00:00:00.000Welcome to Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show.
00:00:05.300This is the Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by True North.
00:00:10.600Coming up, Conservative leadership candidate Mark Dalton on firearms, freedom and vaccine mandates.
00:00:18.140The Andrew Lawton Show starts right now.
00:00:23.920Hello and welcome to Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show.
00:00:27.680This is the Andrew Lawton Show here on True North.
00:00:30.320It is fantastic to have you aboard as we head into the weekend and continue our look at Conservative Party of Canada leadership candidates.
00:00:38.860Now, it all started very soon after Aaron O'Toole's departure with Pierre Polyev announcing he was running.
00:00:45.100And then we had more and more candidates enter the race, Jean Charest and Leslyn Lewis.
00:00:50.120And we have some outsiders like Joseph Borgel and Bobby Singh.
00:00:54.600And we've got some lesser known but still very passionate Conservative MPs like Scott Aitchison and Mark Dalton.
00:01:00.620And then Leona Alislev, the former Liberal MP, then the Conservative Deputy Leader, now running for the Conservative leadership.
00:01:07.800So there's a lot happening in the race.
00:01:09.560We're trying to profile the candidates so you can hear from themselves in their own words who they are and what they stand for.
00:01:15.340And one of those names I just mentioned, Mark Dalton, is the Member of Parliament out in British Columbia for the riding of Pitt Meadows Maple Ridge,
00:01:24.140who launched his campaign last week with a very succinct video talking about a couple of big themes.
00:01:29.500Wanted to get Mark on the show and he joins me now.
00:02:46.780When you looked at the existing candidates and included in that list are some people that have very high name recognition, very high profile.
00:02:53.620What is it you felt you would add and offer as an alternative to members that they didn't already have from the existing pool of candidates?
00:03:01.120Well, you know, every one of us were different.
00:03:04.040You know, we're we're not just like, oh, this has this person has a checklist of all.
00:03:07.780You know, he has this policy, that policy or it's so we bring different things to the table and I bring something different to the table.
00:03:25.300I was a teacher, a public school teacher for many years.
00:03:29.180I've been in the teamsters for for a decade, working as a, you know, blue collar worker.
00:03:33.820So a lot of life experience I've lived across Canada wasn't like I was in the military myself as a reservist.
00:03:40.880So broad life experience didn't come from a wealthy home, know what it means to, you know, to struggle to to pay to pay the bills, to raise enough money to to support your family and go forward like that.
00:03:52.140So so I know we got some strong field, we do have a strong field out there, it's something I felt I needed to do, and I'm hoping to during this time to be able to introduce myself to Canadians and to those who are going to support the Conservatives and hope they'll see in me someone that that works together, that, you know, has stands on principle and I do stand on principle.
00:04:13.620I'm willing to stand up, but at the same time, what is really important for me is collaboration.
00:04:18.060I recognize that we need to remain a big tent party.
00:04:21.060Okay, we can't just say, well, this part is conservative, this part isn't, you know, I really, that's really important.
00:04:28.500Like I, I am a moderate social conservative, okay, that's part of my, my, my values, I think that resonates with a lot of millions of Canadians, a lot more than than even vote for conservatives from the ethnic communities for from foreign community from new immigrants from from right across, I think, and I think a lot of values, you don't even have to be a, you know, per se, a person of faith.
00:04:51.060But I think a lot of the things that I represent that are strong, important to me resonate with Canadians in general, because it just makes sense.
00:04:58.100So those are, those are, those are some of the reasons I'll throw out there.
00:05:01.980I'll get back to the social conservatism aspect, because I think that's important.
00:05:05.720But when you talk about courage, and principles, one thing that I found very notable is that in your launch video, it's just a little over two minutes, you said that you would want to as leader of the conservatives and as prime minister tackle, not just an inquiry into COVID and the government's response to it, but also vaccine injuries.
00:05:23.040Now, this is something that for a lot of people throws up alarm bells, because it gets linked into being anti vaccine, which doesn't apply to you, you are vaccinated, and you also support choice in this.
00:05:34.260But but talking about these issues is something we've not heard from any other Canadian politician.
00:05:38.800You haven't heard from anybody, you know, that I know of, as far as the federal and the and the provincial side of things.
00:05:45.160Now, let me just before I address that, I've, I launched right away, because I only had two minutes, you know, and you got to get people's attention right at the beginning.
00:05:52.780So I put that public policy first, I feel that's an important policy, an important promise, because it resonates.
00:06:01.560I mean, the first thing I talked about is, you know, we doubled our debt during this period of time.
00:06:05.820So I think that Canadians have a right to know where, how was the money spent?
00:06:10.420We put, you know, this is a debt that's going to go on for generations, unless you get a conservative government that can help to bring that in.
00:06:18.160The next thing I said was, as far as how much of this was on public policy, as are on public on health, as opposed to political opportunism.
00:06:29.660And so I'm not quoting just the opposition, I'm quoting people that are in the in the liberal ranks that are saying there is problems here, that this is what you know, a lot of what we did was was for that.
00:06:39.800And even the whole area of coercion, of coercion, how much is coercion and, and taking away some of the rights, you know, I talked about charter rights, you know, this is we've gone through
00:06:48.160some real erosion of our rights over this past time, and I know that there is in the Charter, you can, you can take away some of these rights for public good, but what about it?
00:06:59.620And I did bring up vaccine injuries, because you know, it is a very real thing, I hear, and I'm not just making this up, I have, I have many people that that have contacted me, that have, you know, medical people, I've that, I talked to one doctor going door to door.
00:07:14.160And he went when I was in the last campaign and saying, you know, I cannot say the things I've seen, you know, because I lose, you know, I'd be delighted I would lose my license.
00:07:24.060So those are those are things I've, I've, you don't have time right now for me to give you a few examples, but there are numerous examples.
00:07:31.060And I think we just need to look at that, because there's a lot of concern.
00:07:35.520You know, I have a daughter, for example, okay, that she's in her early 30s, she has a toddler at home, since she's taken the vaccine, she has had nonstop headaches.
00:07:46.100And she phoned me a few days ago and saying, dad, you know, what is it ever going to stop, she was crying, the her neurologist has said that it's probably vaccine related, and that it is serious, and that not to not to have kids for the time being.
00:08:02.360I mean, I'll give you another example of, of a lady that lives in my riding, her mother had had a was vaccinated, and within 15 minutes had died of amphalachic shock.
00:08:13.400So, I mean, so there's, I have many stories like this.
00:08:17.140Now, again, I'm not saying don't get vaccinated.
00:08:20.220Okay, do I encourage my wife to get vaccinated.
00:08:22.140So I'm not saying that I am saying that we really need to let people, you know, people are adults, it's their own body, they need to be able to do the research themselves and make the decision.
00:08:34.740And this is from, you know, there's a letter from the Vancouver Coastal Authority to the UBC, because they were going to basically prevent students from continuing as students.
00:08:46.780And the Vancouver Coastal Health said this, she said, they said that whether you're vaccinated or not vaccinated doesn't make the difference whether you're going to get it.
00:08:56.080Okay, so you can't be, it's not going to be, it doesn't make a difference of transmitting or of getting it.
00:09:01.660What makes a difference is the person that's vaccinated, there is the probability that you'll be less, it'll be less, the symptoms will be less.
00:09:09.780So that's, that's an important factor.
00:09:12.400The Conservative Party, your party has gone through a bit of a transformation, obviously, because that's why there's a leadership race.
00:09:18.620And a lot of people, certainly in the last election, did not feel the Conservatives were adequately representing a lot of the people that were talking about these things, talking about vaccine mandates, talking about vaccine passports.
00:09:29.900And, and this was a lot of the frustration we saw on the convoy, which was in Ottawa, up until about a month ago.
00:09:48.780For example, two weeks ago, I sent a letter to the Premier of British Columbia, because there were going to be a lot of chiropractors, massage therapists, all these people, professionals, medical professionals, doctors, that were going to lose their license.
00:10:02.660And I said, you know what, I'm hearing from my constituents, I wrote a public letter to the, the, the, the Prime, to the Premier, and, you know, CC'd all the, the news outlets, got picked up.
00:10:14.200And even though Bonnie Henry had said at one o'clock, we're not changing, at two o'clock, I sent the letter that night, they made some changes, they reversed, they made some, you know, they reversed things.
00:10:24.880So it's like, I'm, I like to think that I might have an influence there.
00:10:29.380So, but I'm willing to step out, even though it is, you know, not necessarily popular.
00:10:34.900And you're talking about not listening to the base.
00:10:36.920That's really, I don't think that we were listening.
00:10:38.800I think we were maybe guiding too much of my polls.
00:10:41.260And I, you know, we need to listen to the base.
00:10:44.980I met earlier today with the Firearms Association.
00:10:47.700And that's, you know, you know, the Liberals, they will try to make firearm, licensed firearm owners as the boogeyman.
00:10:55.840When, if you look at it, the real problem is the firearm, licensed firearms owner, it is the criminals.
00:11:02.040But they won't do anything with the criminals.
00:11:03.380They focus on those that are law-abiding firearm owners owner.
00:11:14.920One thing that I find interesting in all of this is that you've said in a Canadian press interview, you know, you have an uphill battle ahead of you.
00:11:23.100And, you know, you've got to raise the $300,000 and get the signatures and do all that.
00:11:29.540But at the same time, you've also put forward, and we were just talking about it, some pretty concrete policy here.
00:11:34.580So if you're not successful at winning the leadership, is this something that you hope the winner of the leadership does take up as a policy?
00:11:41.820This idea of having a really robust COVID inquiry that looks at all the things we were just discussing?
00:15:11.600So we need to get serious about the safety of Canadians and protection about Canadians and not having a revolving door of accommodation to those that are criminals.
00:15:44.460So, you know, obviously, I am going to have a, I have a pro-life position.
00:15:49.120You know, I believe that the life begins at conception.
00:15:51.860However, you know, that's not where Canada is at.
00:15:54.780But are there, can we not have conversations?
00:15:56.540Because right now, Canada is the only Western democracy that doesn't have any, any constraints whatsoever.
00:16:03.540And I think it's, and part of that's just because it's political discourse.
00:16:06.720You look at all the other Western democracies and say they got some, some boundaries.
00:16:12.640So, you know, I think, can we not have conversations?
00:16:14.700Like I voted in favor of against sex-selected abortions.
00:16:18.420And I think there's a lot of people that are pro-choice that would say, yeah, you know what, you know, generally aborting a fetus because it's female, the fetus is female, that isn't appropriate.
00:16:29.700So we can, can we not have these conversations in Canada?
00:16:33.440And you know what I disagree with totally?
00:16:35.480We, what made Canada so rich in many ways culturally is that we, we, the whole thing about accepting people from different countries, different faiths, different perspectives.
00:16:47.380And that's good that we can be united doesn't mean uniformity and uniformity means what you just have to, you have to believe this.
00:16:57.100Let's, you know, I'm against this whole cancel culture.
00:16:59.260Let's, let's be able to talk as Canadians because the whole way that, that the whole way that the liberals run is basically on wedge issues, on divisiveness.
00:17:09.060Oh, you're a Westerner or you're in the, you make your money because you're in the resource sector or you're a farmer or in the rural Canada that is divisive.
00:17:19.440When I grew up, I remember, you know, going through elementary school and high school, Canada was described as a mosaic.
00:17:25.200But I, I, I get the feeling that, that the liberals are taking the different pieces of the mosaic and say, well, this, this doesn't belong in the mosaic and this doesn't belong in the mosaic and this doesn't.