It's back to school time, which means, of course, that means more germs and bacteria and viruses. This is the one thing that we can always say has been with us since the dawn of time, and will be with us until the end of it, is that kids are going to get sick.
00:28:30.620It was a deal that you work hard, you follow the laws,
00:28:34.600you get a good house and a good, safe neighborhood.
00:28:38.440You make a good living for your family, and you have a great life.
00:28:42.180But that deal, like many other things under the Trudeau government, is now broken.
00:28:47.960We have 35-year-olds like me, people I could have went to high school with,
00:28:52.160living in their parents' basements because the cost of housing, of mortgage payments, rent payments, down payments
00:28:59.120has literally doubled under Trudeau's watch.
00:29:02.900It now takes around 25 years to save for a down payment on a house in Toronto.
00:29:08.980And I'm not too young to remember there was a time where in 25 years you could be expected to pay off your mortgage.
00:29:16.180That's not the case in Canada anymore.
00:29:18.800And all the liberals have to offer when we ask them, how are we going to fix this,
00:29:23.920are excuses and promises that they're going to think about it. Imagine that, liberals thinking,
00:29:30.880I mean, how much confidence can we have in that, right? But they are not coming up with concrete
00:29:38.080actions. And they're failing not just young people, they're also failing seniors. When I knock on doors
00:29:43.920in Clarington, in Oshawa, in Scugog, I meet many seniors, many of whom cannot afford to
00:29:50.480live in the house they've been in for years. They're struggling in this crisis as well,
00:29:55.040some of them even being evicted from their homes because of the neglect of our government.
00:30:01.280The time for excuses and empty liberal promises is over. It's time for conservative solutions.
00:30:08.880Yes. Yes. You know what better kind of solution is there?
00:30:13.840That 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.
00:30:22.880Welcome, 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.
00:30:30.120Yes. Some things have changed recently.
00:30:31.580Congratulations. What were you getting at in that message?
00:30:35.120Well, you know, the phrase we hear a lot right now is that, you know, Canada is broken.
00:30:39.660The system is broken. Things aren't working.
00:30:41.960And I think, as you said, that's not a partisan message.
00:30:44.860That's not a message that only resonates with people who call themselves conservatives.
00:30:48.780It is a message that people across the country, but especially my age and younger, really feel right now.
00:30:54.880Right. 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.
00:31:39.360You need to be able to think and articulate yourself.
00:31:42.300And unfortunately, I think the school system is kind of getting further away from that, not closer.
00:31:47.120So 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?
00:31:56.380Or would people be saying, well, you know what, Jamil, the reason you're not doing well in school is because of systemic racism.
00:32:01.140So just don't even bother to try. So I do think about that a lot. You know, what is the message
00:32:05.140we're sending to kids struggling like me? You know, I will say that I think that there's still
00:32:09.480reason to be hopeful. I really do. I mean, I wouldn't have, you know, put my name on a ballot
00:32:13.060if I didn't think that. But I do worry a lot about kids who, you know, feel like a better life isn't
00:32:18.160necessarily guaranteed for them and wonder, you know, does the country care about them anymore?
00:32:22.540Are they priorities? Are there going to be any change with them in mind, right? Because it does
00:32:26.860feel like, at least under the current government, people who are struggling are being asked to keep
00:32:31.080their mouths shut and we're being asked to celebrate an economy that's just not working
00:32:34.500for the majority of people. Going back a few years at the beginning of COVID in particular I think it
00:32:40.120was easy for people on the right to feel like they had just lost. I mean big government was
00:32:44.180getting out of control and even nominally conservative governments were not exactly
00:32:48.200going down the road that people would have hoped. You fast forward now you're here as a candidate
00:32:53.720you've got Pierre Polyev who's tremendously popular with conservatives. Danielle Smith in
00:32:57.720Alberta very similar story and I know you and she like me were all kind of in radio around the same
00:33:02.580time I was wondering what your sense is overall of the conservative movement because you're jumping
00:33:07.800into this role having been president of an organization that was focused on building and
00:33:11.880fostering the movement side rather than the party side yeah it's a great question because a few years
00:33:17.480ago I think it did feel like the middle class the working class in this country was being you know
00:33:22.600forgotten and being marginalized yeah policies you know we used to say being made for the zoom
00:33:26.660class, the laptop class, right? Policies were being made that just didn't have the majority
00:33:31.740of people in mind. And I do think what we're seeing right now is that conservatives have
00:33:35.580filled that void. It's a remarkable thing. I talked to some of my friends in other countries
00:33:39.360in the UK and the US, and they say, wow, you guys are the ones talking about housing. You guys are
00:33:44.200the ones talking about, you know, the working class, the middle class. I think in other countries,
00:33:48.180conservative parties have tried this, but I don't think it has been as organic and as natural as
00:33:52.960we've seen with Pierre Polyev as our leader, because the COVID years left a massive hole,
00:33:57.940right? I mean, people are like, well, who's speaking for the majority of people? We're not
00:34:01.580allowed to talk. Big tech is censoring us. We're not getting our voices out there. And then you see
00:34:06.280a political party kind of turn into that vehicle. And it's a beautiful thing. And one of the things
00:34:10.800I always say to people is that when I knock on doors, when I talk to people, people who never
00:34:15.440vote, people who've never voted conservative, or maybe never even shown up on election day ever in
00:34:19.520their lives are actually excited because they think we're offering something that's a real
00:34:23.520alternative and people want change man they're just not happy and it's not hard to understand
00:34:27.560why you know you can only ignore the majority of people for so long before they say hey wait a
00:34:31.700minute like I shouldn't have to be you know doing well in this society for my voice to be heard for
00:34:36.200me to count. I know that you're running in Durham which was the the riding vacated by Aaron O'Toole
00:34:41.400the the former conservative leader and I know he's been very kind about you and your candidacy
00:34:45.460which is good but there were a lot of there was a lot of bad taste and I think the party's mouth
00:34:49.800about just how the last campaign went and I'm wondering what your thoughts are moving forward
00:34:54.500I know you're focused on Durham and not the national campaign but but why this one's going
00:34:58.820to be different for the conservatives why they can actually pull it together and pull out a win
00:35:02.340this time well I think a lot of what you're seeing with us right now is two things number one there's
00:35:08.140a confidence that I love to see there's a certain sense of being conservative unapologetic about
00:35:14.120being conservative, a real belief that we have ideas that can help people. And I think that
00:35:18.860that's something that has not always been there. And I'm very happy to see it right now. So I think
00:35:23.640that's a major difference. The other major difference is that I frankly think that the
00:35:27.260political left, the liberal party, the NDP, they've overplayed their hand. They want so much control
00:35:33.500over what people say and what people do. They want to have influence in big corporations and big
00:35:38.380business and universities and media there's so much kind of ingrained in power everywhere that
00:35:45.140I think enough people are realizing we need to balance things out you might not think the
00:35:49.000conservatives are perfect and no one is but certainly we need balance and right now if you
00:35:53.860look at the institutions across Canada there's not a lot of balance there's one way of looking
00:35:57.800at so many issues and if you do not fit in those parameters you're made to feel like you could lose
00:36:02.380your whole livelihood and no one should be made to feel that way so I think that's a big change
00:36:06.200from last time around, where now the expectation is we're going to be different. We're going to
00:36:10.000actually try to tip the scale so that things are more even keeled. And I wish that was sort of
00:36:14.800always the goal of the Conservative Party, but I'm happy that it is the goal now.
00:36:18.600Now, obviously, you're going to be running in a by-election. So if you're elected,
00:36:21.780you won't need to wait until the next time, the next general election to
00:36:24.260take your seat in Ottawa. And I'm just curious, if you are successful and you do go to Ottawa,
00:36:29.300what are the issues you want to champion that you'll specifically bring to the table? Because
00:36:33.140obviously you've had in your career opportunities, I mean, in talk radio to weigh in on anything and
00:36:37.680everything, but what are the things you want to be a real advocate for at the federal level?
00:36:41.520Well, I mean, it's not a coincidence that I did my speech on housing yesterday, because that is
00:36:45.320a real passion of mine. Not just because of the obvious need for more housing and people to be
00:36:50.440able to move out, start a family, the generational aspects of it too. Should I be elected? I'll be
00:36:55.700one of the youngest people in caucus. I may be the only or one of the only people who rents and
00:36:59.940doesn't own a home. There's a lot of my life perspective that I'd like to bring to the table
00:37:03.900that I think represents a large portion of the population that currently doesn't have as much
00:37:08.240of a voice as I think we deserve. So the generational aspect of things is very important
00:37:12.620to me as well. But also just to what I was saying about sort of big corporations, like
00:37:16.920traditionally conservatives have been very focused on government overreach and rightfully so. We
00:37:21.200totally get it. But there is corporate overreach in our society right now, perhaps more than we've
00:37:25.840had in a long, long time. And I do really want to bring that to the table. Those who are familiar
00:37:30.400with my work, whether it's my columns in the National Post, the Toronto Sun, maybe people
00:37:34.400listen to my radio show, they know that I believe in standing up for the average working and middle
00:37:39.700class man and woman in this country. And whether it's the government or it's corporations not
00:37:44.160treating those people right, I want to push back. So that's something I really want to bring. And I
00:37:48.180do think that that's part of a new fresh voice for conservative politics. Young people, we are
00:37:52.540bringing a voice to the corporate overreach problem that I don't think conservatives of
00:37:56.560the past have necessarily been concerned about. Jamil Javani, thank you very much.
00:38:00.280Thank you, Andrew. Appreciate it. Always a pleasure.
00:38:02.760That was Jamil Javani, former media commentator. Now he is a conservative candidate in Durham,
00:38:09.220running in the seat vacated by former conservative leader Aaron O'Toole. And it was interesting at
00:38:15.600the end of that there, which I mean, again, has taken on a bit of a new meaning in the day since
00:38:20.060we did that interview, he talked about being potentially one of the few or only MPs if he's
00:38:25.500elected who rents. And that's notable because Arielle Kayabaga, who is a Liberal member of
00:38:32.120Parliament, she's a bit younger than Jamil, I think she's 32 or 33, she said in an interview
00:38:37.300this week that she, despite being an MP making like nearly $200,000 a year, cannot afford a home.
00:38:44.740Now, the Conservatives have mentioned that because I think it is pretty noteworthy. If you have
00:38:48.980Liberals that are saying, hey, even I can't afford to buy a house, so maybe the government
00:38:53.440needs to get serious about housing. And she accused the Conservatives of mocking her for it,
00:38:58.100which was actually nowhere near what was happening. The Conservatives were holding her up
00:39:03.080as, I think, justifiably so an illustrative example of how bad things are. If someone who
00:39:09.300makes $200,000 a year cannot afford a house, then how is anyone making $40,000 a year going to? How
00:39:21.120is anyone making $60,000? I mean, you even have two people making $80,000 a year, which is putting
00:39:27.440them on the upper end of middle class. That's $160,000 household income. So if Ariel Cayabaga
00:39:32.800is accurate here, that $190,000 a year, you can't buy a house. Two people with that, which will
00:39:38.020have more costs because there are two of them, perhaps a second car, more groceries, and so on.
00:39:43.540And this is a very real issue. So Trudeau did this announcement on housing yesterday
00:39:47.480in which he basically re-announced something that had already been announced and hoped that
00:39:51.940this re-announcement of the original announcement would lead people to think that housing is being
00:39:56.500taken seriously. And it was a very localized announcement. I'm using the word announce like
00:40:01.640seven times because the liberals seem to think that just announcing over and over
00:40:04.820is going to work. And now they've come out today. So I think they realized they stepped in it
00:40:10.320yesterday. They came out today with another policy proposal, which is that they're going to remove
00:40:15.380GST from the construction of new rental apartments. So, okay, yay, it's good policy,
00:40:21.900but talk about just barely scratching the surface of something when the issue is that no one is
00:40:29.200building to the extent that they need to be building. And this is where you get into what
00:40:34.200is going to be the defining issue of this generation, what is certainly going to be
00:40:38.560the defining issue of the next election. And I would also bring up the point here that it's a
00:40:43.260very difficult one, even if there is a conservative government or a, I mean, heaven forbid, an NDP
00:40:48.120government, a green government, a PPZ government, I mean, if there are any other government that
00:40:51.800wants to take housing seriously, it's going to be very difficult in four years to turn this around
00:40:57.640when it is such a deep-seated and, I would say, multi-pronged problem.
00:41:03.440So, yeah, you can talk about getting rid of the gatekeepers.