys are

00:33:44.200 the ones talking about, you know, the working class, the middle class. I think in other countries,

00:33:48.180 conservative parties have tried this, but I don't think it has been as organic and as natural as

00:33:52.960 we've seen with Pierre Polyev as our leader, because the COVID years left a massive hole,

00:33:57.940 right? I mean, people are like, well, who's speaking for the majority of people? We're not

00:34:01.580 allowed to talk. Big tech is censoring us. We're not getting our voices out there. And then you see

00:34:06.280 a political party kind of turn into that vehicle. And it's a beautiful thing. And one of the things

00:34:10.800 I always say to people is that when I knock on doors, when I talk to people, people who never

00:34:15.440 vote, people who've never voted conservative, or maybe never even shown up on election day ever in

00:34:19.520 their lives are actually excited because they think we're offering something that's a real

00:34:23.520 alternative and people want change man they're just not happy and it's not hard to understand

00:34:27.560 why you know you can only ignore the majority of people for so long before they say hey wait a

00:34:31.700 minute like I shouldn't have to be you know doing well in this society for my voice to be heard for

00:34:36.200 me to count. I know that you're running in Durham which was the the riding vacated by Aaron O'Toole

00:34:41.400 the the former conservative leader and I know he's been very kind about you and your candidacy

00:34:45.460 which is good but there were a lot of there was a lot of bad taste and I think the party's mouth

00:34:49.800 about just how the last campaign went and I'm wondering what your thoughts are moving forward

00:34:54.500 I know you're focused on Durham and not the national campaign but but why this one's going

00:34:58.820 to be different for the conservatives why they can actually pull it together and pull out a win

00:35:02.340 this time well I think a lot of what you're seeing with us right now is two things number one there's

00:35:08.140 a confidence that I love to see there's a certain sense of being conservative unapologetic about

00:35:14.120 being conservative, a real belief that we have ideas that can help people. And I think that

00:35:18.860 that's something that has not always been there. And I'm very happy to see it right now. So I think

00:35:23.640 that's a major difference. The other major difference is that I frankly think that the

00:35:27.260 political left, the liberal party, the NDP, they've overplayed their hand. They want so much control

00:35:33.500 over what people say and what people do. They want to have influence in big corporations and big

00:35:38.380 business and universities and media there's so much kind of ingrained in power everywhere that

00:35:45.140 I think enough people are realizing we need to balance things out you might not think the

00:35:49.000 conservatives are perfect and no one is but certainly we need balance and right now if you

00:35:53.860 look at the institutions across Canada there's not a lot of balance there's one way of looking

00:35:57.800 at so many issues and if you do not fit in those parameters you're made to feel like you could lose

00:36:02.380 your whole livelihood and no one should be made to feel that way so I think that's a big change

00:36:06.200 from last time around, where now the expectation is we're going to be different. We're going to

00:36:10.000 actually try to tip the scale so that things are more even keeled. And I wish that was sort of

00:36:14.800 always the goal of the Conservative Party, but I'm happy that it is the goal now.

00:36:18.600 Now, obviously, you're going to be running in a by-election. So if you're elected,

00:36:21.780 you won't need to wait until the next time, the next general election to

00:36:24.260 take your seat in Ottawa. And I'm just curious, if you are successful and you do go to Ottawa,

00:36:29.300 what are the issues you want to champion that you'll specifically bring to the table? Because

00:36:33.140 obviously you've had in your career opportunities, I mean, in talk radio to weigh in on anything and

00:36:37.680 everything, but what are the things you want to be a real advocate for at the federal level?

00:36:41.520 Well, I mean, it's not a coincidence that I did my speech on housing yesterday, because that is

00:36:45.320 a real passion of mine. Not just because of the obvious need for more housing and people to be

00:36:50.440 able to move out, start a family, the generational aspects of it too. Should I be elected? I'll be

00:36:55.700 one of the youngest people in caucus. I may be the only or one of the only people who rents and

00:36:59.940 doesn't own a home. There's a lot of my life perspective that I'd like to bring to the table

00:37:03.900 that I think represents a large portion of the population that currently doesn't have as much

00:37:08.240 of a voice as I think we deserve. So the generational aspect of things is very important

00:37:12.620 to me as well. But also just to what I was saying about sort of big corporations, like

00:37:16.920 traditionally conservatives have been very focused on government overreach and rightfully so. We

00:37:21.200 totally get it. But there is corporate overreach in our society right now, perhaps more than we've

00:37:25.840 had in a long, long time. And I do really want to bring that to the table. Those who are familiar

00:37:30.400 with my work, whether it's my columns in the National Post, the Toronto Sun, maybe people

00:37:34.400 listen to my radio show, they know that I believe in standing up for the average working and middle

00:37:39.700 class man and woman in this country. And whether it's the government or it's corporations not

00:37:44.160 treating those people right, I want to push back. So that's something I really want to bring. And I

00:37:48.180 do think that that's part of a new fresh voice for conservative politics. Young people, we are

00:37:52.540 bringing a voice to the corporate overreach problem that I don't think conservatives of

00:37:56.560 the past have necessarily been concerned about. Jamil Javani, thank you very much.

00:38:00.280 Thank you, Andrew. Appreciate it. Always a pleasure.

00:38:02.760 That was Jamil Javani, former media commentator. Now he is a conservative candidate in Durham,

00:38:09.220 running in the seat vacated by former conservative leader Aaron O'Toole. And it was interesting at

00:38:15.600 the end of that there, which I mean, again, has taken on a bit of a new meaning in the day since

00:38:20.060 we did that interview, he talked about being potentially one of the few or only MPs if he's

00:38:25.500 elected who rents. And that's notable because Arielle Kayabaga, who is a Liberal member of

00:38:32.120 Parliament, she's a bit younger than Jamil, I think she's 32 or 33, she said in an interview

00:38:37.300 this week that she, despite being an MP making like nearly $200,000 a year, cannot afford a home.

00:38:44.740 Now, the Conservatives have mentioned that because I think it is pretty noteworthy. If you have

00:38:48.980 Liberals that are saying, hey, even I can't afford to buy a house, so maybe the government

00:38:53.440 needs to get serious about housing. And she accused the Conservatives of mocking her for it, 1.00

00:38:58.100 which was actually nowhere near what was happening. The Conservatives were holding her up

00:39:03.080 as, I think, justifiably so an illustrative example of how bad things are. If someone who

00:39:09.300 makes $200,000 a year cannot afford a house, then how is anyone making $40,000 a year going to? How

00:39:21.120 is anyone making $60,000? I mean, you even have two people making $80,000 a year, which is putting

00:39:27.440 them on the upper end of middle class. That's $160,000 household income. So if Ariel Cayabaga

00:39:32.800 is accurate here, that $190,000 a year, you can't buy a house. Two people with that, which will

00:39:38.020 have more costs because there are two of them, perhaps a second car, more groceries, and so on.

00:39:43.540 And this is a very real issue. So Trudeau did this announcement on housing yesterday

00:39:47.480 in which he basically re-announced something that had already been announced and hoped that

00:39:51.940 this re-announcement of the original announcement would lead people to think that housing is being

00:39:56.500 taken seriously. And it was a very localized announcement. I'm using the word announce like

00:40:01.640 seven times because the liberals seem to think that just announcing over and over

00:40:04.820 is going to work. And now they've come out today. So I think they realized they stepped in it

00:40:10.320 yesterday. They came out today with another policy proposal, which is that they're going to remove

00:40:15.380 GST from the construction of new rental apartments. So, okay, yay, it's good policy,

00:40:21.900 but talk about just barely scratching the surface of something when the issue is that no one is

00:40:29.200 building to the extent that they need to be building. And this is where you get into what

00:40:34.200 is going to be the defining issue of this generation, what is certainly going to be

00:40:38.560 the defining issue of the next election. And I would also bring up the point here that it's a

00:40:43.260 very difficult one, even if there is a conservative government or a, I mean, heaven forbid, an NDP

00:40:48.120 government, a green government, a PPZ government, I mean, if there are any other government that

00:40:51.800 wants to take housing seriously, it's going to be very difficult in four years to turn this around

00:40:57.640 when it is such a deep-seated and, I would say, multi-pronged problem.

00:41:03.440 So, yeah, you can talk about getting rid of the gatekeepers.

00:41:06.320 That's a key part of it.

00:41:07.440 But really, you've got municipalities that I think have the burden

00:41:10.500 of really needing to step up to the plate here.

00:41:12.700 So that is it for this week.

00:41:14.920 We'll be back on Monday at 1 p.m. Eastern, 11 a.m. Mountain

00:41:18.300 with another live edition of The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:41:21.480 And if you can't catch it live, you can catch us in podcast form

00:41:24.340 or archive form on YouTube.

00:41:26.600 sometimes on Facebook

00:41:28.180 depends on whether you've been blocked

00:41:30.360 or not thanks to C18

00:41:31.680 you can catch us on Rumble

00:41:33.400 and as always at tnc.news

00:41:35.880 and I just will put in a plug here

00:41:38.460 I am going to be at

00:41:39.980 True North Nation

00:41:41.300 on October 21st

00:41:43.260 which is True North's first ever

00:41:45.280 first ever live and in person event

00:41:48.360 it's going to be in Calgary

00:41:49.760 and you can come out and hang out with me

00:41:52.400 Rachel Emanuel will be there

00:41:53.880 Rupa Subramania, Harrison Faulkner

00:41:55.840 plus some other special guests to be announced.

00:41:58.640 That's going to be a lot of fun.

00:42:00.020 And I hope you do come out to join us.

00:42:01.540 You can get the details on that at truenorthevents.ca,

00:42:06.080 truenorthevents.ca.

00:42:07.940 And that is our first ever True North Nation event in Calgary.

00:42:11.140 That's going to be a lot of fun.

00:42:12.320 And I hope to see you there.

00:42:13.340 We'll talk to you on Monday.

00:42:14.260 Thank you.

00:42:14.740 God bless.

00:42:15.340 And good day to you all.

00:42:17.380 Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:42:19.620 Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.

00:42:25.840 We'll be right back.

00:42:55.840 We'll be right back.

00:43:25.840 Thank you.

Juno News - September 14, 2023

Journalists are still obsessing over Poilievre's Westjet speech

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