On today's show, we remember those whose only offense to those enemies of the west was living their life, and send our thoughts and prayers to those who have to relive this all the time. We also discuss the Conservative Party of Canada's recent convention in Quebec City, where Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took the stage to speak to conservative supporters.
00:02:24.740And, you know, at True North, we've always taken it a bit more seriously than I think
00:02:27.980some of the other media outlets in this country, just because it was, generally speaking,
00:02:32.880a sacrifice that we thought was important to honor and continue to do so.
00:02:36.740So it's always risky when you start the show off on such a somber note.
00:02:40.900But nevertheless, we now segue into the subjects of this show, which include overwhelmingly coverage from the last few days of the Conservative Convention.
00:02:51.980But I just want to, before we get to that, let you know that if you watch this show live, we are at a new time slot right now.
00:02:58.340We are at 11 a.m. Mountain Time, 1 p.m. Eastern Time.
00:03:02.040And assuming this goes well, which you never know, this will be our new time for the foreseeable future as we also shift into a bit of a new schedule.
00:03:09.620So the Andrew Lawton Show is now going to be daily Monday to Thursday.
00:03:13.660We'll have a little bit more content to fill, but hopefully we'll rise up to the challenge, rise up to the task, and you'll enjoy it.
00:03:20.100I had the chance in Quebec City where I was covering the Conservative Convention to speak to a number of True North supporters, people who listen to this show.
00:03:29.580It was an absolute pleasure, and thank you so much for all the kind words.
00:03:33.040Although I must say, I've reached a bit of a weird point in my life where I'm the kind, like there was this one situation where, I hope this doesn't sound wrong, where like this lovely, lovely, lovely young lady came up to me and, you know, she was been waiting, very, very kindly and politely waiting, you know, to talk to me while I was chatting with someone else.
00:03:52.780And, you know, that person ended and I went over and she came up and she's like, I just want to say my mom is a huge fan of yours.
00:03:59.880And I'm like, oh, well, I think that's a compliment.
00:04:02.560It's always weird because it's like you never want someone to come up to you and be like, hey, someone I know is a fan of yours.
00:04:07.940But nevertheless, it was a lot of fun.
00:04:11.920This is a bit of a turning point for the Conservatives.
00:04:15.480This is now the one year anniversary of Pierre Paulyev being elected leader of the Conservative Party of Canada.
00:04:21.520It was the first opportunity he's had since then to really speak to conservative members and by extension to kind of set the tone for how he wants to speak to Canadians.
00:04:31.620And the one thing that I'll say that makes this not particularly newsworthy is that there wasn't anything bold that came out of this that was a departure from what Pierre Polyev has already been talking about.
00:04:42.300I've remarked in the past that one of the things he's doing quite well compared to, say, Aaron O'Toole and Andrew Scheer, his predecessors, is not pivot from his leadership messaging to the general campaign messaging.
00:04:56.480He's still talking about the CBC and the need to be funded.
00:04:59.420He's still talking about a lot of these things that were really red meat issues for his base.
00:05:03.960But he's added on top of that, of course, a bit more in the way of broadly appealing subjects like housing and affordability.
00:05:10.280And this pervasive message in his campaigning now, the common people, common sense for the common people, the idea that working class folks across this country are not ordinary, but are extraordinary.
00:05:21.800This is something we heard from Pierre and also from his wife, Anna, who I think is very quickly emerging, if she hasn't already, as a standout in this field.
00:05:31.200But here's where things get interesting.
00:05:32.980It wasn't just about 3,000 members of the conservative community in Canada coming together in Quebec City.
00:05:39.120There were also a handful of liberals there and not just like random liberals who live in the neighborhood and wanted to pop by to see what the fuss was about, but like high ranking liberal cabinet ministers who were dispatched to Quebec City to be glorified hecklers and protesters at this event.
00:05:56.820one of them was Stephen Gilbeau, who at like, I think it was at nine o'clock or something on
00:06:01.260Saturday, we got word that he was going to be doing some press conference at 1030. And we're
00:06:05.900like, that sounds a bit odd. And, you know, we walk out to where it's supposed to be. And I kid
00:06:10.500you not, there was like a long black stretch limo outside. And I'm like, surely this can't be how
00:06:16.360Stephen Gilbeau is showing up to the Conservative convention. It wasn't. I don't know who came in
00:06:20.180the stretch limo, but it wasn't Stephen Gilbeau. And in any event, he showed up a little while
00:06:25.040later and started speaking about how, you know, the conservatives don't have a plan for the climate
00:06:29.540and Polyev has been the leader for a year and still doesn't have a plan for the climate and,
00:06:33.980you know, yada, yada, yada. And I asked him a couple of questions. I mean, the first one I
00:06:38.360asked him was about why Canada is the one that has to go into energy poverty and why Canadians have to
00:06:45.700when we are less than 2% of global emissions, like 1.7, 1.8 usually, and China's investing in coal
00:06:53.620and re-industrializing and ramping up production.
00:08:07.040I think he meant ignorance, but I won't hold that against him.
00:08:09.520He doesn't even look at me as he's making this accusation, by the way.
00:08:12.320But the total ignorance that I have on climate change.
00:08:16.260Well, I'm actually not ignorant to this.
00:08:17.960Now, unlike him, I am not pretending that I am an expert on this field, but I listen to the experts and I pay attention to it.
00:08:24.620And the Liberals, who time and time again tell us we need to tax our way out of the climate problems, have failed to answer the question of why BC, which has had a carbon tax for, what, 15 years now, has failed to stop wildfires with it.
00:08:38.420Why Canada, which has now had a national carbon tax for four years, has failed to stop wildfires and extreme weather events with it.
00:08:45.180And more importantly, why Canadians should bear the brunt of this.
00:08:49.400And his answer to that question, which I won't make you suffer through it like I did,
00:08:53.720was basically that, well, you know, how can we go to China and expect them to do stuff
00:09:13.960But it wasn't just Stephen Gilboa. Marcy Ian showed up and was touting how like 45 different feminist organizations were all descending on Quebec City. And they were all there to, you can probably see it for yourself. I mean, there weren't actually 45 different groups. I saw like nine people outside with a banner saying they're against the patriarchy and against colonialism and all of that.
00:09:37.480But Marcy Ian was there, you know, the grandmaster of this protest in some way.
00:09:42.380And then a little later on, Pablo Rodriguez came by.
00:13:32.640They became the, you know, mascots, the hecklers, the paid protesters, the agents, provocateur, for no apparent reason, just showing up to protest.
00:13:43.360Now, listen, I had some people at the convention asking me, like, what on earth is Gilbo doing here?
00:13:47.780I said, you know, would you rather him here or in Ottawa?
00:13:49.560And everyone said, you know what? Yeah, the more time he's spending not legislating, the better things are for the country.
00:13:54.920But it was really a fascinating thing and not exactly the sign of a party that is feeling confident about his position.
00:14:02.120The backdrop for all of this is that right now the Liberals are just plummeting in the polls.
00:14:08.620The Liberals are pulling in like 24, 25 percent.
00:14:11.840The abacus poll last week had the Conservatives at 40 percent.
00:14:15.180And, well, yes, polling is not at all a perfect thing that we should all expect to predict future outcomes.
00:14:21.660Polling has been very consistently showing the Conservatives riding high.
00:14:26.560And it's telling that the Liberals have not managed to adapt to this.
00:14:30.740This was Pablo Rodriguez's response to Pierre Polyev's hour-long speech.
00:14:36.780The bigger picture here, though, what was your takeaway from the speech?
00:14:39.920It was long. It was a very long speech.
00:14:42.400with not much new, quite a traditional, I would say, Republican, you know, far-right speech,
00:14:50.200where he confirmed that he's going to cut that. We know that he's going to cut a lot.
00:14:54.300We don't know where, right? Is that going to be the seniors, dental care? We don't know.
00:14:59.260We have hoped that he had the courage to say where he was going to cut,
00:15:02.980but at least we know that he's going to cut, and we'll see.
00:15:07.020Now, the one thing, and I actually wish the cameras had captured this when they were
00:15:11.740doing that Pablo Rodriguez event but if you I don't know if it's possible to put up a still
00:15:16.520of that or not if not it's no big deal but if you were to like stare at Pablo Rodriguez and turn to
00:15:22.280the right you'd see the the window of the building there right inside that window there was a two and
00:15:29.740like 20 minute long lineup for people to see Pierre Polyev and get a picture with him after
00:15:35.660Pierre Polyev spoke he went and started taking pictures with anyone and everyone who came by
00:15:40.340And that went for like almost two and a half hours after he finished speaking.
00:15:45.360So Pablo Rodriguez is up there saying, oh, yeah, you know, the conservatives are far right.
00:15:49.640And then you look over and there are literally thousands of people that were like so enamored by what Pierre Polyev was saying and doing that they wanted to get a picture with him.
00:15:58.160Now, obviously, a bit of a sample bias there.
00:16:00.000Those people are delegates or attendees of a conservative convention.
00:16:05.080The liberals are still using the same talking points they've always used when Polyev is riding high.
00:16:11.060I mean, look, if he's the far right guy, what does that say about the 40 percent of Canadians, many of whom may have been previous liberal voters that are saying they would cast their ballot with that guy?
00:16:23.040Now, the next day, Rodriguez came back and he was doing like they they don't like that Kian Bextie and Rebel News and True North were able to ask him questions.
00:16:34.340So when he came back, they did this like series of one-on-one interviews where they would just like with French outlets do a one-on-one and no scrumming, which is when other people jump in. And the thing about it that I found interesting is afterwards, I like, you know, just like try to throw a question at him. And then he was walking away and his press secretary tried to like hold me back under the, oh, why don't you give me your number and we'll arrange an interview as he's walking away. And I'm like, I'm not falling for this one.
00:17:01.600And so, like, we ran after him and we didn't really get anything good out of it.
00:17:05.380But I did ask him to try to get an answer.
00:17:07.740What is it about the speech that was far right?
00:17:31.600And when you look at what Canadians are seeing right now, and by the way, like, it was difficult to not get caught up in the enthusiasm and excitement, which is true of any party convention. I mean, maybe the NDP conventions are a little bit more lethargic, but you're seeing people that are out there that are excited and enthusiastic.
00:17:48.800But this was the first time in, I'd say, eight years that I've seen a level of enthusiasm from conservative Canadians.
00:17:57.960Like conservative Canadians tolerated Andrew Scheer's leadership.
00:28:17.420Number two, this is a huge waste of money.
00:28:19.840On top of the $1.2, $1.3 billion, like you said, Andrew,
00:28:24.100it's around $600 million or so on top of that for journalists outside of the CBC.
00:28:30.680When you do the math, that breaks down to about $13,000 per reporter coming from the government.
00:28:39.100And so for folks who are kind of curious, if you've never worked in journalism, do a little thought process.
00:28:44.400Imagine your reporter on Parliament Hill, 13 grand of your paycheck and maybe the very existence of your job counts on that minister.
00:28:54.440How on earth are you supposed to hold him to account, ask those tough questions like you were just a few minutes ago and shove a mic in his face?
00:29:02.900It's human nature. You're not going to be able to do that.
00:29:06.060You cannot call that game straight if you're a ref taking bets on the side.
00:29:10.420So now, lo and behold, C-18 is just another way for them to extort money, in this case from a private company, directly into government coffers that happen to be labeled CBC.
00:29:21.800so again this is why folks need to really pay attention to this yeah and you see it especially
00:29:28.180with radio canada like they won't stop reporting on pierre polyev's pledge to defund cbc and in
00:29:33.620their case they're trying to figure out what it's going to mean for them will radio canada get a
00:29:37.620little bit of a carve out and there's a bit of a dispute even within the conservatives about this
00:29:41.640like quebec conservative mps are saying oh no radio canada is fine pierre polyev himself hasn't
00:29:46.920said that but it is interesting and you're right these journalists who are writing about their own
00:29:51.560future and their own livelihood here and not really acknowledging that that's what they're
00:29:56.060doing. And I think it's the same with this bailout as well. You're right. Yeah, they have to at least
00:30:00.700they should declare at the very least, they should declare right up front that either, you know,
00:30:06.040whatever company it is, company ABC or reporter job, this is subsidized by the state, is subsidized
00:30:13.060by the government. This reporter is counting with their paycheck on this government's largesse.
00:30:18.760Otherwise, how are you supposed to cover that straight?
00:30:22.140And we also need to keep in mind that this is a massive waste of money.
00:30:26.380And it also, when combined with the government paying journalists, when combined to something like C11, which is a form of online censorship,
00:30:34.400we are in really uncharted territory here when it comes to free expression and a free press here in Canada.
00:30:41.760One other issue I wanted to bring up, not the same in terms of dollar value.
00:30:45.900But again, when we're talking about government waste, there is a bit of a connection here.
00:30:50.040This came from your colleague, Ryan Thorpe, over at the CTF this morning.
00:30:54.400Apparently, the federal government has spent $420,000 since 2018 subsidizing edible crickets.
00:31:12.520You probably don't like me eating beef or whatever it is your thing is.
00:31:15.240So yes, this is a huge waste of money. It's over $400,000. And this is all that we've seen so far. There's probably plenty below the surface that we're not aware of. $400,000 since 2018. And what this is, is it's basically corporate welfare, okay, being handed out to what they call cricket farms. And I've seen videos of these things, Andrew, they're like these massive buildings, and I can just imagine the noise. And they're all in these little habitats, right? And you turn them into paste.
00:31:44.920Now, I have to be clear. They've been putting crickets and bugs and stuff into pet food for
00:31:50.040years. It's a high protein thing. You're putting it into kibble. Who cares? If you do care,
00:31:56.600whatever. But it's going into pet food. This is different. This is $400,000 to turn crickets into
00:32:03.340powder and paste and stuff so humans can eat it. Again, if you want to do that and you want to make
00:32:10.400a company doing that, give her. But don't take dollars from taxpayers. We're opposed to corporate
00:32:15.880welfare, and this was definitely something that jumped out at us. But no, it isn't just paste. I
00:32:21.900was reading from the report over at taxpayer.com that a portion of it has been earmarked for
00:32:28.500cricket steaks, sausages, and falafels. Now, I have not seen a cricket steak, a cricket sausage.
00:32:35.860I could kind of imagine a cricket falafel but it's like a falafel is already vegetarian like
00:32:40.940why do you need crick peas instead of chickpeas in falafel it's no longer vegetarian though
00:32:46.260if you make it yeah you're right you're you're making it you're making it worse you're like
00:32:50.320adding you're adding something in it that like even the vegans wouldn't have cared
00:32:53.760about this is one of the funny little secrets just to let people in on it when they're talking
00:32:59.140about you know cows and horses because I was raised around cows and horses being you know
00:33:03.300herbivores. Actually, they eat a lot of bugs, like so many bugs on their grass that they're
00:33:09.460kind of omnivorous. But yeah, all this is to say, I think what they do, and this is just me winging
00:33:14.020it. I think they take the paste and they shape it into a steak. And then they must like, I don't
00:33:21.540know, use some sort of binder in order to keep it looking like a steak shape. I will say, Andrew,
00:33:27.540I sent your producer this and maybe we can chat about it next time. This isn't just about product
00:33:32.420producing food. I don't know how much money we spent on this but last year my kid was sent home
00:33:38.180from public elementary school in British Columbia with four pages of cricket propaganda for him to
00:33:45.540fill out as an assignment and it was chatting about this massive grocery store chain, the same
00:33:50.980one we gave millions of dollars to to pay for refrigerators, putting cricket powder and cricket
00:33:56.340paste on the shelves and why this is the wave of the future for farming and actually super funny
00:34:02.100how ai is helping to raise these crickets like it pushed all my buttons and it's like it's like
00:34:09.220they've literally just like they've taken like the wef agenda for the year and they took like
00:34:15.300every buzzword and came up with something like let's take crickets and throw in ai and we'll
00:34:20.420throw in censorship and find like a battery powered vehicle and we'll just like it's the
00:34:24.260battery-powered uh cricket plant with the recipes made up by ai it makes them happy klaus schwab
00:34:29.540comes out and you believe the bugs they could have made it so that the carbon tax goes up to
00:34:36.180in conjunction with building these barns but really i want to know and i put in foys on this
00:34:41.380stuff and it's super hard to get information out of the government uh ryan thorpe our investigative
00:34:45.860journalist is brilliant at this way smarter than me on that stuff and so i've sent him i sent him
00:34:50.580a screenshot from when i was so mad i took a picture of it with my phone so we're going to
00:34:54.420find out how much money we spent on getting this and this was in the public school curriculum of
00:34:58.580elementary school in bc for folks watching i would be super curious if your kid was sent home with
00:35:03.620cricket propaganda we'd like to know too yeah i would also like get very nervous if they put
00:35:09.460falafel in the school cafeteria there as well given that we know there's like apparently a
00:35:13.380new recipe for it well uh chris sims from the canadian taxpayers federation we will see you
00:35:18.420next monday read your labels folks thanks all right thanks for that chris uh we had the opportunity
00:35:25.140to sit down with a bunch of interesting people
00:35:27.120at the Conservative Convention in Quebec City,
00:37:11.040And you fast forward to now where you are representing the Conservatives in York Centre.
00:37:16.140It was certainly, I think, a vindication for you that what you were saying was not outside of political discourse.
00:37:23.140But I'm curious how your journey has been in that regard.
00:37:27.040Of course, it's been a very challenging couple of years.
00:37:29.460Nevertheless, we're here now in Quebec with 3,000 energized conservatives looking forward to winning the next election and putting our country back on the right path.
00:37:40.720And so, again, as I said, I'm very gratified to Pierre and the management team and York Centre voters for welcoming me back, representing Conservative ideals and fighting for affordability, for freedom and everything that our party stood for.
00:38:34.800during my nomination i i spoke to countless conservative and non-conservative members
00:38:40.960and the feeling is that we desperately need a change the york center is located in north toronto
00:38:48.800housing's unaffordable pricing's unaffordable food's unaffordable and i i think that
00:38:57.040york center and the country as a whole are ready to embrace change and that means electing pierre
00:39:03.360Pierre Polyev is our next prime minister in a strong conservative majority.
00:39:06.700The Conservatives have gone through in the last few years some pretty significant changes.
00:39:11.300I mean, in the span of just a few years, you've had three leaders, I mean, interim leaders on top of that.
00:39:17.240But you've had Andrew Scheer, Aaron O'Toole, now Pierre Polyev.
00:39:20.480You've had two unsuccessful elections in 2019 and 2021, in both of which the Conservatives had the popular vote.
00:39:27.160But as we know, that and a couple of dollars gets you.
00:39:29.260Well, actually, a couple of dollars doesn't get you anything now.
00:39:30.920But the thing is, the Conservatives have gone down this road before where Justin Trudeau is dealing with popularity issues, but the Conservatives have still lost.
00:39:39.940So why do you think it's going to be different this time?
00:39:42.000What is it you see in the party or in Pierre Polyev that makes you think they can do it this time?
00:39:48.640I think, first of all, we have to have the courage to be ourselves.
00:39:53.540And without question, Pierre has articulated a vision for the Conservative Party that is resonating with Canadians.
00:39:59.580And that means that we should not be afraid to speak about issues such as the carbon tax,
00:40:05.640something that the former leader shied away from.
00:40:09.420With respect, all the carbon tax does is compound on misery and price.
00:40:16.680And so I look forward to axing the tax.
00:40:20.640Also, it's clear that Pierre's message is resonating with young Canadians.
00:40:24.440You know, an average detached house in the 416 is $1.6 million.
00:43:12.260but we are resolute and we have to remain positive and optimistic about the
00:43:20.120resiliency and the character of Canadians. Trust Canadians to welcome our
00:43:30.080message of hope and turn this country around. York Centre Conservative
00:43:34.780candidate Roman Babber, thank you very much. It's good to be with you Andrew.
00:43:38.300That was Roman Babber. Now, I actually wanted to write a bit of a column about Roman. So I don't want to give too much of my thoughts about him right now. But I will say that.
00:43:49.300do i have audio now this is the great thing about oh that's very weird for whatever reason
00:43:57.620in this live system it reverted my microphone to being my iphone which is like
00:44:02.800four feet away from me anyway uh sorry but i got very i got very confused there i was just about
00:44:08.540to make like a somber serious point start again i call him this but i want to say about roman
00:44:16.420Baver, when he was first running provincially, I didn't know him. I knew of him. And when he was
00:44:20.820first elected, I never heard anything from him that I would have said was all that impressive
00:44:24.980or unique. And in fact, I had always, I don't want to say written him off, but I'd always viewed him
00:44:28.580as being one of the more moderate members of the progressive conservative party in Ontario. And
00:44:34.660maybe he is, or maybe he isn't. I fully, fully prepared to admit that I might've taken too
00:44:39.820simplistic a view but when he stood up to Doug Ford and spoke out against lockdowns and when he
00:44:47.860spoke out against restrictions he did so at tremendous personal risk because he basically
00:44:54.380ended at the time his political career he became an independent and it's virtually impossible not
00:45:01.240impossible as we learned in 2022 to win election as an independent but very very difficult and he
00:45:07.500took the principled position, the principled stand and had a tremendous risk and burden that he took
00:45:13.640up as a result. And when he ran for the leadership of the Conservatives, I never thought he was going
00:45:17.160to win, but I thought he had deserved a place to be there. And the fact that he's being welcomed
00:45:21.280into a mainstream political party, once again, I think is tremendously valuable. And I'm, and I'm
00:45:26.900so pleased to say that I was wrong about him because we do need people who are courageous in
00:45:31.600politics. And Roman Babber absolutely is one of those people, even if you disagree or agree with
00:45:36.840him on a particular issue. So he was there when it counted. And that's more than can be said for
00:45:41.620a lot of other politicians, certainly in Ontario. That does it for us. We will be back tomorrow in
00:45:46.640our new time slot, 1 p.m. Eastern or 11 a.m. Mountain. That means 2 p.m. Atlantic, 2.30 p.m.
00:45:53.060Newfoundland. It is noon central. And just to finish the whole landscape of Canadian time
00:45:59.860zones here, it is an early 10 a.m. for those of you in British Columbia. And I met many of you