Liberals still have no message, but plenty of gaffes
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Words per minute
181.53737
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9
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Hate speech
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Summary
Another day, another Liberal gaffe, another candidate who fell in love with Alberta after visiting the Calgary Stampede, and yet another politician who calls the Taliban her brothers. In this episode, True North's Andrew Lawton takes a closer look at it all.
Transcript
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This is the Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by True North.
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Coming up another day, another Liberal campaign gaffe,
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exclusion from debate, and a maverick candidate who fell in love with Alberta
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Hello and welcome to Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show.
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This is the Andrew Lawton Show here on True North.
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I've lost count of what day we're at in the campaign,
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And I'm not sure the Liberals have had a single good day in the entirety of the campaign.
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They've had days where they've been trying, you know,
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by trying to make it seem like Aaron O'Toole is going to force everyone to pay for health care
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or trying to pretend that Aaron O'Toole, who keeps saying he's pro-choice,
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And one of the greatest levelers of that accusation
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was Liberal candidate and Liberal Minister for Women and Gender Equality,
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Now, Miriam Monsef, you know where I'm going with this,
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if you've been paying attention to the news in the last 24 hours,
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Miriam Monsef has not exactly endeared herself to people who,
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you know what, opposed the terrorist group, the Taliban.
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Here's what she said as a minister, not even as a Liberal candidate,
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as a minister at a government briefing yesterday.
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I want to take this opportunity to speak to our brothers, the Taliban.
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We call on you to ensure the safe and secure passage of any individual
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We call on you to immediately stop the violence, the genocide, the femicide,
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the destruction of infrastructure, including heritage buildings.
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We call on you to return immediately to the peacekeeping table,
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and to ensure women and minorities' voices are part of that discussion
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I mean, I don't even need to editorialize on that one.
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This is a woman who calls the Taliban our brothers
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before going on to talk about all the terrible things they do
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and all the terrible things that they really want to do
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from femicide to a lack of rights and all of that.
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where someone is made to look like they did something
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No, I think there's actually more intelligence in AI
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But the reality is, this is what she actually said.
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Now, thankfully, an astute reporter soon after pointed it out to her
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In your statement, you referred to the Taliban as our brothers.
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Is this an indication of the government positioning,
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The Taliban are a terrorist group, and yet they claim to be Muslims.
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We're calling on them to immediately allow for the safe passage
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of any individual who is in Afghanistan out of the country.
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We are calling on them to immediately cease the violence, the femicide, the genocide,
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the rapes, the lootings, and to return immediately to the peace negotiation table
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If they will ever be recognized as a legitimate party, this is the starting point.
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The reference to brothers is a cultural reference, of course,
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We are horrified that the hard-won gains of the past 20 years are at stake like this
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We are horrified that our women and men in uniform had to move forward with a difficult operation
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that was only made more difficult by their actions and deeply disappointed
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that their threats of ongoing violence have led to the international community,
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particularly the Americans, saying we're going to leave on the 31st due to these threats of violence.
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So she says, oh no, of course they're a terrorist group, and yeah, they're doing terrible things,
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and we don't like them, and it's just cultural.
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Well, one reporter, Tom Korski of Blacklock's Reporter,
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they do some fantastic work during parliament sessions and also during the election campaign,
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He jumped in and, as you'll hear, said, listen, I'm prepared to let you just take this back right now.
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Minister Monsef, I'd like to follow up on this brother business.
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Frankly, if there's some cultural nuance here, I'm not getting it.
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I've never heard you refer to a Muslim Canadian member of the Conservative Party as your brother.
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Everyone is aware of the Taliban's human rights atrocities.
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Could you just take that back, or do you really think the Taliban are our brothers?
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I think this whole situation is jarring, sir, that there are terrorists taking over my beloved ancestral land.
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In terms of the terminology, if you go to masjids across the country, Muslims refer to one another as brothers and sisters.
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So, you know, rest assured, I continue to believe deeply that the Taliban are a terrorist organization.
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We'll continue to protect women, Hazaras, Shias, Hindus, Sikhs.
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We'll continue to do everything we can to get as many people out of their grasp in Afghanistan.
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And we'll continue to do everything we can with our global partners to make sure that the hard-won gains of the past two decades are not lost to these individuals whose mandate is not to govern.
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Their mandate is to oppress and to kill, and we condemn that entirely.
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She was born in Iran, as a lot of you are familiar with.
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Her family fled Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.
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I do not believe for a second, lest there be any doubt, that she is pro-Taliban.
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I don't believe that she is actually one of these people that thinks they are her brothers.
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I think that this is showing her naivete and her attempts at making it look like something is happening that isn't actually happening.
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She's not covering her head, which is the only way most of these thugs will actually listen to a woman if they do at all.
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She's speaking to a Canadian audience and in doing so, pretending to speak to the Taliban.
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Pretending like she's making this dramatic appeal on behalf of Afghans and Canadians to the Taliban to get them to be nice to Canada.
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She's pretending to Canadians like she's actually doing something.
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Now, my view is if you're going to play the theatrical game, if you're going to engage in theatrics,
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Don't do the my brothers, our brothers, the Taliban shtick when you're not even speaking to them.
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And this idea that, oh, yeah, well, you know, brothers and sisters, this is just how we talk to each other.
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Well, there's a difference between, I'd say, Muslims talking to each other at a masjid and addressing a terrorist organization,
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a group, the government of Canada and Mariam Monsef view as a terrorist organization and for good reason.
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So the thing about this that I would argue people need to pay closer attention to is just the utter naivete
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of her not realizing how calling a terrorist group your brothers is anything but benign.
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And incidentally, Fatima Syed, who is a left-wing journalist and a Muslim woman herself, took aim at this.
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She tweeted out, and I thought this was very valuable.
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She said, there aren't a lot of Muslim political journalists in Canada,
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so I have to regrettably say something about Mariam Monsef.
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She says, fact, brothers, is a term of respect.
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False Muslims call the Taliban brothers opinion.
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Now, I actually think moving on is a little bit too abrupt a conclusion to take there,
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but I do take Fatima Syed's words here that, no, this is a term of respect.
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It's not just what you call a Muslim because you happen to be a Muslim.
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I don't remember anyone saying, oh, you know, my brother bin Laden or our brothers in ISIS.
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Because generally speaking, I would say all of us can agree.
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Those who are terrorists do not deserve any respect, cursory or otherwise.
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As a Christian, I know the term my brother in Christ, my sister in Christ.
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I would not use that to someone who was distorting and twisting my faith to pretend that it justified
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So this idea that, you know, we call them our brothers is just not even valid within the
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Muslim community from all of the commenting that I'm seeing here.
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But it's all the white liberals that are saying, oh, oh, you know, we have to be culturally
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And I was glad that Tom Gorski in his question took aim at that.
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He said, you know, maybe there's a cultural nuance I'm missing here.
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Well, even your own brothers in Islam and your sisters in Islam are pointing out, Minister
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And the idea that she is speaking to the Taliban, the idea that her words carry any weight there
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It's not Canadian and it's actually a couple of months old.
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It's not something that's come about in the U.S. withdrawal period of the last few weeks
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But a female journalist who was forced to cover her hair for this interview was speaking
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with a couple of Taliban commanders who had said that, yes, of course, there are women's
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rights and we're going to have democracy and all of that.
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But she asks them if someone using their democratic right could vote a female into a position of
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They had to end the interview because they were laughing so hard.
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Would that still include women's rights and a democracy?
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So would you believe in the democratic vote, though?
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So would people be allowed to vote in women politicians?
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He couldn't even entertain the idea of a woman in a position of leadership, had to cut it,
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had to cut the filming, cut rolling, cut tape, whatever you want to call it, because that
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So the idea that Mary Amonsef is accomplishing anything right now in her feigned appeal to
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the Taliban is just not accurate, not even close to being accurate, not even close to being
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So no, I don't believe that she is a Taliban apologist.
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But I believe that she's so hell-bent on projecting this image of being the mediator,
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the peacemaker, that she is essentially deceiving Canadians by making it seem like she's accomplishing
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something here, and in doing so is so completely and utterly out of touch with how her words
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When we come back, more of The Andrew Lawton Show here on True North.
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I want to talk about debates for a couple of moments here, because we know that debates
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are, in a lot of cases, very key in accessing undecided voters.
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I do think it's possible that people overstate the influence of debates, certainly at the local
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I know a few years ago when I ran as a candidate in Ontario's provincial election, a vast majority
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of the people who tuned into debates had already made up their minds, certainly the ones
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that were held by community groups that had in-person attendance.
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It was just about who could bring out the biggest cheering squad.
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I do think at the national level, debates have a significant influencing effect, or can.
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At the very least, if you are on the stage, you are in the wheelhouse, as we say.
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In 2019, Maxime Bernier, the leader of the People's Party of Canada, was invited onto the debate stage.
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Fast forward two years, the PBC has been excluded from the official government-run leaders' debates
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Now, the commission had three criteria if you wanted to be invited, and they lay it out
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You have to have either elected someone under that party's banner in the last federal election,
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received at least 4% of the vote nationally in the last election, or are polling at 4% or
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above, based on a bunch of polls that they decide to curate in the current cycle.
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And the reason they do that is so that a new party could conceivably, if they capture
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a lot of support, find its leader in the debate.
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The PBC support has been getting stronger and stronger in the last week or so.
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There was one poll done by iPolitics with Main Street that found the PBC at 7% support.
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Now, that's massive, especially considering the party had what was at 1.6% of the vote
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Now, this is obviously an outlier because polls, generally speaking, you can't trust the ones
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that are really high or really low, but it would have brought the average up significantly.
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And if you look, the Leaders' Debates Commission said the PBC was only a fraction of a percent
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behind reaching that four percent threshold, if they had done their assessment a few days
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later, it's very likely the PBC would have made it in.
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Now, Maxime Bernier responded, and he didn't actually blame the commission.
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He said the commission laid out clear criteria.
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He blamed the political establishment cartel that have been hell-bent on saying the PBC do
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not have a place in the discussion, do not have a place in politics.
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But I wanted to actually shine a light here on Jagmeet Singh's response.
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Now, he was asked what he thought of Maxime Bernier not being invited, and this is what
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Mr. Singh, I'm wondering, should Maxime Bernier be able to participate in the National Leaders
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Debate, and do you think the criteria for this debate should be changed at all?
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No, and I've written a letter explaining how I do not believe he should be allowed.
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He's someone that is a post-science, that puts out very dangerous and divisive rhetoric,
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and is someone that is putting out messages that are discouraging the public health response
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I think it would be the wrong thing to do, very much the wrong thing to do, to give him
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a platform to promote very divisive and hurtful, frankly, messaging that is counter to science,
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I mean, it's also politically wrong, but actually classless.
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If I were Jagmeet Singh, this is what I would say.
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I don't think Canadians want what he's selling.
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I'm going to sell Canadians what we're selling, and I think they're all going to buy it more
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Now, I mean, you can word it more eloquently, but basically what Jagmeet Singh should have
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said is, screw it, I'm not afraid of Maxime Bernier.
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Instead, he goes down the censorship road of saying, oh, well, that's divisive and hateful,
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and we can't give that a platform, and I don't want Canadians to be exposed of it.
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Can you imagine in what world politicians should be able to say, I don't want Canadians
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Well, sure, every politician would say that, because if they're not exposed to the opposition,
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to the opposing candidates, the alternatives, then they're going to have to vote for you
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But it's terrifying that that's the default NDP position, censoring the opposition.
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Now, I have no doubt that the Liberals would be in the same boat.
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I didn't happen to hear Justin Trudeau ask this question, but the answer to that should
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have been, I'm not afraid of a little competition.
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Now, people can debate whether the rules are right or wrong.
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I'm inclined to believe if you look at the numbers that they set, those 4% thresholds,
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they were trying to include the Greens and exclude the PPC.
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They've got to put that number low enough that the Green Party can clear it, but high enough
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that all those pesky right-of-center parties don't make it in.
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Like, the Mavericks weren't even close because they're only running candidates in one province.
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So the idea of having 4% nationally would need a huge amount of support in just Alberta alone.
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So that clearly wasn't going to happen this time around.
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And look, I know that our audience is very split.
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We've got people that love Maxine Bernier, people that love Erin O'Toole, people that maybe
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don't love the Conservative Party of Canada, but trust it to achieve the goal,
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of ousting Trudeau more than they trust voting for another party.
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I get asked all the time, well, why aren't you doing enough to support X or support Y?
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I'm about the issues that I care about being advanced.
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And I like when people of any party or no party at all decide they're going to advance these things.
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When you have this Leaders Debates Commission, which effectively nationalizes the privilege
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of debating, it becomes the government's role to answer for it.
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If an individual media company said, ah, you know what, we want to draw a line here and
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these candidates are in and these candidates are out, it's a lot harder to object to it
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I do want to talk about the exception to that because at a local level in my city, there
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Rogers Television has, like in many communities across Canada, a local station in London, Ontario,
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which has always broadcasted debates for the candidates in the four London ridings.
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London West, London Fanshawe, London North Centre, and Elgin Middlesex, London.
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I don't share that with you because it matters to you, just to show off that I know them.
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But anyway, Rogers always broadcast these and the rule is they invite every candidate.
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If you're the communist, the PPC, the libertarian, the conservative, the liberal, they invite all
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of the registered candidates in a particular riding.
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Now, I broke a story yesterday, which I learned about from Mark Emery, who is the People's
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And what's interesting here is that Mark Emery tweeted out an invitation that he received
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And in the invitation, you can see it in his tweet there, they say that the venue at which
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they're holding these debates requires anyone attending, anyone going in person to be double
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Mark Emery says he's not vaccinated, he will not get vaccinated, and he's objecting to this
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idea that only fully vaccinated people can participate in Canadian democracy.
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And I spoke to another candidate who reached out actually after I was tweeting about the
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And he told me that, you know what, he has an exemption, so he's going to go and he thinks
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that they're going to have to honour that exemption.
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Now, what's going to happen, they're filming these things next week, I don't know, and
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perhaps they could backtrack on this altogether by moving the venue or doing it in some other
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But it is interesting, Ontario does not have a vaccine passport, Ontario does not have
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But now, if you want to be invited to the debate where you as a candidate would get to
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show off your message to voters, you have to be vaccinated if you want to be in the
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It's not clear if they're going to allow you to zoom in or participate remotely.
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And I reached out to Rogers, the broadcaster, and they have as of yet not responded to me
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And to be honest, at this point, I'm probably not holding out hope that they will.
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I've said I don't think it's right to stratify society.
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It's certainly not right to make it a requirement to be a candidate, which is effectively what
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I mean, no, he can be a candidate and he can go and knock on doors and be on the ballot.
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But they're saying that we're inviting every candidate.
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But if you're not vaccinated, you can't come into the building.
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Private business, private broadcaster, they can do what they want.
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And interestingly enough, the broadcast regulations require broadcasters to give equitable coverage
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And I remember when I did a daily radio show that you'd every now and then get someone from
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some no-name party that says you have to give me, you know, minute for minute equal coverage.
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I'm not sure if you could make a case that this is fair when you're excluding someone based
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I'm not approaching this from a legal perspective, but I'm saying that there could be a complaint
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But the reality is that the vaccine passport discussion in Canada and in Ontario specifically
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is one that eventually leaves situations like this where, sure, you are a
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But all of these barriers and roadblocks and restrictions make it impractical for you to
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You could even win and serve in parliament if you wanted.
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But if all of a sudden groups are saying, oh, you have to be vaccinated to be in this
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You have to be vaccinated to be able to communicate your message to voters.
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You are creating this segregated society where this choice that people are supposedly having
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about vaccination isn't really all that much of a choice at all.
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When we come back, more of The Andrew Lawton Show here on True North.
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Welcome back to The Andrew Lawton Show, Canada's most irreverent talk show here on True North.
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I don't know if I've mentioned this in the past.
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Obviously, with 338 ridings in Canada and more parties than I can count, we can't interview
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But I also, at the same time, know that sometimes local candidates are a tremendous part of the
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They elect individual members of parliament at the local level.
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So what I've decided to do on this show in the next few weeks of the campaign is find
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the ridings where something interesting is happening, individual candidates who have a
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great story to tell or who I think are personally interesting or compelling, and also just people
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that may come across our radar for whatever reason in the campaign.
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But I will say one of the interesting stories that I've come across has been that of Tarek
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El Naga, who's running for the Maverick Party in Banff, Airdrie.
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Now, as we'll talk about in a moment, Banff, Airdrie is shaking up to be a pretty crowded
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field with a lot of candidates who you'd think would be going after the same voters.
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But only one of them has moved to Alberta because they fell in love with the Calgary
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And that's Tarek El Naga, who joins me on the line now.
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Now, as I mentioned just in the introduction to this segment, I'm trying to find candidates
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across the country who have unique stories, unique perspectives on things.
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And when I learned about what brought you to where you are today, living in Alberta and
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also running as a Maverick Party candidate, I said, OK, I have to talk to him.
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I know you became a citizen about five years ago.
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But tell me what happened when you visited Alberta in 2010.
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So, yeah, I was here on vacation and I usually travel on vacation to go to a certain event,
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a sporting spectacle, a festival, a concert, etc.
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And I'd never been to a rodeo in my life and have zero animal experience.
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And I'd come to the Calgary Stampede in 2010 and I sat in the stands and I watched the rodeo
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and I thought, man, that's the coolest thing I've ever seen.
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I'm going to be on the other side of that fence.
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And something happened and I decided this was going to be it.
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I quit my job, sold the house, sold the car and made plans to move to Alberta to start
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Now, home at the time was the United Arab Emirates, which I'm guessing...
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So born and raised in Dubai, pretty much as city kids.
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What it is where the similarities are is actually it's a big oil and gas economy, too.
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And we could chat about that in a little while.
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But, you know, my corporate career as an engineer was relatively easy to transfer in
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the sense of I grew up in an oil and gas world.
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But my recreational, personal and now athletic life is completely different.
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I know Dubai is a city that has lots going on, very, very worldly.
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What was it about the Alberta rodeo experience that grabbed you and made you say, I want to
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move there in a way that other places you had visited hadn't up until that point?
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So the thing is, you know, Dubai is a pretty pristine city growing up.
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It's very, very pristine, very modern, very new and very Western, too, in a sense of like
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But there was something about the dirt, like something about the grit and the perseverance
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And that grit that you see very rarely anywhere else.
00:27:37.380
And I was like, man, there's something about that.
00:27:39.020
There's something about that value of like you see people getting bucked off pretty hard
00:27:45.900
So and there was a level of authenticity and the mystique of the Western culture, but also
00:27:52.700
the values that it represents that were really attractive.
00:27:55.840
And, you know, we talked about grit, but perseverance is another one.
00:28:01.960
And it's also a culture that's built around community and respect.
00:28:06.000
And those are all values that I'm like, this speaks to me, right?
00:28:08.860
And it's very different than everything I've used to.
00:28:11.080
And if there's one way to do it, then put myself entirely out of my comfort zone, Alberta
00:28:17.200
I know even though I agree with most Albertans on most things politically, I still get it
00:28:22.880
when I'm there being from Ontario, being viewed just as an Easterner.
00:28:26.520
And I'm curious how you felt in adjusting to being a Westerner.
00:28:30.880
If you felt immediately accepted or even to this day accepted as a Westerner in a group
00:28:35.620
of people that are very leery of even people that come from cities, let alone from another
00:28:43.060
Andrew, I'll tell you, the reception was amazing.
00:28:45.560
So I did three things on my first three days in Alberta.
00:28:51.080
And in the first three days, I bought a pair of cowboy boots.
00:28:54.200
I bought a set of power tools and I bought a pickup truck.
00:28:57.100
And I thought, you know, I've got my Alberta starter pack ready here.
00:29:00.920
But now you fast forward and the pickup trucks are like the things that are under attack now.
00:29:09.080
But then on the fourth day, I reached out to the local Ag Society in Airdrie here.
00:29:13.400
And I said, hey, I want to get into the Western way of life.
00:29:16.840
And then instantly doors started opening where I had volunteer opportunities to be at the
00:29:21.860
back end of a rodeo, learned how to ride, learned how to drive tractor, how to drive combine,
00:29:28.780
I can tell you after eight or nine years of being here, there isn't a rodeo I could go
00:29:33.520
in a 500 kilometer radius where I don't know at least 200 people there and I feel 100% at
00:29:44.100
Just recently, the Western Horse Review, which is the biggest equestrian magazine in Canada,
00:29:49.360
reached out and did an interview and featured me on the cover.
00:29:54.420
You know, it's just exceptional the level of doors that are open here.
00:29:57.940
And I will say this, as long as you come with a level of authenticity and respect around
00:30:05.380
Like it's a very inclusive, very welcoming community.
00:30:10.800
What it is, is are you willing to put in the hard work and live the way of life?
00:30:16.020
Like I've never once, never once in nine years of being here ever felt on the outside.
00:30:22.320
I know that you became, as we mentioned, a citizen in 2016, but you're also identifying
00:30:27.920
with a party that is very much Albertan over Canadian, a lot of people would argue.
00:30:32.920
And I'm wanting you to explain, if you can, about that dynamic, because you've talked about
00:30:37.440
in other materials and online, this thing that a lot of Canadians who are from Ontario
00:30:43.220
and Quebec and BC don't get, which is this Western alienation.
00:30:47.040
But I'm curious how you first, first off, acknowledge this was a thing and why you wanted
00:30:53.100
to go where you are now, which is actually running as a candidate for this party.
00:31:00.900
And one, you know, we're a West focus party rather than just Alberta.
00:31:05.280
So the four Western provinces, I think Manitoba, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and BC.
00:31:08.660
But this comes from my professional life where I'm in oil and gas.
00:31:14.380
And very quickly, within the first 10 minutes, and I grew up in the Middle East.
00:31:25.020
It was Saddam invaded Kuwait for their oil resources.
00:31:27.580
And I remember my parents taping down the window seams because they were worried about a
00:31:32.900
biological attack the night before Gulf War I started.
00:31:35.800
And then so very quickly, you learn that oil is a precious commodity.
00:31:40.700
And then I move here and we're given the gift of the third biggest, largest, third largest
00:31:45.080
resource or third largest oil resources rather in the world.
00:31:59.340
Yet that's the resource that provides wealth and prosperity to build all the social programs
00:32:06.260
So that's, you know, our health care systems, our education systems, our social support systems,
00:32:13.060
And I looked at that and I said, we are getting completely battered.
00:32:21.180
80% of Canada's wealth is generated in the West.
00:32:28.420
The East continues to take from that wealth, but shuts down our industries.
00:32:35.240
Either you, we have trade barriers within our own country.
00:32:38.280
I mean, heck, you couldn't bring in a case of wine from BC into Alberta.
00:32:42.680
So we've got trade barriers within our own country.
00:32:45.520
So the question becomes either those trade barriers open up and it's a fair trading system
00:32:49.920
within Canada, or we start to say, well, that wealth that you're taking, let's keep it
00:32:56.420
here because as it is, our industry has been battered over the last eight or nine years
00:33:02.240
So, I mean, a long answer, but the reason why I'm looking at a West-only party is I've
00:33:08.900
always, and this is no secret, it's on the internet and so on.
00:33:11.780
I've always been, as soon as I was a Canadian citizen, a CPC supporter.
00:33:16.680
And the CPC, well, we've seen what the 2019 election looks like, but there's all these
00:33:21.460
spending commitments that they continue to pander to Quebec for.
00:33:24.380
And then the straw that broke the camel's back and really why the Maverick party is
00:33:29.580
So Aaron O'Toole comes in with his own carbon levy.
00:33:32.040
There's four major industries in my writing here, oil and gas, agriculture, tourism, and
00:33:37.420
aviation, all massively impacted by a carbon tax.
00:33:44.300
But Andrew, I think a carbon tax, it's naive to think that that's what's going to save the
00:33:47.920
You know, so, and all it does is it punishes our industries and then continues to support
00:33:58.160
If they're not going to produce in Alberta, they're going to move somewhere else.
00:34:01.700
Or it shocks me that we still buy 60 to $65 million a day of foreign oil a day in Canada
00:34:09.880
Let's talk about your writing for a moment, because the Banff Airdrie is shaping up to
00:34:17.600
You've got a conservative with a very strong margin in 2019 that's seeking re-election.
00:34:23.660
You've got a PPC candidate going after right-of-center voters.
00:34:27.140
You've got the Maverick party, which generally is going after right-of-center voters.
00:34:30.840
You've got an independent in Derek Sloan, who's going after generally right-of-center voters.
00:34:35.720
And even though that conservative support in 2019 for the CPC was very strong, is there
00:34:41.820
a risk that all of these people going forward saying that, you know what, we want to do
00:34:45.740
things differently than the conservative incumbent wants to do things, do you think that actually
00:34:49.520
risks someone getting in that is very similar to the things that you oppose, pro-carbon tax,
00:35:00.080
And I'll say, one, let's celebrate that it's a democracy, because if you only had one choice,
00:35:05.720
So, you know, this is still the free West, and we celebrate that people have a choice.
00:35:11.260
Now, in terms of where my opponents are and the fellow candidates, you're absolutely right.
00:35:16.700
We have a long-serving conservative candidate, 13 years in office, who also happens to be,
00:35:21.280
and I'm not one to do character attacks on any of my opponents.
00:35:28.000
So we've got, who happens to be the chief whip of Aaron O'Toole.
00:35:32.220
Aaron O'Toole doesn't represent the conservative interests of the West anymore.
00:35:35.540
And this is the reason why you're starting to see more conservative options in that field,
00:35:40.620
is because, sadly, the conservative party, I think, is a lot.
00:35:43.640
Alberta and Saskatchewan could not get any more blue.
00:35:47.940
Every riding except one went blue in the last election.
00:35:52.320
But I look at it and I say, have they really taken our vote for granted?
00:35:55.920
And then for our loyalty, they give us a carbon tax.
00:35:59.340
Aaron O'Toole's first meeting with Premier Legault says,
00:36:03.600
This is a pipeline that's already 70% in the ground and will create jobs across Canada.
00:36:10.000
So that Quebec pandering is what really turned me off from the CPC.
00:36:16.560
So one is still a federalist party that is run by a Quebecer.
00:36:23.220
then they're still going to still have to need to rely on that Alberta wealth.
00:36:31.260
Now, the independent candidate, and I'll talk about myself.
00:36:34.300
So the independent candidate, he's never lived a day in the West,
00:36:38.880
never lived a day in this riding, never worked in a Western industry.
00:36:42.760
And if I was one of his constituents on Ontario, and I'd say,
00:36:47.800
I believe in your message, and I'm voting for you,
00:36:50.940
and suddenly you've abandoned me and moved halfway across the country
00:36:57.900
because you have a lot of your policies ready-made,
00:37:00.660
like Alberta's more open than everyone else, etc.,
00:37:03.000
and say, well, here it is, I would feel disappointed.
00:37:15.880
my constituents would say the exact same thing if I moved to Ontario, right?
00:37:20.760
And then the difference between the Maverick Party, Andrew,
00:37:24.800
is that we're the only party that speaks exclusively for the West.
00:37:28.840
We have zero votes to lose in Ontario and in Quebec and in the Maritimes.
00:37:33.420
And the premise of the party is incredibly simple and beautiful.
00:37:37.180
If it's good for the West, it's good for us.
0.98
00:37:40.920
My job is to speak only and exclusively for a Western constituent.
00:37:46.060
One of the challenges we see in politics in Canada
00:37:49.440
is that the only region that's really allowed to do that is Quebec.
00:37:53.080
And in a lot of cases, politicians encourage it
00:37:57.300
But when the West does it, you get people saying,
00:37:59.660
oh, yeah, they're just whining, they're just complaining, and all of that.
00:38:02.740
And I'm curious, though, when you see and hear the anger
00:38:07.400
and when I've been out there speaking, interviewing people,
00:38:11.160
Do you get a sense that people want to make things better?
00:38:17.540
Because I know even in the more independence-minded community in Alberta,
00:38:27.960
and others that say, okay, let's try to fix it first.
00:38:42.840
So we have what we call our twin track approach,
00:38:50.440
and also the general language that I use in my town halls with folks.
00:38:58.780
and say these are the things that we want to bring representation,
00:39:06.040
and have provincial autonomy on not just money,
00:39:15.760
this is a very different approach than any of the other federal parties.
00:39:23.320
Toronto dictates a lot of that policy for the rest of the country.
00:39:32.920
we want our own regional chief firearms officer,
00:39:35.420
which right now sits in Miramichi, New Brunswick,
00:39:40.080
administers firearms laws for the entire country.
00:39:56.700
but if our constituents say that is not enough,
00:40:05.840
and we have members that are still very attached to the maple leaf,
00:40:30.480
what our constituents want once track A is done.
00:40:45.520
an equal and well-represented partner in Canada,
00:40:55.900
then I am not afraid in any way, shape, or form
00:41:06.240
But you're saying you want to try to make it work first.
00:42:02.180
as I am joining the Conservative Party of Canada tour
00:42:07.680
But we will be back with another show early next week.
00:42:17.160
Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show.