Juno News - O'Toole was weak and dishonest to run as a progressive

00:00:00.000 Aaron O'Toole misrepresented who he was to Conservative members. He promised that he was

00:00:04.080 true blue and then he ran a campaign as a weak-willed red Tory who refused to stand his

00:00:08.420 ground or defend Canada. I'm Candace Malcolm and this is The Candace Malcolm Show.

00:00:16.740 Hi everyone, thank you so much for tuning into the podcast today. Now, you probably noticed that

00:00:20.980 we here at True North and here at The Candace Malcolm Show have been much more critical than

00:00:25.520 usual of the Conservatives and of Aaron O'Toole. Now, I know that much of the reason why people

00:00:30.580 like this program, like this channel, the reason that you tune into True North is because we don't

00:00:35.660 typically take an overly critical view of Conservatives. That's what the legacy media

00:00:39.580 does. The legacy media is there day in, day out to criticize Conservatives, to show their double

00:00:44.580 standard, to push liberal talking points, push the liberal worldview, push liberal wedge issues,

00:00:49.240 and basically do Dustin Trudeau's dirty work. We're different. We give Conservatives a fair shot. We

00:00:54.440 try to remain open-minded and we don't innately have a bias or a bigotry against Conservatives. So

00:01:01.580 much the legacy media, deep down, those journalists hate Conservatives. They don't like Conservative

00:01:06.080 values. They don't like Conservative people. They don't want those values represented in their

00:01:10.460 Parliament, in their government, in their society. And that is why they're so unfair to Conservatives.

00:01:15.420 Here at True North, we disagree. We like Conservative values. We think that Conservative values are Canadian

00:01:20.540 values and that is incredibly important to show both sides. So yes, so to people who like True North,

00:01:27.080 because we're typically more fair to Conservatives, and they wonder this week, why is Candace, why is 0.98

00:01:32.180 True North being so unfair to Conservatives? It's for that exact reason. We want to see a Conservative

00:01:38.000 Party that is strong, a Conservative Party that is Conservative. There's no point in having two Liberal

00:01:42.560 Parties. And so the reason that we are being critical of Erin O'Toole and of the Conservative Party is

00:01:47.960 because we hope that they will listen and we hope that they will learn that the way that you win an

00:01:51.800 election in Canada is not to apologize for Conservatives. It's not to back away from your

00:01:56.540 Conservative values. It's not to flip-flop and change your mind and look indecisive and look weak.

00:02:01.840 The way to win as a Conservative is to own it, is to be proud of it, to push common sense, to push your

00:02:08.740 values and to not appear like you're unsure or that you're afraid or that you're embarrassed or that

00:02:15.140 you're trying to hide something. And that is the reason why we are being critical in this week after

00:02:20.920 the election. Hopefully we can all move past this stronger. So I want to go back in time a little

00:02:26.460 bit on the program today and I want to talk about how Erin O'Toole became leader of this party, how he

00:02:32.980 became the leader and what he did in order to get there. So recall that after Andrew Scheer stepped

00:02:38.660 down from leader in 2019, there was a leadership race to replace him as leader of the Conservative

00:02:44.000 Party. There were four main candidates that emerged sort of as a front runner. So we had Peter McKay,

00:02:49.820 who is a very high profile politician from Nova Scotia. He was a cabinet minister in the Harper

00:02:56.460 government and he was sort of known as one of the leaders of the Progressive Conservative Party that

00:03:01.840 merged with the Canadian Alliance to create the new iteration, which was the Conservative Party of

00:03:06.560 Canada. He was a central figure in that. So he comes from the PC side of the party, the Progressive

00:03:12.760 Conservative side. He is a well-known red Tory. Other candidates, we had Erin O'Toole and we'll get

00:03:18.360 into him in a moment. Next, we had Leslie Lewis, who's a tremendous candidate. She's very well educated, 0.99

00:03:24.120 very articulate, social conservative. She's from Toronto. She's from an immigrant family and community

00:03:29.160 and she was great. But the problem with Leslie Lewis is that she was unknown to Conservatives. She

00:03:35.580 didn't have a deep history in the party, a little bit inexperienced and that kind of came out a little

00:03:40.120 bit during the campaign. And no one really knew if she had what it would take to win. And finally,

00:03:45.480 we had Derek Sloan, who is a social conservative. He was really seen as being strong on some of the

00:03:51.580 issues. However, it became very apparent through his campaign that he was irresponsible. He was

00:03:57.080 selfish and a bit of a loose cannon. He really didn't have what it took. And because of it, just 0.97

00:04:02.020 shortly after he lost, he ended up leaving the conservative caucus and moving to Alberta, running a bizarre

00:04:07.720 independent campaign and basically got no support whatsoever. So he shot himself in the foot and he is

00:04:13.900 out of the picture. But back to the leadership race. So we had these two social conservative candidates 0.69

00:04:20.600 that each had their own flaws. And then we had these two sort of more experienced candidates, former cabinet

00:04:25.960 ministers, both of them, both Erin O'Toole and Peter McKay. They're both from Atlantic Canada originally.

00:04:30.800 They're both from political families. Both their dads were politicians and conservative politicians,

00:04:36.380 representatives. And they're both sort of seen as red Tories. So for conservative voters,

00:04:41.240 they didn't really have a very strong option. There wasn't an obvious apparent leader out of the bunch.

00:04:48.080 It was sort of a given that probably Peter McKay would win just because he had the most name

00:04:52.260 recognition. And he had this sort of well-known political pedigree of sort of like the conservative

00:04:57.460 version of Justin Trudeau. And that is when Erin O'Toole sort of emerged as a realistic option. 0.84

00:05:05.020 He is a former military man. He seemed like he was really strong on law and order, a fiscal conservative.

00:05:11.540 He was obviously not a social conservative. He made it very clear from the beginning that he was

00:05:16.160 not pro-life, that he would not put any restrictions whatsoever on abortion. However, he did claim that

00:05:23.340 he would respect the beliefs of social conservatives, that there would be room for them in the party,

00:05:28.580 which at the time was better than Peter McKay. Peter McKay kind of came out there and said that

00:05:32.780 the reason that Andrew Scheer lost the election was because of his conservative values, his social

00:05:37.180 conservative values. And that was a problem to Peter McKay. Whereas Erin O'Toole proposed the other

00:05:43.360 side and said, no, there's room. There's a big tent. There's room for these people in my party. And that

00:05:48.780 was the reason why he won. That was the reason why he won. He presented himself as true blue. He was

00:05:54.620 strong on some of the issues. He was adamantly opposed to a carbon tax. He talked about balancing

00:06:00.420 the budget. He presented himself as a conservative. This is what Erin O'Toole looked like back in 2020 0.96

00:06:06.640 when he was running for leader of this party. Who's going to defend our history, our institutions

00:06:11.420 against attacks from cancel culture and the radical left?

00:06:14.680 I am a proud conservative. I've fought on a range of issues from military and veterans

00:06:21.020 to foreign affairs, public safety, and certainly the economy. I'm Erin O'Toole and I'm running

00:06:26.660 to unite conservatives on the path to victory. I'm not a career politician. I'm not a product

00:06:32.840 of the Ottawa bubble. Politics, he is a principled conservative. He doesn't run away from a fight.

00:06:38.700 He doesn't get intimidated by the left or the media. I'm pretty blue on all elements.

00:06:44.680 I do respect human rights and the decisions of our courts.

00:06:48.700 A plan to get serious on public safety, support the rule of law, and end the unfair demonization

00:06:54.320 of law-abiding firearms arms.

00:07:00.240 So that was Erin O'Toole 18 months ago. And the Erin O'Toole that emerged on the campaign trail in the 1.00

00:07:06.960 past six weeks was a different person. He was a different, he had a different set of priorities.

00:07:12.420 He spoke differently. He was talking about different things. And that is a problem that

00:07:16.960 so many conservatives are having right now with Erin O'Toole. It's not so much that he ran as a

00:07:21.520 red Tory. Look, there's room for red Tories in the party. And when I say red Tory, it's not even really

00:07:25.480 clear what this term means anymore because it used to mean someone who came from the progressive

00:07:29.360 conservative wing of the party, the old party that was sort of more big government. They were okay

00:07:34.140 with big spending. They were sort of more socialist on the economic front. And then, you know, they were

00:07:40.560 conservative because of just party loyalty. You know, perhaps they believed in law and order,

00:07:47.700 these kind of things. And then it really kind of changed to mean that a red Tory was someone who

00:07:52.880 was liberal on social issues and moral issues. They were pro-gay marriage, pro-abortion, all the

00:07:59.000 same kind of things that the liberals on the left were. But then maybe they were fiscally conservative.

00:08:03.940 And that was sort of what a red Tory was. Today, it's not even really clear what it means. It seems

00:08:08.940 like the whole party is in support of gay marriage now. And that abortion issue is not going away.

00:08:13.700 There's people who really morally oppose to abortion. And then other people who just really

00:08:18.580 don't care about the issue and they don't want to talk about it. They don't want it to be central in

00:08:21.940 the campaign. They just want it to go away. And because of that, they'll just sort of mirror the

00:08:26.120 liberal talking points on that issue. So this term red Tory, it's not even really clear in today's

00:08:31.780 landscape. Like, is a red Tory woke? Are they far left? Do they believe that little kids should be

00:08:38.340 getting hormone treatments to change their gender? Like, these are questions that haven't really been

00:08:44.060 addressed. But back to Aaron O'Toole. The problem with him in this campaign was the fact that he had

00:08:50.060 presented himself as the real deal, as a real conservative. And then as soon as the writs were

00:08:54.960 drawn up and he started speaking, it became really clear that his strategy was to basically hug the

00:09:00.580 liberals, show the Canadian public that he was very much a liberal. And that the main difference

00:09:05.640 between him and Trudeau was that he was just more competent, a better manager. And so he would

00:09:10.500 continue to promote Justin Trudeau's vision for the country. He would just be a better manager of

00:09:15.340 that government. And that's why he failed. That's why he lost the election, because he really just

00:09:18.860 didn't provide a clear enough distinction between him and Trudeau. And no, nobody wants a conservative

00:09:25.140 party that promotes liberalism. They want a conservative party that promotes conservatism. So over at TNC,

00:09:30.480 we compile a list of the five biggest flip-flops that Aaron O'Toole did on the campaign. So I'm

00:09:36.440 going to go through those quickly. So I think the first and the worst was that he proposed a carbon

00:09:41.880 tax, which was the exact opposite of what he had said earlier. So during his conservative

00:09:46.260 leadership campaign, O'Toole was adamant that he would repeal the liberal government's federal carbon

00:09:50.780 tax. This is what that looked like. This is a picture of him with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation

00:09:56.220 signing a pledge saying, no carbon tax pledge. I, Aaron O'Toole promised that if elected Prime

00:10:02.000 Minister of Canada, I will immediately repeal the Trudeau carbon tax and reject any future carbon

00:10:08.600 tax or cap and trade scheme. And here it is signed, Aaron O'Toole dated June 18th, 2020. Okay. So we all

00:10:16.800 know how that went down. A few months later in April, 2021, Aaron O'Toole released his party's climate

00:10:23.100 change policy. And it included this whole complicated scheme where they put a price on carbon

00:10:28.660 and then they played this like weird semantics game where they tried to say, no, it wasn't a carbon

00:10:33.520 tax. It was a carbon savings account, even though Justin Trudeau also claims that his carbon tax is not

00:10:39.460 a carbon tax, it's a carbon price. So you had the same semantical game. A lot of people were really mad

00:10:45.040 about that when that came out. And, you know, by the time the campaign rolled around, Aaron O'Toole

00:10:51.320 was just basically spouting the same things that we heard from the Liberals nonstop.

00:10:55.200 Here's a CBC article from August, 2021, how the Conservatives came around to supporting a carbon

00:11:00.980 tax. It says here, O'Toole now admits the most efficient way to reduce emissions is through

00:11:05.520 putting a price on carbon. And then here we go in the last week of the campaign. Again, the

00:11:11.860 Conservatives go to the Toronto Star. This is a Toronto Star exclusive, the most left-wing newspaper

00:11:16.800 in the country who hate Conservatives are getting exclusives from the Conservative Party. And here

00:11:20.980 it says, Aaron O'Toole says, that the Liberals' carbon price won't automatically get scrapped if

00:11:26.000 he's Prime Minister. So he went from adamantly opposing carbon taxes so much that he was willing

00:11:30.040 to sign a pledge and stand by it when he wanted to run the Conservative Party, to sort of being squishy

00:11:37.080 about it, saying, here's my plan, it's not a tax, it's a carbon price, and it's going to go into a

00:11:41.560 carbon savings account. And then by the time the campaign rolled around, it was like, no, Justin

00:11:46.320 Trudeau's carbon taxes are here to stay. Of course, that wasn't the only walk back that we saw during

00:11:52.740 his campaign to become Conservative leader. O'Toole was unequivocal that he would defund and privatize

00:11:58.080 CBC's English properties. He also said that he respects independent journalists and that he would

00:12:03.180 fully recognize the Independent Press Gallery of Canada. That is the press gallery that I am the

00:12:07.640 president of, and that he said that he would give our press gallery equal standing to the PPG

00:12:12.560 in Ottawa. Then fast forward a few months in the Conservative platform, O'Toole only pledged that he

00:12:17.140 would review the mandate of the CBC. He no longer said that he would defund it. And throughout the

00:12:21.380 campaign, he failed to grant interviews with independent journalists, failed to let independent

00:12:27.300 journalists into his campaign. Next, this is something that really upset Social Conservatives and

00:12:31.820 people who believe that the purpose of the Conservative Party is to push a moral vision for the country.

00:12:36.920 O'Toole had previously claimed that under his leadership, Conservative caucus members would

00:12:41.280 be able to vote freely, vote according to their morals and according to their conscience. But then,

00:12:45.380 of course, during the campaign, he said that MPs who do not fully support his platform would not

00:12:50.300 be able to sit in his caucus. They would not be able to sit as Conservatives unless they agreed with

00:12:55.380 his platform, which his platform was very socially left-wing. So that's another flip-flop.

00:13:00.400 Next, he flip-flopped when it came to protecting the conscience rights of doctors and hospital

00:13:05.540 workers. So in O'Toole's leadership platform, when he was running for leadership of the Conservative

00:13:10.580 Party, he stated that he would protect the conscience rights of doctors and healthcare

00:13:14.500 workers. He said that healthcare workers would have the right to refuse patients looking for

00:13:19.180 abortions or looking to do euthanasia, that that would be up to the doctor. And their moral rights

00:13:24.280 said that Aaron O'Toole would defend the conscience rights of all healthcare professionals whose beliefs,

00:13:28.400 religious or otherwise, prevent them from carrying out or referring patients for services that violate

00:13:33.020 their conscience. Then in the party platform that came out during the election, this promise was

00:13:38.860 reiterated. It says that we will protect the conscious rights of healthcare professionals.

00:13:43.020 The challenges of dealing with COVID-19 have reminded us of the vital importance of healthcare

00:13:46.980 professionals. The last thing Canada can afford is to drive away any of these professionals out of

00:13:52.000 their profession. But then, surprise, surprise, halfway through the campaign, Aaron O'Toole flipped on

00:13:56.380 that position and said that doctors will not have the right to refuse to refer patients for abortions.

00:14:02.480 He said they will have to refer because the rights to access those services exist across the country.

00:14:08.000 We have to respect conscious rights, but we have to be there for referral. So the exact opposite of

00:14:13.720 what he had said all along. So as you can see, there's a trend going on here. And the worst example

00:14:18.780 of this flip-flopping had to do with Justin Trudeau's gun ban, which Aaron O'Toole had opposed. He had used

00:14:24.860 the support of gun owners, legal gun owners, to win the leadership. He relied on that support. And then when it

00:14:31.020 came to the election time, even though it was really clear in his platform that he was going

00:14:35.580 to reverse the liberal gun grab, the liberals came out and banned 1,500 firearms rather arbitrarily.

00:14:42.260 Andrew Lawton here at True North came up with an extensive documentary looking at this issue. So if

00:14:47.480 you want to know more about this issue and understand it, go over and check out Assaulted,

00:14:51.960 which is Andrew Lawton's four-part series on this. But regardless, Aaron O'Toole completely reversed

00:14:56.880 his position. And this is, to me, the most problematic one. Because when it comes to Justin

00:15:01.720 Trudeau, when it comes to the liberals and the way that they ran their campaign, this idea of

00:15:06.380 creating wedge issues. So Aaron O'Toole is supposed to be a law and order guy. He has a military

00:15:11.400 background. That is one of the strongest areas that he had from a conservative perspective. And so

00:15:17.880 you would expect that if Justin Trudeau tried to create an election wedge issue over guns,

00:15:23.460 Aaron O'Toole would stand up and say, do you know what, Justin Trudeau, you want to make this election

00:15:27.900 about law and order and safety and illegal guns and the problem of gun control. Let's have that 0.91

00:15:32.960 conversation. Let's talk about the number of illegal firearms in Canada. Let's talk about the way that

00:15:37.920 you have loosened sentences for people who are found with illegal guns. Let's talk about revolving

00:15:43.040 door prison systems that allow dangerous criminals who commit violent acts with guns are allowed back on

00:15:48.520 the streets. He could have turned the table. He could have stood his ground and said, you're going after

00:15:52.240 legal firearms owners. What you should be going after is dangerous criminals. That is what was

00:15:58.360 expected of Aaron O'Toole. That's the idea behind being a conservative instead of allowing the liberals

00:16:03.440 to create the narrative and then just sort of weak willed stepping back and saying, oh, okay, well,

00:16:08.940 we'll just change our position and go with the liberal position. No conservatives want to see you

00:16:13.540 standing up, standing your ground, fighting for your position and your values. And again, Justin Trudeau is

00:16:18.960 weak on this issue. So why not go after Trudeau on an issue that he is weak? This in a nutshell is why

00:16:25.720 Aaron O'Toole lost the election. It's not so much that he was a left wing. I don't think that Canadians 0.99

00:16:31.220 by and large really care about left versus right. What they do care about is seeing someone who has

00:16:36.660 conviction, seeing someone who is confident and sure of themselves and seeing someone who has something

00:16:41.740 to say, who has a vision for the country. That's not just pushing platitudes, pushing talking points,

00:16:47.500 saying the same banal platitudes that we hear over and over from politicians. They want to hear someone

00:16:53.580 who has an idea, who has convictions and who stands their grounds. That's not what Aaron O'Toole did in

00:16:58.560 this campaign. Instead, he was sounding a lot like Justin Trudeau. And you can see this on election night.

00:17:03.180 Now, I'm going to play this clip. There's not anything wrong per se with what they're saying here.

00:17:06.880 They're talking about how Canada is this great, big, diverse country and we're inclusive and we

00:17:11.060 like everyone and everyone's a part of it. Yeah, that kind of stuff is just common knowledge at

00:17:15.300 this point. You don't really need to create a whole political speech about how diverse and

00:17:19.400 great this country is. We hear that every day from the liberals. And so again, it's not like there's

00:17:23.260 anything wrong with this message. It's a fine message, but it doesn't inspire. It doesn't excite.

00:17:27.740 It's more like we're being lectured about how we have to like each other. Instead of really presenting

00:17:32.700 this vision for the country, it sounds like Aaron O'Toole here is basically trying to convince you

00:17:38.600 that he is just like the liberals. So let's see this montage of side by side, Trudeau and Aaron O'Toole

00:17:44.680 on election night basically delivering the same speech.

00:17:47.920 No matter how you voted, just like no matter where you come from, what language you speak,

00:17:54.480 the color of your skin, the way you pray, I hear you.

00:17:58.700 Above all, we must continue to show Canadians that whether you're black, white, brown, or from any race or creed,

00:18:08.940 whether you're LGBTQ or straight, whether you are an indigenous Canadian or came to Canada five weeks ago

00:18:16.700 or five generations ago, que le français soit votre premier au deuxième langue, whether you're doing well

00:18:24.560 or barely getting by, whether you worship on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays, every day or not at all,

00:18:31.220 you are an important part of Canada.

00:18:34.160 For our shared journey on the path of reconciliation.

00:18:38.840 It's a conservatism that believes reconciliation is more than a box to check.

00:18:44.460 It is the very keystone of Canada reaching its potential.

00:18:48.060 And it starts with clean drinking water as a basic human right, still denied to indigenous children born today.

00:18:55.900 Let us not forget the past and the dark days we have come through together.

00:19:01.340 But let us still more look to the future and all that is still to come.

00:19:07.300 One that addresses is the challenges of today while advancing the dreams of tomorrow.

00:19:12.800 And all that we have still to build together.

00:19:15.880 A conservatism that builds Canada up.

00:19:31.160 Let's build it up.

00:19:32.580 Canadians don't want weak politicians. 0.97

00:19:34.780 They want someone who is sure of themselves, someone who stands their ground,

00:19:38.040 someone who presents and promotes their views with passion and conviction.

00:19:42.160 They don't want another version of the Liberal Party.

00:19:44.240 They don't want a weak leader who is going to change his mind and just say anything to get elected.

00:19:49.700 That's why the Conservatives lost.

00:19:51.140 That's why Erin O'Toole is not Prime Minister today. 1.00

00:19:53.640 And if the Conservatives ever want to win in this country,

00:19:55.840 again, they have to figure this out sooner rather than later.

00:19:59.000 I'm Candice Malcolm and this is The Candice Malcolm Show.

Juno News - September 24, 2021

O'Toole was weak and dishonest to run as a progressive

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