Juno News - Omicron panic is causing more lockdowns and more vaccine mandates

00:00:00.000 Welcome to Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show. This is The Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by True North.

00:00:11.560 Coming up, the Omicron panic is causing more lockdowns and more vaccine mandates.

00:00:16.100 Should we lower the voting age, plus Maxime Bernier on his leadership review?

00:00:22.140 The Andrew Lawton Show starts right now.

00:00:25.680 Hello and welcome to Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show.

00:00:32.520 This is The Andrew Lawton Show here on True North.

00:00:35.520 Monday, December 6, 2021.

00:00:38.020 This is the rare Monday edition of the program.

00:00:41.200 I'm working on a little bit of a project that's going to have me out of town on Tuesday.

00:00:46.060 Hopefully you'll know all about it in the coming day.

00:00:48.220 I don't want to jinx it by announcing it and then having to change it or perhaps cancel it altogether.

00:00:53.340 But hopefully by the time the next show rolls around, you'll know why I did the show on a different day this week.

00:00:58.320 You probably wouldn't, if I didn't say anything, you probably wouldn't have even noticed.

00:01:01.960 You would have thought, oh, I guess it's a Monday show, whatever.

00:01:04.620 In any case, I think sometimes hosts think that people pay closer attention to scheduling and programming stuff than they actually do.

00:01:11.180 But maybe you do.

00:01:12.260 Who knows, if you like the show better on Mondays, maybe we'll keep it going.

00:01:15.700 But nonetheless, hope your start of the week is, well, I hope it's a good start to the week and not a bad one.

00:01:21.580 There are a lot of bad starts to the week, like if you're in the Czech Republic or Germany, for example.

00:01:26.500 How's that for a segue?

00:01:27.920 In the Czech Republic, they are going the way of Greece, as we talked about last week, and mandating vaccination for anyone over the age of 60.

00:01:37.480 So this story, if you look at it here, is fascinating.

00:01:41.400 It's the outgoing government.

00:01:42.700 So they've got nothing to lose.

00:01:44.120 And they're saying that if you're 60 plus, vaccination is going to be mandatory.

00:01:48.460 Now, in Greece, if you don't get vaccinated and you're 60 plus, you've got to pay a fine of 100 euros a month.

00:01:55.320 So 1,200 euros a year for as long as the vaccine mandate is in effect.

00:02:00.380 I'm not actually sure what the punishment is going to be in the Czech Republic if you don't go along with the vaccine mandate.

00:02:07.860 What I do know, there was just this bizarre story last week.

00:02:11.340 It's actually a picture's worth a thousand words where the president was swearing in the prime minister.

00:02:16.220 And the president had COVID, so he had to do it from this, like, plexiglass prisoner's box in a wheelchair, surrounded by people in hazmat suits, instead of just, I don't know, having it by Zoom or Skype or something.

00:02:28.620 It's the epitome of this could have been an email.

00:02:31.100 And now they're going and deciding that citizens in the Czech Republic are not deserving of their own freedoms.

00:02:37.260 If they're 60 plus, vaccination is the choice of the government, not of the individual. 0.59

00:02:43.000 And in Germany, which has put in sweeping restrictions on the unvaccinated, if their cases don't go down, the German government is now considering making vaccination mandatory population-wide.

00:02:54.600 Lars Klingbeil, who is the secretary general of Germany's SPD party, said that if the new lockdown measures for the unvaccinated didn't lower case rates sufficiently, politicians would have to take immediate action.

00:03:09.220 Outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel, on her way out, has said that legislation will be drafted to make COVID vaccination mandatory, and that politicians in Germany will vote on it in February.

00:03:20.260 Now, February is when Austria's sweeping vaccine mandate is going into effect, and her successor, Olaf Scholz, CNBC says, is expecting the proposal to be approved because he personally supports introducing a vaccine mandate.

00:03:34.820 Now, I want to make a broader point here, and to quote Norm Macdonald about Germany, I don't know if you all are history buffs or not, but Germany, believe it or not, has a bit of a sordid past when it comes to dictators and autocrats.

00:03:49.720 Now, I am not comparing Angela Merkel to Hitler, not in the least.

00:03:53.780 What I am saying is that countries that have been through the past that Germany has, you think would be very, very motivated to ensure that the government does not start making decisions that trample on the rights of the individual.

00:04:07.460 I look at the decision being made in the Czech Republic, for example.

00:04:11.220 Greece, whatever, Greece just does what they want.

00:04:13.640 They're overly reliant on government because no one likes working there.

00:04:16.120 The Czech Republic has seen a communist government in the past, and typically formerly communist countries are the most conservative, the most liberty-minded.

00:04:25.680 You talk to conservatives in Estonia and in places like, oh, I don't know, Kosovo, and these are the most freedom-loving people you'll find.

00:04:34.300 And so it's shocking to see how many of these people just go along with the government trampling on their rights as though they've forgotten.

00:04:43.520 In the case of communism, they've forgotten their lives just 30-some-odd years ago.

00:04:47.260 Austria, I think one of the reasons we see in Austria such pushback to the government's vaccine mandate is for that very reason,

00:04:54.860 because you've got a generation of Austrians that actually does know their history,

00:04:58.780 that doesn't want a government that's going to just march all over their individual rights and freedoms as though it's no big deal, 1.00

00:05:04.900 because they understand, these people that are protesting understand what happens

00:05:09.720 when you give up the most fundamental basic rights that you have, such as what goes into your body.

00:05:17.180 And I actually, believe it or not, when we've talked about these things in the past,

00:05:21.380 I get a bit of pushback from people saying, why are you talking about Austria?

00:05:24.660 Why are you talking about China?

00:05:25.820 Why are you talking about Germany?

00:05:27.440 And I don't actually care about it, because I'm going to keep talking about these things,

00:05:31.160 because if you don't think that what's happening in Canada is connected to this,

00:05:35.720 you are missing the big story that's taking place

00:05:39.740 on how interconnected a lot of these countries and their government's responses truly are.

00:05:45.620 Just take a look at February.

00:05:46.600 I mean, the Austria vaccine mandate is going into effect in February,

00:05:49.820 which is also when Germany is voting on it.

00:05:53.260 And it's no surprise that this is all coming within the span of a couple of weeks.

00:05:57.100 I mean, Turkmenistan, as I've said, they were the trendsetter. 0.74

00:06:00.820 Turkmenistan back in the summer had the vaccine mandate.

00:06:03.820 And I won't even try to say the president's name again,

00:06:05.700 because I think that was like 20 minutes of the show was me trying to

00:06:09.020 figure out the syllables of his name last week.

00:06:11.580 But aside from Turkmenistan, you had Austria, then you had Greece,

00:06:15.980 and then you had the Czech Republic.

00:06:17.560 And now you've got Germany just on the precipice of it.

00:06:22.080 And so if this is four developed European nations in the span of a couple of weeks

00:06:26.480 that are talking about widespread mandatory vaccination,

00:06:30.820 I don't think it's going to take all that long for there to be a couple of more

00:06:34.380 and then a couple more.

00:06:35.980 And then it comes over the Atlantic.

00:06:37.620 And all of a sudden, all of these Canadians that say,

00:06:39.340 oh, why are you wasting my time talking about things that are going on in other countries

00:06:42.780 are going to be wondering, oh, wait, how did that?

00:06:45.100 I didn't see this coming.

00:06:46.240 Where did this vaccine mandate come from?

00:06:48.140 And this is the whole point is that we we've spent the last much of the last two years,

00:06:53.720 people that are concerned about civil liberties trying to push back on some of these unscientific

00:06:59.500 and unfree measures being championed by governments, especially travel restrictions.

00:07:04.580 And then Omicron comes along, you know, skipping new and skipping the Xi variant or the Xi variant.

00:07:10.620 Omicron comes along and it's as though we've taken two steps back for every one step forward

00:07:15.580 we've taken.

00:07:16.440 And there haven't been a lot of step forwards in the last few months, it feels like.

00:07:19.300 But nevertheless, it feels like we are headed backwards.

00:07:23.060 And if you look at some of these travel restrictions, this story jumped up because

00:07:26.400 at first the government tried to throw a net over some of these African countries.

00:07:30.080 It was South Africa that got scapegoated for this variant that had actually been circulating

00:07:35.060 in Europe for a couple of months.

00:07:36.900 And there was this family, Leonard and Charlotte Sked or Skied of Brandon, Manitoba,

00:07:42.600 have been quarantined involuntarily in a hotel in Toronto because they came home from South 0.98

00:07:48.420 Africa just a couple of days after the new restrictions were announced.

00:07:51.980 They say they feel criminalized for these measures.

00:07:55.260 Not only have they been tested for COVID, they've been tested six times, six times.

00:08:01.540 And every one of these tests came back negative.

00:08:03.880 And then they were allowed to reenter the country, but still shoved in a hotel.

00:08:07.040 Well, they have had to spend just to get back $23,500 on flights, COVID tests and hotels

00:08:14.800 just to navigate around new travel restrictions.

00:08:18.840 And then once they get in the country, they're not even allowed the courtesy of going home. 0.55

00:08:23.740 And then to add insult to injury, all of these regular travel measures or travel inconveniences

00:08:28.320 like their bags being lost and terrible food that they're being served in the quarantine hotel

00:08:32.640 and all of that.

00:08:33.480 But the government says, oh, that we've got to protect Canadians.

00:08:35.680 We've got to protect Canadians against Omicron.

00:08:38.880 Yeah.

00:08:39.220 And once Roe comes along and what comes after Roe?

00:08:42.160 Is it Psy or something?

00:08:44.560 Roe and Psy and Kai and all of these other variants will come around and it'll feel like

00:08:48.740 we're going right back to square one.

00:08:51.560 This headline, I think, needs to be shared with you because the headline encapsulates what

00:08:56.520 I think the government is going for.

00:08:57.960 Planning a trip over the holidays, expect airport delays and sudden travel restrictions, experts

00:09:03.640 say.

00:09:04.040 Now, I don't know what kind of expertise you need to say that government could just screw

00:09:08.240 you at any given moment.

00:09:09.880 But if noting that makes you an expert, then so be it.

00:09:13.260 But this is what the government's trying to do.

00:09:15.040 They're trying to make travel so unstable and so unpredictable and so unpleasant that no one

00:09:21.620 goes anywhere.

00:09:23.660 And you see some restrictions coming in through the back door.

00:09:26.460 Remember, I just noticed on the weekend, the Windsor-Essex Public Health Office has put

00:09:31.260 in gathering restrictions stricter than what Ontario has.

00:09:34.920 So they've invoked their power as a local health region to start imposing gathering restrictions,

00:09:40.180 mandating social distancing in restaurants, starting to roll back some of the reopening

00:09:44.720 we've seen.

00:09:45.320 And all of this just makes us feel like we are in the midst of the never-ending emergency,

00:09:50.420 the permanent lockdown about to start the third year of our two weeks to flatten the

00:09:55.280 curve.

00:09:55.560 So it does feel like we are all being hoodwinked here because people that have done everything

00:10:03.240 they've been asked to, people that did the self-isolation, people that got their two shots

00:10:07.600 and are about to get their third shot, people that didn't see grandma, people that did all

00:10:11.620 of these things that the government asked them to do and then later made them do.

00:10:15.640 And the reward at the end of it is more of it.

00:10:19.000 We had government project its great reopening plan.

00:10:21.660 We were supposed to drop the mask mandate in the new year.

00:10:24.680 We were supposed to drop masks, I think, by about March or maybe it was November.

00:10:28.180 Who knows?

00:10:28.600 Now every day is pretty much an eternity.

00:10:31.000 And all of this is now in jeopardy.

00:10:34.560 So what we are seeing unfolding now is part of a global effort by governments to roll back

00:10:42.120 any of the reopening plans we've seen, all for a variant that hasn't actually given us

00:10:47.020 reason to panic.

00:10:48.000 All of the early evidence we're seeing shows that Omicron is more infectious and less severe.

00:10:55.240 That is what you want in a pandemic, something that everyone's going to get to acquire some

00:11:00.840 natural immunity and most people are not going to be hit all that hard by.

00:11:04.700 If we could turn COVID into a cold, a seasonal cold, we could all just get on with our lives.

00:11:10.780 But natural immunity is like a big swear word to lawmakers.

00:11:16.380 It is.

00:11:17.080 And they pretend despite this that, oh, well, we don't know anything.

00:11:20.400 We don't know what's happening.

00:11:21.360 And we've got to plunge right back into the overreactive uncertainty of March 2020, which

00:11:26.820 may have been justified when we genuinely didn't know what was happening.

00:11:30.220 But now that we do know and can see what's happening is being used to justify more infringements

00:11:36.720 on your and my freedoms.

00:11:39.260 And if a government, if a Canadian government tries to impose another lockdown, my message

00:11:45.220 to them is good frigging luck.

00:11:48.000 Because I do not think most Canadians have it in them to go along with it. 0.99

00:11:51.420 And I know last week I talked about that poll of Canadians that found a lot of people didn't

00:11:56.500 want their unvaccinated relatives over. 0.64

00:11:58.680 And I had a lot of you listening that didn't buy the poll.

00:12:01.000 I do buy the poll.

00:12:02.000 I actually believe that that's where most Canadians are on this.

00:12:05.540 I believe that people that want to cling to their civil liberties are increasingly a minority

00:12:10.560 in Canada.

00:12:12.220 That's just my own pessimism seeping in.

00:12:13.980 But even in spite of that, I think if the government says we're going into lockdown again, it's going

00:12:18.640 to turn a lot more people into fire-breathing libertarians.

00:12:22.040 You know, there was a line I saw in some article a while ago that said there are no libertarians

00:12:26.920 in a pandemic.

00:12:28.000 And my response to that is I think eventually you have only libertarians in a pandemic.

00:12:32.440 And it's taken a little bit longer to reach that point than I thought it would initially.

00:12:37.240 But I do believe genuinely that another lockdown is going to do that.

00:12:41.360 That people simply are not going to play ball if this is what government is demanding of them.

00:12:47.320 So if you don't like looking around the world, well, you should start.

00:12:50.700 You should start looking around the world because a lot of this is the model for what more and

00:12:54.900 more countries are going to do.

00:12:56.300 And then it is only a matter of time before it shows up on your doorstep.

00:13:00.780 We've got to take a quick break.

00:13:02.240 When we come back, more of The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:13:04.380 Stay tuned.

00:13:04.840 We are back.

00:13:20.620 This is The Andrew Lawton Show here on True North.

00:13:23.440 Here's an idea that hasn't come up in a while.

00:13:25.460 It's not a new one by any stretch.

00:13:27.840 Lowering the voting age to 16.

00:13:31.160 There is a group of teenagers that has filed an application with the Ontario Superior Court

00:13:36.140 arguing that the Canada Elections Act is discriminating against their right to be free

00:13:42.780 from discrimination based on age by barring Canadians under 18 from voting.

00:13:47.220 There are 13 of them in the claim, according to a press release from Children First Canada

00:13:53.320 calling for the unconstitutional restriction on minor voting to be repealed.

00:13:58.360 Now, here's the thing.

00:13:59.700 One of the challenges whenever this has come up is that the response that typically people

00:14:06.020 are left with is an emotional one.

00:14:08.200 We don't want kids voting.

00:14:09.940 We don't want teens voting.

00:14:11.020 But if you try to have the debate logically, you'll find that any line really is arbitrary

00:14:16.600 because you could be a youth and still be working and contributing.

00:14:21.000 And even if you don't have to pay income tax, you're still paying tax when you go and purchase

00:14:24.820 things.

00:14:25.320 And more importantly, adults who don't pay tax still have the right to vote.

00:14:28.940 So making voting a condition of paying taxes doesn't really work.

00:14:32.720 If we talk about maturity, there could be a mature 16-year-old who is probably more

00:14:38.300 adept at parsing what politicians are saying than an immature 18, 19, 20, or perhaps even

00:14:44.520 50, 60-year-old.

00:14:45.880 And there are other things as well that we would look at and say, well, you know, they're

00:14:49.520 under the thumb of their parents.

00:14:50.700 Well, so could you be at 18 and 19.

00:14:53.440 And when you try to go through this, all you're left with is really the idea that we have to

00:14:59.520 draw a line somewhere.

00:15:01.640 And wherever we choose to draw it is going to be arbitrary.

00:15:05.320 For example, the voting age being at 18 was reduced, I think it was in 1970 or 1972, from

00:15:11.960 21.

00:15:12.960 We have the drinking age, which varies depending on where in the country you are.

00:15:16.920 In some provinces it's 18, other provinces it's 19.

00:15:20.100 You head south to the U.S. and it is 21 most places.

00:15:24.060 So all of these ideas of trying to come up with an age of majority for somewhere have to

00:15:29.340 include some values judgment.

00:15:31.280 Now, the way the Charter of Rights and Freedoms is worded, they have a claim.

00:15:35.700 Under Section 3, you have a claim that says every Canadian citizen has the right to vote,

00:15:40.500 not every Canadian but.

00:15:42.100 And under Section 15 of the Charter, you have voting rights, which guarantee people freedom

00:15:46.120 from discrimination based on a number of criteria, including age.

00:15:50.480 So if you look at the plain text reading of the Charter, which is part of the Canadian

00:15:54.780 Constitution, yeah, absolutely.

00:15:56.780 Children are being denied the right to vote in an unconstitutional way.

00:16:01.280 But oddly enough, you look at this and they're not actually asking for the voting age to be

00:16:07.500 abolished.

00:16:08.400 They're asking for it to be lowered.

00:16:10.900 So under that same argument, the voting age shouldn't exist at all.

00:16:16.620 Infant voting should be allowed if you take the plain text view of the Charter that they're

00:16:21.300 pushing for.

00:16:21.980 Now, I know politically why people on the right would not want there to be underage people 1.00

00:16:29.340 voting, because we know that the older you get, the more conservative you get statistically.

00:16:33.820 So the more youth turnout is there in an election, the better it seems to work out for the left.

00:16:39.400 Although, if you are taking the view that children are just going to be proxies for their parents,

00:16:44.720 you know, I think conservatives tend to have bigger families.

00:16:46.740 So it might work out that way as well, where you get some of these like 7, 8, 9, 10 kid families.

00:16:51.220 Not that those are all that common.

00:16:52.960 And imagine walking into a polling station with 12 votes or something like that.

00:16:57.720 But in any case, the point is that there are practical reasons where a lot of people on

00:17:02.760 the right do not want and would not want the voting age lowered.

00:17:06.320 But if you're trying to actually have a discussion about it and come up with a silver bullet legal

00:17:11.200 debate or legal argument, it's difficult to come up with one that doesn't really just appeal

00:17:16.520 to ideas that we have.

00:17:17.900 Here's the thing, though.

00:17:19.800 If we are going to reopen voting, we have to reopen a lot of other things.

00:17:25.000 And I would be completely fine having a general discussion about age of maturity and age of

00:17:30.640 majority in the context of paying taxes, in the context of having to make decisions for

00:17:36.860 yourself and being able to make decisions for yourself.

00:17:39.120 Because what we have now is a patchwork.

00:17:41.180 We say that a 19-year-old, you have to be 19 to make the decision to drink alcohol for

00:17:45.920 yourself, we have to be 19 to make the decision to smoke for yourself, but you can vote at 18,

00:17:52.100 but you can get a job at 14, and you can work on the family farm even when you're younger than 14.

00:17:58.300 And even though that attaches with it some risk, we have lots of things that you can do.

00:18:03.140 You can babysit at a certain age.

00:18:04.760 All of these things are different, and they're all based on the fact that people have tried to draw

00:18:11.200 arbitrary lines for things that are just intuitive for quite some time.

00:18:15.920 And that's why we should be trying to take government out of the equation on these things and allow

00:18:19.820 parents and their kids to make decisions that are right for them when kids are mature enough to do

00:18:24.740 things.

00:18:25.520 Let's face it.

00:18:26.280 There are lots of kids that you might be comfortable with doing something at 14 that other kids you

00:18:31.480 wouldn't trust doing it until 15 or even 16 or perhaps never.

00:18:36.380 But that's why this debate is such an annoying one, because there is no right answer.

00:18:42.360 And it bothers me, because I value above all else when you're having these sorts of discussions,

00:18:46.720 I value consistency.

00:18:48.380 And whenever I'm confronted with an inconsistency in a view that I hold, I have to go back to the

00:18:52.780 drawing board and say, OK, hang on, is that actually an inconsistency?

00:18:56.180 And if it is, do I have to change the view or do I have to amend the value that I hold?

00:19:01.560 And that's a practice that I'm happy to partake in.

00:19:04.240 That's why free speech and open debate are so important, because you have to be able to

00:19:08.340 challenge your views.

00:19:10.200 Whereas voting age is like, yeah, if I want to be consistent, the voting age shouldn't exist at all.

00:19:16.140 But I know that's impractical.

00:19:17.340 I know that's not going to happen.

00:19:19.120 So it's one of these situations that just has no right answer.

00:19:23.080 That is just going to be dealt with warring factions who are really battling over something

00:19:28.320 that isn't pure and isn't ideological.

00:19:30.840 They're arguing over outcome.

00:19:33.620 The people that are saying this is great are inherently left-wing people that love the idea

00:19:37.720 of flooding the voter rolls with 16-year-olds.

00:19:40.700 The people that are against this are conservatives who are mortified by the idea of having more

00:19:45.160 16-year-olds voting.

00:19:46.220 So if we can at least be honest about people's motivations, I feel we could see past the fact

00:19:51.320 that there isn't perhaps a moral high ground we can cling to on either side of this debate.

00:19:56.180 We've got to end things for this segment here.

00:19:58.420 When we come back, though, we'll talk to Maxime Bernier about the leadership review that he

00:20:02.740 survived very handily in the PPC.

00:20:05.460 That's coming up next.

00:20:06.460 Stay tuned.

00:20:06.960 You're tuned in to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:20:16.420 Welcome back to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:20:18.740 Well, we've talked about it at great length on this program, the significant rise in People's 0.97

00:20:23.780 Party of Canada support from the 2019 election, where the party got 1.62% of the vote, to this

00:20:31.220 past election in September, where they nearly tripled that, coming up at 4.94% of the vote,

00:20:37.740 more than double what the Green Party got.

00:20:40.640 Nevertheless, after two unsuccessful elections, Maxime Bernier, the founding PPC leader, put

00:20:46.180 himself through a leadership review, and the results came in this past weekend, and of

00:20:52.520 57.5% of the PPC members who voted in the leadership review, Maxime Bernier had the support

00:21:00.200 of 95.6% of them.

00:21:02.520 The question was very simple.

00:21:04.280 Do you support Maxime Bernier remaining as leader of the People's Party of Canada?

00:21:08.780 So PPC leader Maxime Bernier has said he has a renewed mandate, and he's forging ahead into

00:21:14.140 the next election, whenever that may come, and he joins us now.

00:21:17.220 Maxime, always a pleasure to talk to you.

00:21:18.900 Thanks for coming on today.

00:21:20.640 Thank you, Andrew.

00:21:21.360 I'm very pleased to be with you, and very proud with that result.

00:21:26.020 I believe that we have a strong mandate to go on and push our ideas.

00:21:31.760 So why did you decide to have a leadership review?

00:21:35.520 Because, you know, after three years, yes, like you said, I fronted that party, and after

00:21:41.960 three years, I didn't win the last election, I didn't win my own former riding in both in

00:21:48.280 2019, didn't win my own riding in both in 2021, and I said it must be the time to have a leadership

00:21:56.220 review.

00:21:57.300 And I think, yeah, to have a mandate to do what we need to do as a political party that

00:22:03.140 is growing, and we decided to do that with an independent firm based in Montreal.

00:22:09.680 The process started early November up to last Friday.

00:22:17.660 So very pleased, good result, and now we're ready for the future.

00:22:23.460 Now, I know that when the leadership review was announced, there was a cutoff point.

00:22:28.500 No one who became a member after September 20th, the election, could vote in it.

00:22:33.840 Did that exclude people that may have previously left the party because they might have had

00:22:39.260 some concerns over your leadership?

00:22:41.620 Well, you know, we decided we needed a date for that.

00:22:45.440 So we decided the election date would be a good date just to do the cutoff, and we did

00:22:50.780 it with that date.

00:22:51.960 No, when we said that publicly and on social media, we didn't have any members that called

00:22:58.420 us or sent an email about, oh, you know, I didn't have time to renew my membership.

00:23:03.100 So, no, I think it was a fair process.

00:23:06.960 So moving ahead, you've got this mandate, 95.6% of those who said they supported you.

00:23:13.500 What do you believe is the benchmark for success moving forward?

00:23:17.400 Because I know you've talked about in the past how it took the Green Party 30 years to get

00:23:22.000 to the point where they're at now, which a lot of those gains tend to have been rolled

00:23:26.520 back in the last election.

00:23:28.180 But for you, looking ahead to the next election, where do you need to go to convince your members

00:23:33.620 and your supporters that the PPC is still on the right track?

00:23:36.740 I believe that the next election, it will be important for us as a political party to have

00:23:41.960 a seat and actually for me as a leader to have a seat.

00:23:45.040 And I can tell you that I don't know where I will run, but I believe that maybe it won't

00:23:52.140 be in Quebec.

00:23:52.900 We will look at all the ridings and take the best one for me where I have the better chances

00:23:58.820 to win that riding so it can be out west.

00:24:02.720 And my goal is to move in that riding that we will choose a couple of months before the

00:24:08.440 election.

00:24:09.540 And so I wish I'll be able to be back in Parliament.

00:24:13.220 That would be an important goal for me personally.

00:24:16.400 And for the party, I believe that, you know, from 5%, 4.9%, like you said, you know, if

00:24:22.800 we can go to 8%, that would be great also.

00:24:26.300 Step by step, we need to be there.

00:24:28.440 Actually, right now in the polls, we are around 10%.

00:24:31.980 So let's build that party.

00:24:34.580 And that's what we are doing right now, actually, and do what we want to do.

00:24:38.600 We want to re-approve or approve candidates as soon as possible, early next year.

00:24:45.780 So we don't want to do like we did before the last general election.

00:24:50.680 We were rushing to approve our candidates at the last minute.

00:24:54.940 We will do that in the beginning of next year with an open and fair process.

00:24:59.380 And our candidates will be able to be active on social media to campaign in their riding.

00:25:05.360 That will help us to be ready for the next general election that can be in two years or

00:25:09.940 three years.

00:25:11.200 What you just described of looking for a seat that might be a little bit more winnable than

00:25:16.320 both.

00:25:17.000 We saw in the last election, Derek Sloan decide to run in a seat that he thought was safe out

00:25:22.760 west and did not particularly well.

00:25:24.980 There are a lot of Albertans said they were very frustrated with someone trying to sort

00:25:29.460 of jump into Alberta, despite not being from there.

00:25:32.320 Are you concerned that would be your reception if you tried something like that?

00:25:35.980 But first, we must say that he was not a member of the party.

00:25:41.100 He didn't create a party.

00:25:42.020 People were voting for him as an independent.

00:25:44.780 And we are a real political party all across the country.

00:25:48.540 We have an organization all across the country.

00:25:51.180 So that's why I said also it must be important for me personally to move in that riding, not

00:25:57.200 just being there a week before the election like Derek did, but to be serious about that

00:26:03.520 and to move there.

00:26:04.720 Actually, I had that discussion when I was in Florida with my wife, Catherine, and she

00:26:10.480 understands that as a leader, my goal will be to be elected.

00:26:14.500 So that's why I believe that moving there before the election, people will look at me

00:26:20.900 as being a real candidate and a real member of parliament if I'm elected for them in that

00:26:27.480 riding.

00:26:28.920 You and I talked about this during the last election when I was out with you in Alberta,

00:26:33.540 and I saw, to your credit, a lot of huge support in places that aren't even traditional

00:26:38.040 conservative strongholds like downtown Edmonton.

00:26:40.900 But one of the things that I've noted and a lot of people have seen throughout the last

00:26:45.140 election was that there was a lot of PPC support from people that might not have been historically

00:26:49.800 conservative voters.

00:26:51.120 They may be non-voters.

00:26:52.540 They might have even been green or NDP voters, but they were very against vaccine mandates

00:26:56.760 and vaccine passports and found the PPC to be the only party pushing for these things.

00:27:02.540 If in two or three years, vaccine passports are not a thing, COVID is not a thing, we hope, 0.81

00:27:08.220 how do you recapture or maintain those supporters?

00:27:12.920 Yeah, absolutely.

00:27:13.780 I hope it won't be a subject of the next election in three years.

00:27:18.040 We are living in a kind of a totalitarian state here in Canada.

00:27:22.720 So, but you're right saying that all these people, because we were and we are still the

00:27:27.460 only party that is fighting for individual freedom and personal responsibility.

00:27:31.400 So, at the next general election, if it's not the main subject, I believe that the economy

00:27:37.700 will be the subject, like inflation.

00:27:39.820 You know, I spoke about it a long time ago, and inflation is a hidden tax.

00:27:44.320 It's hurting mostly the poor people in our country.

00:27:48.920 We need to fight inflation.

00:27:50.460 We have the solution for that.

00:27:52.020 I'm looking at the conservatives.

00:27:53.660 They're speaking about inflation right now, but the solution is to stop government spending,

00:27:59.520 and they're not credible on that.

00:28:01.360 The national campaign, they had a plan not to balance the budget in 10 years, so that

00:28:07.860 wasn't serious, and they had a lot of spending.

00:28:10.840 We need to stop the spending.

00:28:12.500 We need to balance the budget.

00:28:14.000 We need to be serious about it.

00:28:15.500 And we have a concrete plan to bring back the economy in a way that it won't hurt Canadians.

00:28:24.280 So, we have a plan to fight inflation, and I believe that can be the subject.

00:28:29.680 If it's not inflation, it can be Western alienation.

00:28:33.160 You were there, Andrew, in Alberta, and you know that there's a lot of Albertans and Western

00:28:37.640 Canadians that are not happy with the Constitution.

00:28:40.380 They are not happy with climate change, with the equalization formula.

00:28:44.640 We are still the only political party that is speaking about that, have a solution for

00:28:49.540 the equalization that must be less generous and fair for every province.

00:28:53.840 Climate change, we're the only one that won't do anything about climate change.

00:28:57.620 We'll let that to provinces.

00:28:59.220 So, there's a lot of many subjects and policies, and I don't know which one will be the subject

00:29:07.360 of that election, but we will be ready, and I believe that we'll be able to grow our support.

00:29:12.020 Let's talk a little bit about the numbers here, because in the last election, the Green

00:29:16.680 Party, as I mentioned earlier, had 2.3%, but still was able to turn that into two seats

00:29:22.180 because of the distribution, whereas the PPC more than double that, but zero seats.

00:29:26.720 So, a lot of this in Canada comes down to where the support is and how centralized or

00:29:31.540 decentralized it is.

00:29:32.780 I know you and I spoke during the election, and you said that the PPC might re-evaluate

00:29:38.260 its position on electoral reform and proportional representation after the election.

00:29:43.400 Have you had a chance to do that yet?

00:29:45.540 No, we didn't look at it right now, but that must be something that we'll look at.

00:29:50.640 But actually, also, our goal for the next election will be to have a candidate in every

00:29:55.620 riding to be able to increase our percentage of the vote.

00:29:58.780 We had only 312 candidates at the last general election, so we'll need to have a full slate,

00:30:07.840 and we'll have time to do that.

00:30:09.480 But also now, after two elections, the 2019 and the 2021, we know where we are stronger.

00:30:17.760 And yes, it's in rural Alberta, rural Saskatchewan, and Manitoba.

00:30:22.260 So, we will put more focus on these regions to be able to have some candidates elected also.

00:30:29.720 So, we know that the electoral system won't change before the next general election.

00:30:35.860 So, we will do our best to be able to elect somebody under the present system.

00:30:40.780 You saw, I know, in the last election, and I think you told this story on the campaign trail,

00:30:46.760 that a whole bunch of reporters were there when you kicked off your campaign.

00:30:50.220 They asked you questions for quite a while, and then at the end of it didn't really run any stories.

00:30:54.520 And it wasn't until the very end of the election that a lot of media started talking about the PPC.

00:31:00.320 But again, at the same time, you look after the election.

00:31:03.520 The PPC has run twice, has not elected any candidates twice.

00:31:07.160 How do you remain relevant to people?

00:31:08.820 How do you get your message out when you don't have any seats in the House of Commons?

00:31:12.740 Yeah, that's a challenge for us.

00:31:14.760 You know, we are more active on social media.

00:31:17.680 Now, we have a bigger team.

00:31:19.260 You know, this party is there for a long term.

00:31:21.740 You know, we won't disappear.

00:31:23.860 We have a person in charge of our social media, director in charge of our social media now.

00:31:29.300 We have a director in charge of the organization across the country.

00:31:33.420 We are building a team.

00:31:34.940 And as you know, we spent about $1.3 million at the last general election.

00:31:41.600 And because we had 4.9% of the vote, we'll be able to have half of these expenses reimbursed.

00:31:48.120 So we'll have about $600,000 in the bank in a couple of months.

00:31:54.020 We don't, we didn't have, and we don't have any deficit.

00:31:58.180 We didn't run any deficit in the past.

00:32:00.860 We'll have a surplus at the end of this year.

00:32:03.280 Our financial statement is ending.

00:32:06.120 Annual financial statement will be at the end of December.

00:32:09.160 And I can tell you we'll have a surplus there.

00:32:11.180 So we have, we are in a strong financial position.

00:32:14.460 We are building a new team at the head office and also our organization across the country.

00:32:20.580 So the challenge, and I'm a little bit more active on social media.

00:32:24.500 I'm doing more videos.

00:32:25.900 I think it's important.

00:32:27.280 But also I will test the mainstream national media.

00:32:30.980 I'll do a press conference for the end of this session at mid-December and our position

00:32:38.840 and our vision of what happened in parliament since they started that session.

00:32:44.640 So we'll see if they will cover us.

00:32:47.000 But that's a challenge, actually.

00:32:49.120 And my goal also is to be able to travel across the country.

00:32:52.820 As you know, I'm not double vaxxed.

00:32:56.060 And, you know, actually I had COVID, actually.

00:32:59.740 And so I think I have very good antibodies.

00:33:04.320 But I'm not able to travel by plane or by train across the country.

00:33:09.360 That can be difficult for me.

00:33:11.160 But we'll look what we can do.

00:33:12.980 So my goal is to be on the ground, active on social media.

00:33:17.080 And also I'm doing, I will do some press conference, not one or two every session.

00:33:22.140 We'll see if the mainstream media will be there to cover us.

00:33:25.440 They must be because we are at 10 percent right now in the polls and the Green Party is around 2, 3 percent.

00:33:32.400 So and the Green Party is, they're going bankrupt.

00:33:36.340 And we have money in the bank and we're ready to go and grow this party at the next step.

00:33:42.580 And that would be my challenge for the next two years.

00:33:46.420 Yeah.

00:33:46.940 And one interesting dilemma here, and I don't know if they're going to change the rules,

00:33:50.820 but if they keep the same rules the Leaders Debates Commission had in the last election,

00:33:55.780 you would be on the debate stage next time, as I understand it,

00:33:58.680 because the party received 4 percent of the votes nationally in the previous election.

00:34:03.240 Absolutely.

00:34:03.980 Absolutely.

00:34:04.720 And, you know, I don't expect that they, I don't think that they will change the rules.

00:34:09.620 That would be unfair.

00:34:10.840 So, and I'll be there, I'll be on the stage, and that would be interesting.

00:34:15.660 I'm looking forward for that, because that would be a real debate.

00:34:19.480 We are right now the only real opposition in Ottawa.

00:34:23.540 Look what happened last week with the conversion therapy.

00:34:29.120 The Conservatives, the Liberals, everybody unanimously, they voted for that deal.

00:34:33.580 And we have a different position on that.

00:34:36.120 So, I believe that that debate, when it will happen, will be very interesting,

00:34:41.100 because on climate change, on equalization, on conversion therapy, on inflation,

00:34:46.840 you can name it, we'll have a different position.

00:34:49.800 And Canadians will be able to listen, to have an opportunity to see me debating.

00:34:56.380 But also, I will have an opportunity to reach more people that are not maybe on social media.

00:35:01.940 So, I believe the next election would be another important step for the growth of our party.

00:35:07.920 Just one last question, Maxime.

00:35:09.740 I know you have been tweeting about it.

00:35:11.960 You decided to take a few weeks away with your lovely wife in Florida.

00:35:16.340 And I know you just came back, I think, about a week ago.

00:35:19.140 Do you miss Florida yet?

00:35:21.160 Yes, I did for the freedom, because, you know, we are not able to go to a cinema.

00:35:27.300 We are not able to go to a restaurant.

00:35:28.980 We are not able to participate in civil society.

00:35:32.300 I can tell you, when I was in Florida, we enjoyed that, and with friends, so that was fun over there.

00:35:38.380 Now, like I said, I'm going back in a kind of a jail.

00:35:41.960 And actually, for me, as a leader of a party, my goal is to build this party across this country.

00:35:49.000 And if I'm not able to travel, that would be a big challenge for me.

00:35:54.320 And I'm still, you know, I'm back.

00:35:57.200 And it's like we are in the election campaign when I did rallies against lockdown and mandates.

00:36:03.520 And I believe that I'll have to go back and I'll be on the street with our people to fight that and try to preserve the freedom that we must have in this country, as a democratic country, that we don't have right now.

00:36:19.000 People's Party of Canada leader Maxime Bernier is staying on as leader after receiving 95.6% of the vote in the leadership review, which just wrapped up on the weekend.

00:36:28.660 Maxime, thanks so much.

00:36:29.640 Merry Christmas to you and Catherine.

00:36:31.380 Thank you.

00:36:31.940 Thank you, Andrew.

00:36:32.540 Have a nice day.

00:36:33.280 Bye.

00:36:33.480 That was PPC leader Maxime Bernier.

00:36:37.560 Still, by the way, no response.

00:36:39.100 I've been trying to do a year-end interview with Conservative leader Aaron O'Toole to talk about very similar things, how the last election went, what the plans are for 2022.

00:36:48.120 And this has not yet materialized.

00:36:51.120 So hopefully we'll be able to have Aaron O'Toole on the show very shortly.

00:36:54.600 We'll talk to any of the party leaders.

00:36:55.860 I've interviewed Justin Trudeau.

00:36:57.280 It hasn't been for about six, I guess, coming up on seven years now.

00:37:01.180 And I'm not holding my breath.

00:37:02.760 He'll come back.

00:37:03.360 But you know what?

00:37:03.840 The invitation is always there.

00:37:06.060 With that, I've got a bid adieu for today.

00:37:08.700 We will be back in a few days' time with more of Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show.

00:37:12.980 This is the Andrew Lawton Show here on True North.

00:37:15.220 Thank you.

00:37:15.760 God bless.

00:37:16.360 Good day.

00:37:16.800 Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:37:19.140 Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.

Juno News - December 06, 2021

Omicron panic is causing more lockdowns and more vaccine mandates

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript