Juno News - Pierre Poilievre accuses mainstream media journalist of being ＂Liberal heckler＂

00:00:00.000 Welcome to Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show.

00:00:05.040 This is The Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by True North.

00:00:12.800 Hello and welcome to you all.

00:00:15.360 This is another edition of Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show,

00:00:18.980 The Andrew Lawton Show, here on True North.

00:00:21.640 It is Tuesday, September 13, 2022.

00:00:25.460 Thank you so much for being on the program today.

00:00:28.760 We spent most of the show yesterday talking about the new leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, Pierre Polyev, who won very handily Saturday night, over 68%, 68.15% for the precise among you, percent of the points in the leadership race, a much better margin than Erin O'Toole had, than Andrew Scheer had.

00:00:49.820 And even if you go way back to the very formation of the Conservative Party, even more than Stephen Harper had with a much smaller field of candidates.

00:00:59.240 So this is fairly important. And the big question now becomes one of party unity.

00:01:04.440 What are the Conservative Party's next steps?

00:01:06.980 I'm going to be speaking about that in just a couple of moments time with Candace Bergen, the former leader of the Conservative Party of Canada,

00:01:13.940 who got on a schedule anyway, it wasn't like a coup or anything, got ousted from the position

00:01:19.580 when Pierre Polyev won on Saturday. But we'll talk to her about her tenure in that role as

00:01:24.840 leader of Her Majesty's loyal opposition at the time and where the party is moving forward.

00:01:30.580 But I just want to start by what has been, I think, a fairly exciting kickoff to Pierre

00:01:36.260 Polyev's leadership here. I want to play a clip which just emerged a couple of hours ago at the

00:01:41.760 very first time pierre pauliev step before the ottawa media the parliamentary press gallery he

00:01:48.640 had prepared remarks he came out he was ready to give them and well got a little bit derailed

00:02:00.400 thank you very much for coming i appreciate that thank you very much i appreciate it

00:02:05.840 appreciate your presence here today uh before i begin let me just say that uh

00:02:14.160 thank you very much i'm being i'm being heckled here by by the by thank you very much for your

00:02:20.000 congratulations thank you very much for your questions i'm going to begin my remarks now

00:02:27.680 justin trudeau is out of touch and canadians are out of money the cost of government is driving up

00:02:35.840 cost of living. A half a trillion dollars of inflationary deficits have bid up the cost

00:02:42.940 of the goods we buy and the interest that Canadians pay. And that is why we are experiencing

00:02:51.800 40-year highs in inflation today. Here we are today with 40-year highs in inflation,

00:02:58.820 where Canadians are spending more just to feed themselves, to heat their homes, and

00:03:04.800 buy a home in the very first place the reason that they're like yeah so we have we have uh

00:03:14.560 basically a liberal heckler who snuck in here today to well apparently right are you going to

00:03:23.760 let me make my misstatement from the guy who actually reported first on the prime minister

00:03:28.000 breaking the law are you going to let me ask a question say i've never i've actually never seen

00:03:33.040 you heckling the prime minister look bottom line is this yes I'm taking I

00:03:41.020 will taking two questions at the very end thank you very much the so I'm gonna

00:03:45.040 start my statement again and hopefully this time without interruption from the

00:03:50.380 liberal heckling gathering here and I will speak directly to Canadians so that

00:03:55.660 they can hear what the new leader of the opposition has to say I'll begin again

00:04:03.040 And the liberal heckler, as Pierre Polyev puts it, is David Aiken from Global News, who, before Pierre Polyev even, like, opened his mouth for his statement, was being, like, bombarded and peppered with questions.

00:04:18.000 Now, I'm not one of these people that thinks politicians should be treated with the kid gloves, quite the contrary.

00:04:23.420 But ideally, like, let them say what they're going to say and then, like, heckle them at the end if they aren't taking your questions or if they aren't answering your question.

00:04:31.180 But instead of groveling, instead of apologizing, Pierre Polyev says, yeah, you're a liberal heckler.

00:04:36.420 Let me say what I'm going to say.

00:04:37.780 And then it ended up working.

00:04:39.320 And he basically, once he restarted, was able to continue with the statement.

00:04:43.220 Now, this is just one media availability on one day, the first opportunity that Pierre Polyev has really had to go before the parliamentary press gallery.

00:04:52.300 But I think this may be a tone that kind of works for him.

00:04:56.040 Certainly the people commenting on this on Twitter seem to be fans, except for the ones that weren't really fans of him in the first place.

00:05:02.940 But we'll talk about all this and more a little bit later on in the show.

00:05:06.400 I want to talk about the bigger picture right now of conservative politics in this country.

00:05:10.940 We've had for the last basically nine months Candace Bergen as the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada.

00:05:17.840 And she's now announced she's not even going to be running again, which I know has disappointed a lot of people, but it comes after a great many years of public service.

00:05:26.520 And I'm very pleased that Candice Bergen, the Portage-Lisgar MP and former Conservative leader, joins me now.

00:05:32.860 Candice, good to talk to you. Thanks so much for coming on the show.

00:05:36.580 Hi, Andrew. Great to see you. Thanks for having me.

00:05:41.340 Let me just point out a technicality here. I know that you were known generally as the interim leader.

00:05:47.840 But that's actually not a title that exists in any meaningful way in Canada.

00:05:52.560 I mean, you were the leader of the official opposition.

00:05:55.180 You were the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, but it was on an interim basis.

00:06:00.680 That's right. Actually, in our party, we only have one title.

00:06:05.520 It's leader of the... I like to joke, I'm not the interim leader.

00:06:09.060 I was the leader in the interim, and it was an honour.

00:06:13.520 It was a challenging, but a very, very good seven months.

00:06:17.220 How difficult is it for you to take over that role on an interim basis when you know there's

00:06:26.220 going to be a permanent leader that's going to come in and put their own brand on the party and

00:06:30.420 put their own policies in place? But at the same time, you also have to rise to the challenge on

00:06:35.660 very difficult issues that were coming up, like Justin Trudeau's vilification of people based on

00:06:40.760 vaccination status, like vaccine mandates, like ethics. How do you find that balance of doing

00:06:46.300 your job as an opposition leader, but also not, you know, branding the party in a way that's

00:06:51.900 normally the job of the person who's coming after you? Well, I was fortunate to have an incredible

00:06:59.120 caucus group of members of the parliament that when I became the leader, there was a lot of

00:07:06.360 negativity in the caucus. But these are good individuals who know how to be part of a team,

00:07:12.760 private sector, they'd come from different walks of life and I found, I found whether it was Ronna

00:07:19.720 Ambrose, other leaders, that if as a leader we respect, trust us and remain consistently conservative,

00:07:29.960 which is really important, they were accomplished through an extremely difficult time. As you

00:07:35.480 mentioned it was literally right in the middle of the convoy was was invoked we

00:07:41.960 had the coalition between the Liberals and the NDP unprecedented inflation so

00:07:50.000 there was a lot going on but a group of MPs that we work together and we stayed

00:07:56.960 true to our conservative principle back down now did that mean that we weren't

00:08:01.580 thinking about what Canadians wanted we wanted to offer

00:08:05.480 so it was I came into it it was difficult initially I knew that if I treated this

00:08:13.460 caucus with respect they deserved they treated me the same way a lot and we are

00:08:19.940 we are not only unified we are a team well let me ask about that because

00:08:26.480 obviously leadership races nomination battles at a local level they sometimes

00:08:31.240 can bring out tensions and ideally at the end of it everyone gets behind the

00:08:35.240 winner. And, you know, everyone wears their blue colors if you're in a Conservative Party of Canada

00:08:39.740 context. But the challenge that I would raise on this, if you look even just today, for example,

00:08:46.000 one member of the Quebec caucus, Alain Reyes, has already said he will no longer be sitting as a

00:08:50.720 Conservative. And I guess the question is, where are the fault lines in this unity battle right

00:08:56.500 now? Because the statement from Mr. Reyes was that he didn't feel as a progressive Conservative,

00:09:01.240 You know, one of the two legacy parties that formed the Conservative Party of Canada, that he had a place.

00:09:08.080 Well, I think the results of these were very defining.

00:09:13.840 And it's clear the party is united in its way for Pierre.

00:09:19.800 I was disappointed to see Alain's statement.

00:09:23.180 I really have such a name.

00:09:25.560 He's been a tremendous part of our caucus for many years.

00:09:29.880 I hope Andrew though that maybe maybe he'll change his mind at some point and I hope that

00:09:37.200 he'll continue with the honor and integrity he has conducted himself and maybe come back

00:09:44.440 with a family. I haven't talked to Pierre about this but I would I'm sure if he would

00:09:49.340 change his mind. So I'm not sure what he's going through and it's hard when you're supporting a

00:09:57.380 candidates he did for Mr. Charest, it is hard being on the losing end and that's

00:10:02.960 why I'm so well pushed out to each one of the candidates and to their

00:10:07.580 volunteers and I can tell you Andrew that I started as a volunteer for

00:10:13.880 Stockwell Day and when Stephen Harper, Stephen Harper's volunteer coordinator

00:10:20.100 phoned me as a volunteer and said would you come and help us and

00:10:27.380 that made me a fan of Stephen Harper of my life I can tell you I will be a fan

00:10:33.980 of Stephen Harper's but the point being I see Pierre do the same thing and do it

00:10:40.040 in a genuine way and I know that's how we all feel volunteers voters there's

00:10:45.800 people who were working very closely with the other leadership candidate

00:10:49.640 it's visuals and we want them to be part of our conservative team so let me ask

00:10:56.840 ask you then about this lineage of conservative leaders. This is a very young party right now,

00:11:02.440 and we know that there have been, I mean, obviously we can go back to John A. MacDonald

00:11:06.780 if we include all the iterations of it, but Stephen Harper, Ronna Ambrose, Andrew Scheer,

00:11:12.120 Aaron O'Toole, you, Pierre Polyev, everyone in the party that I've spoken to seems to think that

00:11:18.940 Stephen Harper is still really, I think, the model version of what this party can be. He led this

00:11:25.080 through multiple governments, you have a majority government.

00:11:27.640 I guess the question is, how much does that influence still loom over you as an interim leader

00:11:32.400 and from what you know about Pierre Polyev, Pierre moving forward?

00:11:36.400 There's no doubt Stephen Harper had and still has a huge impact on our party and our members.

00:11:43.080 That's a good thing.

00:11:44.540 I mean, that is just the nature.

00:11:46.440 I think any organization, any effective, whether it's in politics or really in any other sector,

00:11:53.360 in the country and somebody who makes an impact, whether they leave because they passed away or

00:12:02.060 they leave, their impact is not lessened. And I don't think that we should expect it. We should

00:12:09.860 be proud and grateful that we had Stephen Harper as a leader and that we can as an example. And

00:12:18.280 And whether, you know, when I think I started as a volunteer, I went on to chair secretary, really, I grew in the party and eventually became leader in the interim.

00:12:28.760 The fact that is the leader and he also worked closely with Stephen Harper, but Pierre is himself that he believes he needs to be, but have that impact and that influence from the thing that's something we should all be grateful for.

00:12:45.160 i know you've as i indicated a few moments ago decided not to seek re-election and as someone

00:12:52.140 who's always enjoyed our chats on air you'll still be invited on the show don't worry so that

00:12:56.060 you don't give up that when you leave office but uh certainly i think a lot of people are going to

00:13:01.020 be disappointed to see you go why decide to take your step off stage now well i've had is andrew

00:13:09.440 so much support. People are so kind for, you know, you sometimes hear stories of people, politicians,

00:13:17.520 and from my experience, it's been the opposite. People have just been so supportive. You know,

00:13:22.480 first of all, I just want to say how much that has meant to me. You know, honestly, Andrew,

00:13:28.640 I did a little bit even prior to the last election. I wanted to make sure that I stayed,

00:13:35.520 I had something to contribute and something that I needed to do and I thought after the last thing

00:13:42.800 about that even more when I became a leader and things left the party I felt that this was the

00:13:50.800 time for me to leave this particular position involved in helping the party I still hope to be

00:13:58.880 involved maybe in the private sector maybe not for 37 I still have a lot left to offer but I

00:14:05.280 I wanted to leave on my terms and leave when I the most that I could accomplish

00:14:10.380 in that particular field that I was in so you know that's I'd rather go when

00:14:16.020 people are saying please stay then go when they're saying you know when is she

00:14:21.400 going but I do have to say this Andrew I've got to say this yes I watched your

00:14:26.280 clip and I saw a little bit of him really acting in an incredibly impolite

00:14:33.360 way and I'm not but

00:14:35.280 The seriousness of it is it's the hostility media towards

00:14:43.380 Conservatives specifically

00:14:45.380 is very troubling

00:14:48.480 They get away with it. There is very little accountability for those who have that

00:14:56.520 Hostility towards conservative

00:14:58.720 We saw it today

00:15:00.720 I better check in when it comes to, they talk about bullying and being nasty and where's their anger coming from?

00:15:10.200 Because they sure seem to have, I saw some real strong anger coming out of David Aiken.

00:15:16.860 And I don't know what's going on with him, but that, I think it's something we're going to have to be, call it out and be very conscious of it.

00:15:29.020 Well, very well said.

00:15:30.720 You've had a very distinguished career and I note what you've said there very much that you aren't

00:15:35.120 done yet. You're just moving on to another chapter. But I thank you very much, Candice,

00:15:38.960 for your service and also for coming on today. It's been a pleasure.

00:15:42.860 My pleasure. Thanks so much, Andrew. All the best to you.

00:15:46.760 Thank you. Candice Bergen, former leader of the Conservative Party of Canada on an interim basis.

00:15:51.960 It's a little technicality, but it matters. I understand and I'm sorry I didn't notice it

00:15:56.100 earlier. Apparently there were some audio issues at some point in the chain there.

00:15:59.160 I was able to certainly catch what she was saying, but I know it might have dipped in and out. So I apologize for those technical issues. But nonetheless, I think the point was an incredibly valid one, especially at the end there, when she talks about the hostility in the media. And I get that. I mean, right now, a lot of journalists in Canada are jumping up and down talking about how uncivil they feel people are towards them. And obviously, anyone that steps forward publicly is going to bear the wrath of people on the internet.

00:16:25.760 But certainly you look at that clip and you wonder, yeah, you know what, the media sometimes dishes out the incivility as well, to put it kindly.

00:16:33.700 And, you know, David Akin, his defense may be, and I'm actually just going to check on Twitter right now to see if he's responded to this.

00:16:41.540 Because he may say, you know, I'm an equal opportunity heckler.

00:16:44.540 I've heckled Justin Trudeau.

00:16:45.900 And to be fair, I absolutely know David Akin.

00:16:48.780 He has not tweeted since that press conference.

00:16:50.580 Okay. So he may absolutely be able to say, I've shouted at Justin Trudeau as well. And certainly

00:16:56.980 I've heard reporters that have gone after Justin Trudeau. That's a big part of it. They want to

00:17:01.500 get an answer. But the point is that you've never even let the guy get his message out. If he doesn't

00:17:07.280 take your question at the end, then bark away, but give him the chance because right now David

00:17:11.940 Akin has become the story. And that little clip, which I played has now given the audience an

00:17:18.160 opportunity to say well you know what Pierre Polyev is dealing with this fight Pierre Polyev

00:17:24.240 is now on the defense while the reporters go undeniably on the offense just because I think

00:17:31.380 we need to put it in the record and make sure we've all seen and I'm going to play that clip

00:17:34.500 again this is Pierre Polyev today fending off David Aiken at the parliamentary press gallery

00:17:40.720 debut basically thank you very much for coming i appreciate that thank you very much i appreciate

00:17:52.160 it appreciate your presence here today before i begin let me just say that uh

00:18:00.800 thank you very much i'm being i'm being heckled here by by the by thank you very much for your

00:18:06.640 your congratulations. Thank you very much for your questions. I'm going to begin my

00:18:11.460 remarks now. Justin Trudeau is out of touch and Canadians are out of money. The cost of

00:18:20.460 government is driving up the cost of living. A half a trillion dollars of inflationary

00:18:27.340 deficits have bid up the cost of the goods we buy and the interest that Canadians pay.

00:18:35.760 And that is why we are experiencing 40-year highs in inflation today.

00:18:41.380 Here we are today, with 40-year highs in inflation, where Canadians are spending more just to

00:18:47.580 feed themselves, to heat their homes, and to buy a home in the very first place.

00:18:54.000 The reason that, look, we have basically a liberal heckler who snuck in here today to

00:19:05.140 I work for Global News. I'm the chief political force of that organization.

00:19:10.140 Are you going to let me make my statement?

00:19:11.140 Do they remember me from the guy who actually reported first on the Prime Minister breaking the law?

00:19:15.140 Are you going to let me make my statement?

00:19:16.140 We'd just like to ask a question.

00:19:18.140 I've actually never seen you heckling the Prime Minister.

00:19:21.140 I've done it before. Ask Minister Barrett back in the day.

00:19:23.140 I've never seen you heckling the Prime Minister.

00:19:24.140 Look, bottom line is this.

00:19:25.140 We're going to take some questions at the end of the statement.

00:19:27.140 Yes, I'll be taking two questions at the very end.

00:19:29.140 Thank you very much.

00:19:30.140 Thank you very much.

00:19:31.140 So I'm going to start my statement again, and hopefully this time without interruption from the Liberal heckling gathering here.

00:19:39.680 And we'll speak directly to Canadians so that they can hear what the new leader of the opposition has to say.

00:19:46.500 I'll begin again.

00:19:49.640 Bam. It was funny.

00:19:51.340 On Saturday night, when we were doing our live broadcast for the Conservative results,

00:19:56.460 I had said to, I can't remember if it was to Candace or, not Candace Bergen, to Candace

00:20:00.360 Malcolm or to Sue Ann Levy or Harrison Faulkner, if I just said it out loud to myself, or

00:20:05.020 you know what, maybe didn't even say it out loud.

00:20:06.940 You never know.

00:20:07.720 But I said, we need to see little shades of Ron DeSantis, just little shades.

00:20:14.400 He doesn't need to go the full DeSantis.

00:20:16.020 He doesn't need to go the full Florida.

00:20:17.340 If he wants to, that's fine.

00:20:18.260 But just a little bit of flipping the script when the media is being hostile.

00:20:24.420 When the media asks a question that's based on a false or biased or loaded premise, when

00:20:30.320 the media is not actually letting you get your message out, when they wouldn't dare

00:20:33.680 act the same way with Justin Trudeau at the very beginning.

00:20:37.100 Again, that clip started when Pierre Polyev came out and said, welcome.

00:20:41.420 And David Akin, if you listen, he does that thing.

00:20:43.640 Well, the first thing he heckles is congratulations.

00:20:47.180 So it's like, oh, I was congratulating him.

00:20:49.280 And then after it's like, blah, blah, blah, blah.

00:20:50.760 And then he just goes right into it.

00:20:52.380 and Pierre Polyev's like I was dude I was just saying hi like I once was at a party which in

00:20:57.820 and of itself is newsworthy and I was like going around and I introduced myself to a guy and I

00:21:03.300 said oh hi I'm Andrew and he shakes my hand and then he just like launches into something and I

00:21:07.580 was like I I was just saying hello I was just like trying to walk around the table saying hello

00:21:11.560 at that time Pierre Polyev was just walking around the table saying hello and even then they wouldn't

00:21:17.540 So he's going to no doubt, I mean, my colleague Harrison Faulkner tweeted this video, and I just want to take a look at where this is on Twitter now. I think it has done very, very well. It is, I can't even find the tweet, but certainly it's got like hundreds and hundreds, maybe even thousands of likes and retweets.

00:21:35.540 And then there was this incident. Now, again, this is hearsay, but it's hearsay from the press secretary to Pierre Polyev. So it's not just some random guy on Twitter. But Anthony Koch says, at a press conference today on combating Justin Trudeau's inflation, David Akin told me to tell conservative leader Pierre Polyev to go F himself.

00:21:57.320 later he erupted in a yelling spasm to try and prevent Mr. Polyev from even beginning his press

00:22:04.600 conference then he like snitch tags global news so I again I have no reason to distrust Anthony

00:22:09.900 I wasn't there I haven't seen it David Aiken has not tweeted a response to this yet but what

00:22:16.880 Pierre Polyev's press secretary is saying is that Anthony said to tell Pierre to go f himself and

00:22:22.220 then when he got to the press conference started yelling and shouting and screaming and apparently

00:22:26.620 the background of this is that Poliev was originally not going to take questions and

00:22:32.120 then he decided, and then David Aiken was unhappy about that. And then Pierre Poliev

00:22:35.560 said, okay, he'll take two questions. And by the way, I think Pierre Poliev absolutely

00:22:39.680 should take questions. Like let's go back to the Freedom Convoy here. And you can see

00:22:44.240 this in my book. If you read it, the Freedom Convoy, the inside story of three weeks that

00:22:49.260 shook the world available on it. I didn't even know we had that cover in there. See that

00:22:53.160 producer has earned his bonus today. Thank you for that. Yes. The Freedom Convoy, the inside story

00:22:59.220 of three weeks that shook the world. I was just like, Ray, that wasn't even a planned flood. But

00:23:03.180 the convoy organizer said they weren't going to talk to legacy media. They weren't going to talk

00:23:07.700 to the David Akins and the Glenn McGregor. And there was that one video from the convoy that

00:23:12.300 a lot of people enjoyed a bit of schadenfreude over of Glenn McGregor, like having a hissy fit

00:23:17.280 in a hotel hallway because he wasn't allowed in the room where the convoy people were having

00:23:22.160 their press conference. And I think it was a flawed strategy because I think you should actually

00:23:29.000 let them come in, take their questions. And if they're a biased question asker, you expose it.

00:23:34.280 And if they report something inaccurate, you expose that. And I would take the same view of

00:23:38.500 Pierre Polyef. Pierre Polyef should stand up there and take their questions. I think his team should

00:23:43.900 probably and does probably have confidence in his ability to do exactly what he did with David Akin,

00:23:50.680 which is to shout down someone if they're trying to talk over him, if they ask a question that's

00:23:55.380 a trap, to actually identify it as a trap and say, that's a trap. I'm not going near that.

00:24:00.240 And then to pivot to his message. Like this is a guy who's done this. He was one of the strongest

00:24:04.720 conservatives in question period for a reason. So I do think that if they try to do this Harper

00:24:11.220 thing and hide Pierre Polyev from the media, it's not going to work because the media is just going

00:24:16.080 to spin its wheels, but they don't actually get exposed. Whereas I think they should open the

00:24:20.120 doors, open the floodgates, let the media come in. And then when the media exposes themselves to be

00:24:25.760 petty little liberal hack children, then turn it around and show the world that, or show the

00:24:32.060 country that anyway. That is, I would put forth the winning strategy for Pierre Polyev. You got

00:24:39.440 to play to your leader's strength and you got to diminish their weaknesses. His ability to handle

00:24:43.400 himself in front of a hostile crowd is a strength, not a weakness. So let him embrace that. I mean,

00:24:51.020 when I saw the press release go out from his office about this little media availability he

00:24:55.860 was going to have, it said he's going to deliver remarks to the media or something like, like it

00:24:59.780 didn't say what you'd normally say in that context, which is he is having a media availability. So I

00:25:04.600 know from that he was not going to, it sounded like take questions. And I said, oh, now the media

00:25:10.360 is going to make that the story. Whereas in this particular case, the fact that he did respond,

00:25:15.540 he did engage with David Aiken, I think actually worked far better for him. It actually helped him

00:25:20.780 much more in the long run. So this kind of thing is going to continue to happen. And I think they

00:25:27.980 need to be able to meet the challenge head on and go for it. And I mean, look, we have requested an

00:25:33.500 interview with Pierre Polyev. So far, he's not done any sit downs since he became the leader.

00:25:37.540 we are going to continue to be on that because I think it is important for us to go forward with

00:25:42.660 that and hold them to account and ask questions about all of these key things. And I guess one

00:25:49.260 question I would ask to anyone who is like absolutely in a frenzy about Pierre Polyeva,

00:25:55.160 what is it you're seeing there? What is it you're seeing there? And I don't know the answer to that.

00:26:02.120 I don't know what is they're seeing. When you start using words like fascist and extremist,

00:26:07.540 like, I don't even know if they know what those things mean. I don't know if they've actually

00:26:13.280 entertained them or if it's just like so familiar to them. It's like such, it's such like a, an easy

00:26:19.900 thing for them that they don't even entertain it. It was like, Stephen Harper was a dictator

00:26:23.320 and Pierre Polyev is a fascist. And Aaron O'Toole was like, you know, Attila the Hun and,

00:26:28.480 and Andrew Scheer was, I can't even think of some example. I mean, it was like that clip I,

00:26:32.700 or that quote I shared yesterday from CUPE saying that Pierre Polyev should be the governor of

00:26:38.340 Alabama, which Jamil Chivani and I were talking about. So all of this stuff, I feel, is really

00:26:46.340 going towards this hysteria that I just don't think will be there. And just take, for example,

00:26:53.840 this look at Pierre Polyev's leadership team. So he announced this today on Twitter,

00:26:58.580 the group of caucus members that he has behind him that are going to be the ones that really

00:27:03.980 drive the agenda, that really work and help and do stuff behind the scenes. We'll get that graphic

00:27:09.480 up in just a couple of moments, but there it is. So Pierre Polyev, Melissa Lansman is his deputy

00:27:14.380 leader, a gay millennial Jewish woman from the GTA, Tim Uppel, who is a Sikh, a very, very

00:27:21.740 passionate member of parliament from Edmonton. And then you've got, again, right down the line,

00:27:26.860 representation from Saskatchewan, from Quebec, people from the progressive Tory tradition,

00:27:31.760 from the harder line, blue Tory tradition. You have all of these different people that are

00:27:35.820 coming together. This is not a far right candidate. This is not a far right team.

00:27:42.040 And I think that when the media just keeps going into the same bag of tricks, far right, extremist,

00:27:49.240 evil, hidden, scary, social conservative. Like I learned something about Pierre Paulyeb when he

00:27:54.480 gave his acceptance speech on Saturday night and he thanked his father, Donald, and his father's

00:28:01.260 partner, Ross. I actually didn't know until that moment that Pierre Polyev's adopted father was

00:28:06.940 gay, was in a relationship with another man. And I don't particularly care about that. But why I 0.99

00:28:12.660 think it's interesting is that whenever he's been tainted with this, oh, he's cozying up with social

00:28:16.800 conservative brush, he has not that I've seen thrown that back at them and say, well, actually

00:28:22.260 this. Because he's not playing that identity politics game. He's not playing that identity

00:28:28.220 politics game. And if the media tries to make that stick, if the media tries to say,

00:28:31.980 in 1984, he voted against same-sex marriage, it's like, well, just take a look at his own life.

00:28:39.560 Here's a guy who is saying a lot of things that matter to conservatives and a lot of things that

00:28:45.460 I think matter to Canadians as well. But as I said yesterday, the goal is making sure

00:28:51.160 that he continues to say those things that even if his tone changes the fundamental message doesn't

00:28:57.080 and and one fantastic example of this is cbc funding again i concede it may not be the ballot

00:29:02.940 issue for most canadians but it is an issue that matters to a heck of a lot of conservative voters

00:29:08.020 which is why defund the cbc was such a robust chant at pierre polyev's rally and it was with

00:29:15.620 him. I actually asked him very candidly. I asked him point blank about what he's going to do and

00:29:22.100 when he's going to do it because I'm trying to put on the record and preempt exactly what happened

00:29:27.040 in 2020 with Aaron O'Toole when he said, again, all the right things in the leadership race and

00:29:31.020 then was nowhere to be found on these issues in the general. And this was my exchange with Pierre

00:29:35.360 Polyev. Talk about independent media. You've established that you want to get rid of the

00:29:40.500 the Trudeau government's media bailouts, you want to defund the CBC. We heard in the last

00:29:45.680 leadership election, Aaron O'Toole say that he was going to defund the CBC. And during the election,

00:29:50.760 that had been walked back to really an unrecognizable point in the party's platform.

00:29:56.360 Specifically, what will you do with CBC in your first mandate?

00:30:00.640 Well, I will defund it to save a billion dollars. I think the only justification for

00:30:10.040 a broadcaster, a public broadcaster, would be to fulfill what the market can't provide.

00:30:17.220 Almost everything the CBC does can be done in the marketplace these days because of

00:30:22.280 technology.

00:30:23.940 I would preserve a small amount for French language minorities, linguistic minorities,

00:30:31.000 because they frankly will not get new services provided by the market.

00:30:36.460 We have a gigantic sea of English in North America and only a small population, a Francophone

00:30:44.280 population. 1.00

00:30:45.280 I think there is a justification because government really should only do what people

00:30:49.560 cannot do for themselves.

00:30:51.000 That's the justification for leaving a small part of the budget that currently is well

00:30:58.200 over a billion dollars for the CBC to provide for those things that the market is not doing

00:31:04.140 for itself. 0.95

00:31:05.140 So the National, Power and Politics, CBC News Online, no funding for those under a Polyev government? 0.99

00:31:10.620 Yeah, I don't think that the television service, the English language television service that CBC provides or the digital provide anything that people can't get from the marketplace. 0.99

00:31:24.860 So after that interview, I had a few people that are like, is this really the most important thing?

00:31:29.180 Why are you spending so much time talking about it?

00:31:31.100 It's because I think the precision was important.

00:31:33.380 I wanted him to lay out exact so there was no ability to go back after and say well what I

00:31:38.880 meant was no he said what he meant there'd be no national there'd be no little mosque on the

00:31:42.860 prairie reboot there'd be no being Erica there'd be no whatever other shows are on CBC that no one

00:31:47.880 watches it would be gone a little bit of French language funding but CBC English news would be

00:31:54.400 gone so that is a big issue because that is a clear issue and that is a yes or no so in the

00:32:01.760 general election platforms, defund CBC better be in there. And again, instead of doing what

00:32:08.200 happened in the last election, where the conservative leader sort of cowers before the

00:32:12.140 media, own it. And when CBC starts asking the question, you know they will. But how could you

00:32:19.020 defund us? He can say, well, hang on. Why are you asking? You're biased. You've got a conflict of

00:32:23.020 interest. You're talking about your own job here. You're not talking about something that matters

00:32:26.780 to Canadians. You're talking about something that matters to you. And show Canadians what that is.

00:32:33.420 So I think in a lot of cases, the advice is hide from the media because they're the only way that

00:32:39.540 you can win. But if you are capable of flipping the script, if you have truth on your side,

00:32:45.400 I think as we saw in that David Akin clip, you can really flip the story. And for once in

00:32:51.380 conservatives lives in this country go on offense. We've got to end things there. My thanks to all

00:32:56.940 of you for tuning into today's show. We will have a new edition of Fake News Friday that I'm sure

00:33:01.160 this clip will also seep into in just a couple days time. And next week, we will go the other

00:33:08.940 way with this, talking about the conservative movement and what the Polyev win means for 0.62

00:33:13.680 Maxime Bernier and the People's Party of Canada. So like I've always said, we cover the conservative

00:33:18.280 movement with a small C, not just the large C conservative party. So that's what we have coming

00:33:23.020 up on the show next week, as well as lots of other things. So I do thank you so much for tuning in.

00:33:27.920 We'll talk to you folks soon. Thank you. God bless. And good day to you all.

00:33:32.440 Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:33:34.600 Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.

00:33:48.280 We'll be right back.

00:34:18.280 We'll be right back.

00:34:48.280 We'll be right back.

Juno News - September 13, 2022

Pierre Poilievre accuses mainstream media journalist of being ＂Liberal heckler＂

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