Juno News - September 16, 2021


Maxime Bernier says election is referendum on vaccine mandates


Episode Stats

Length

12 minutes

Words per Minute

176.87862

Word Count

2,193

Sentence Count

171

Misogynist Sentences

1

Hate Speech Sentences

1


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 You're tuned in to The Andrew Lawton Show.
00:00:06.800 So how's the campaign going so far?
00:00:09.220 It's going well, you know.
00:00:10.940 I didn't expect that in the beginning.
00:00:13.520 Our goal was to maybe have 4% of the vote,
00:00:17.280 more than triple what we had at the last election.
00:00:19.780 I think it would be doable right now,
00:00:21.680 and we may have more than that.
00:00:23.460 So I can tell you, since the beginning of that campaign,
00:00:26.680 the momentum is bigger and bigger every day.
00:00:28.720 And when I'm saying that this campaign will be for us
00:00:35.120 a referendum on the COVID-19 hysteria and the vaccine passport,
00:00:39.400 I believe it would be that.
00:00:40.880 That's giving us a big momentum because people understand
00:00:44.200 that individual freedom and personal responsibility,
00:00:47.300 that's two of our main principles, funding principles of this party.
00:00:52.900 And we always fought for that.
00:00:55.300 I spoke against lockdowns in the beginning of that pandemic
00:00:58.360 with Randy Hillier in Ontario that is supporting us also and helping us.
00:01:03.460 It's going well.
00:01:04.760 And people want to have their life back, like before COVID.
00:01:09.220 When the People's Party was founded in 2019,
00:01:13.420 a lot of people certainly perceived it to be a very conservative party,
00:01:17.860 a more conservative version of the conservative party.
00:01:20.620 The support you have now doesn't seem to be coming only from traditional conservatives.
00:01:24.780 I've met a lot of people that would align with the left but are supporting the PPC.
00:01:29.380 And I'm curious if you could describe where this support is coming from right now.
00:01:33.900 Yeah, first of all, it's not scientific because we don't know any pollings about that.
00:01:39.900 But, you know, I can tell you that in Saskatoon, our organization there,
00:01:45.180 it's people that work and were volunteers for the NDP.
00:01:49.520 And they are coming on side with us and helping us and, you know, helping our candidates over there.
00:01:56.580 Because for them, the most important now is the violation of our freedoms in this country.
00:02:03.100 And they understand that we are there to fight for them.
00:02:06.040 And we are the only party that will fight for them.
00:02:08.500 That's why I said in New Brunswick, I was surprised when I did rallies over there.
00:02:12.220 But we had a lot of people that came.
00:02:15.440 And you're right.
00:02:16.240 I think we can unite this country and Canadians under the freedom umbrella.
00:02:22.440 And the mainstream political parties have the same position on COVID-19 lockdowns, vaccine passport.
00:02:30.520 The conservative and O'Toole was very clear about that.
00:02:34.240 You know, he said to one of his candidates in Yukon that was against a vaccine passport.
00:02:38.980 He said, OK, you cannot be a candidate.
00:02:41.000 And now he wants to have a registry and doing tests every day and a vaccine passport.
00:02:47.520 He's like Trudeau.
00:02:48.560 So they understand that if they want to live in a free society, we are there.
00:02:53.840 So, yes, you're right by saying that it's not only former conservatives that are coming on board,
00:02:58.560 but also people who voted for the liberals or the NDP.
00:03:01.680 I cannot tell you if it's a big part of our supporters or not.
00:03:05.860 But when I'm traveling, I have people that came to me and are telling me that.
00:03:09.860 And also some people that didn't vote.
00:03:12.640 I met a guy yesterday that he said, you know, I'm 55 years old and that will be the first time that I will vote.
00:03:18.300 And I will vote for you.
00:03:19.880 And don't forget in Canada about, you know, 28 percent of the population didn't vote at the last election.
00:03:26.620 If only half of them are voting for the PPC, we'll be around more, we'll have a support that will grow.
00:03:34.020 And that can happen.
00:03:35.280 I believe that people who didn't vote, people who voted for other political parties, liberal or conservative, are coming with us.
00:03:44.000 But I believe that the majority of our support is coming from former conservatives.
00:03:49.180 It's not just about opposition to vaccine passports.
00:03:51.980 I'm hearing a lot of people that are against vaccines themselves.
00:03:55.020 You yourself have talked about not being vaccinated.
00:03:57.680 And because of that, you can't even campaign in certain provinces, especially in Atlantic Canada.
00:04:03.540 You have a party right now that's being defined as an anti-vaccine party by a lot of people.
00:04:07.880 Are you happy with that?
00:04:09.200 No, I'm not.
00:04:10.640 That's the mainstream media.
00:04:12.120 The mainstream media, every time that I'm doing an interview with them, they're saying, oh, this party is anti-mask and anti-vaccine.
00:04:18.420 No, if you believe in freedom, you believe in freedom of choice.
00:04:22.760 And everybody must be free to decide if they want to have the vaccine or not with the right information, informed consent.
00:04:29.320 And personally, I decided not to take the vaccine.
00:04:31.920 Like I said, I'm 58 years old and my chance of dying if I have COVID are only 0.5 percent.
00:04:37.520 So I have the data and the statistics on my side.
00:04:40.540 I have 99.5 percent chances of surviving.
00:04:43.240 So that's why I decided not to take the vaccine.
00:04:45.080 But my dad is 87 years old and diabetic and he has comorbidities.
00:04:51.020 So I encourage him to take the vaccine because he's at risk.
00:04:56.120 So everybody must be able to take that decision.
00:04:58.700 So we have people in our party, our supporters that decided, like me, not to take the vaccine.
00:05:05.240 But we have people also that took the two shots and are with us because they know that they don't want to show a vaccine passport for everything that they would do in civil society.
00:05:16.280 What is it that you see as being the future of the PPC?
00:05:20.280 Because you are polling right now at significantly higher numbers than you were in 2019.
00:05:24.620 But in the first past the post system, even if you have 10 percent nationally in individual ridings, that could still be zero seats.
00:05:31.500 I know you don't do internal polling and you talk about that regularly.
00:05:34.120 But are there individual ridings, are there your own in BOS or other ridings where you think that there could be a few PPC candidates elected this time?
00:05:41.840 I believe that, you know, in my riding, I'm doing my best to be elected to gain back that riding.
00:05:46.940 Like I said publicly, we started the campaign.
00:05:49.180 I was 10 points behind and now I'm about two or three points behind.
00:05:53.900 And we have the same momentum in BOS that we have all across the country.
00:05:58.300 So it would be a tough fight.
00:06:00.680 But I believe I can win back that riding.
00:06:02.480 And also in Ontario, Northern Ontario and the South near Niagara, we have great organization, good candidates there.
00:06:10.340 We may win maybe one or two seats.
00:06:12.280 I don't know.
00:06:12.940 And in Alberta also, as you may know, in Fort McMurray, we have a great candidate and we have all the support of the executive of the riding association for the Conservative Party of Canada that are working with our candidate.
00:06:30.300 So I really don't know where, but I believe that we can have some candidates in Alberta, in Ontario, and me in Quebec or in other provinces, maybe in BC also.
00:06:42.020 I was surprised of our support in BC.
00:06:44.560 So it's very difficult.
00:06:45.520 But because of that electoral system, it is harder for us, yes, to have people elected.
00:06:52.060 But I believe that we'll have that freedom voice in Ottawa after this election.
00:06:56.400 On one of my last trips to Alberta, I moderated a discussion between you and Derek Sloan, who at the time was still a member of Parliament and hadn't yet announced what he was going to do.
00:07:05.960 We fast forward to now.
00:07:07.100 He has not joined the People's Party.
00:07:08.640 He says he's founding his own party, but right now is running as an independent.
00:07:12.460 I know you had reached out to Derek and tried to get him to seek a PPC candidacy.
00:07:17.480 But when you are a party that has splintered off from a mainstream party and then other people that have very similar values are not joining the PPC, what are people to take from that?
00:07:27.420 That this movement that is this sort of independent alternative to the Conservative movement can't itself be unified?
00:07:33.600 But, you know, I told Derek that he's welcome in our party and we had a discussion.
00:07:38.880 That was his discussion, his decision.
00:07:40.920 I cannot force him to come.
00:07:43.140 And I was surprised that he decided to run as an independent.
00:07:46.820 But I told him it's very hard to create a new party.
00:07:49.560 And now he doesn't have a new party.
00:07:51.840 So he's running in a riding and we had a discussion.
00:07:55.380 He called me a couple of days after when the election was launched and he told me that he wants to run in that riding.
00:08:02.400 And at that time, we had a great candidate, Nadine.
00:08:05.580 She was our candidate in 2019.
00:08:07.460 She's our candidate now.
00:08:08.880 And I told him, you know, I will support my candidate.
00:08:11.600 You took your decision not to come with us.
00:08:15.000 I will support our candidates.
00:08:17.340 It's too bad.
00:08:18.900 But it was his decision.
00:08:20.920 And so just to confirm, so he didn't want to run for the PPC, but he wanted you to not run a candidate.
00:08:26.100 Yes, absolutely.
00:08:27.700 And I said, you know, first of all, we have a candidate.
00:08:30.100 And our candidate, Nadine, was the first one approved by Election Canada for a party all across the country.
00:08:36.300 So when he called me, she was an approved candidate.
00:08:38.920 So, you know, I will support my candidate.
00:08:41.320 We'll see.
00:08:42.200 We'll see what will happen.
00:08:43.380 But, yeah, it's too bad.
00:08:45.660 But also, you know, I was working with the End the Lockdown Caucus and Randy Hillier is with us.
00:08:52.620 And actually, his daughter, she's running also with us.
00:08:56.520 So we have the support of a lot of people in the Lockdown Caucus, police on guard and nurses, because they know.
00:09:06.960 They know that we are the only option.
00:09:09.140 So it's too bad the director took that decision.
00:09:11.580 And I respect that.
00:09:13.480 You've said that you don't expect to be prime minister after this coming election.
00:09:17.160 So you do have a level of realistic, a realistic approach to this.
00:09:20.780 But I want to know about what the party will look like.
00:09:23.580 Will you, for example, subject yourself to a leadership review?
00:09:27.340 Why not?
00:09:28.120 Maybe.
00:09:28.800 I don't know.
00:09:30.160 But I'm open to that.
00:09:31.780 Absolutely.
00:09:32.880 After the election, I think, you know, our platform was approved by 49% of the conservative because, as you know, the People's Party platform is the platform that I run on during the leadership of the conservative party in 2017.
00:09:48.360 So that was, it was easier for us to build a party with ideas.
00:09:52.400 I took that platform.
00:09:53.780 So that platform was very well received by conservative members at that time.
00:10:00.200 And now it's well received with a lot of Canadians.
00:10:03.060 But yes, my leadership, I believe that after the election, I'm ready to ask a question to our members if they want me as a leader or not.
00:10:12.100 I think you're right.
00:10:13.880 It would be a good time to do that.
00:10:15.460 What is it that you think is the real driving force of your support this election?
00:10:21.680 Because you weren't in the debates.
00:10:22.960 And as you know, this is something where millions and millions of Canadians tune in.
00:10:26.520 You were in 2019 and still managed to get 1.6% of the vote nationally.
00:10:31.140 This time around, how is your message getting out to people when you haven't, for the most part, been given the attention by the mainstream media?
00:10:37.580 It's very difficult.
00:10:39.120 It's very difficult.
00:10:40.700 Actually, the mainstream media in your us in the beginning of that campaign.
00:10:46.540 And now they are doing, they try to give us more visibility or coverage, but it's not fair.
00:10:54.480 It's not a fair coverage.
00:10:55.980 They are covering the Green Party of Canada that right now they're around 4% in the polls.
00:11:02.020 They have 240 candidates.
00:11:04.180 We have 312 candidates all across this country.
00:11:07.160 And the Green Party and all the other establishment political parties share the same views on the most important issues for this country.
00:11:16.940 So it's an unfair coverage.
00:11:19.440 It's very difficult for us.
00:11:20.780 But we are using social media.
00:11:22.780 I'm speaking to you, with you right now, and I try to be present with the alternative and independent media.
00:11:30.860 And I believe that every media must be independent.
00:11:33.820 And that's part of our proposal to cut the fundings to these media.
00:11:38.020 They must be independent and not dependent on the government.
00:11:41.560 It's more difficult.
00:11:42.500 That's why I'm doing rally.
00:11:44.240 And that's why I'm doing rallies in little town, because I can have coverage from the local newspaper,
00:11:51.900 the local traditional media, or the local radio station.
00:11:56.240 So for me, the way to bypass the mainstream media is to travel and do interviews with local traditional mainstream media,
00:12:04.560 or local radio station, and with also independent media like your media.
00:12:09.900 Thank you for your time.
00:12:10.840 Thank you.
00:12:11.260 I appreciate that.
00:12:12.000 Have a nice day.
00:12:12.920 Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show.
00:12:15.000 Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.
00:12:21.900 www.tnc.news.com