Juno News - November 30, 2022


Pierre Poilievre on the Emergencies Act, firearms, drugs and provincial sovereignty


Episode Stats

Length

23 minutes

Words per Minute

157.23892

Word Count

3,710

Sentence Count

199

Misogynist Sentences

1

Hate Speech Sentences

4


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Welcome to Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show. This is The Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by True North.
00:00:10.300 Coming up, Conservative leader Pierre Paulyev and I talk about the Emergencies Act, Alberta sovereignty, drug policy and more.
00:00:17.460 The Andrew Lawton Show starts right now.
00:00:21.140 Hello and welcome to you all. This is Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show here on True North, The Andrew Lawton Show.
00:00:27.740 Thank you very much for joining us. Not a usual program, as you can tell. We're not in the usual studio.
00:00:34.600 I'm actually in Ottawa right now and I've just concluded an interview with Pierre Paulyev, leader of His Majesty's Loyal Opposition,
00:00:42.460 leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, which we'll share with you in just a moment.
00:00:46.900 But I want to set the stage for it here because this is Pierre's first interview with True North since he became the leader earlier this year.
00:00:54.700 We spoke to Pierre a number of times during the leadership race and I've certainly interviewed him before.
00:01:00.080 He's always been very accessible to independent media.
00:01:03.440 Since he's become leader, we've asked for an interview and this is the first opportunity we've had to sit down with him.
00:01:09.680 And just to basically set the stage here, one of the challenges in Canadian Conservative politics
00:01:15.080 is that people will talk one way in the leadership race and then once they've become the leader,
00:01:20.440 they'll pivot and start talking in a very different way.
00:01:24.200 To Pierre Paulyev's credit, we haven't seen much of a pivot so far.
00:01:28.140 For example, he spoke about defunding the CBC during the leadership race
00:01:32.060 and has continued to talk about defunding the CBC now that he is the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada.
00:01:39.320 But obviously the mainstream media has had a bit of a freak out that they don't believe he is being as accessible to them as they would like.
00:01:45.900 He's only done one official Ottawa Parliamentary Press Gallery press conference since he became the leader
00:01:51.600 and was basically heckled during that for not doing more questions or something to that effect.
00:01:57.780 So we're very grateful to have the opportunity to sit down with Pierre Paulyev in Ottawa.
00:02:05.860 You're tuned in to The Andrew Lawton Show.
00:02:10.860 Conservative leader Pierre Paulyev, thank you.
00:02:13.500 Thanks for having me.
00:02:14.200 Let's start first off with this discussion because you've faced a fair bit of criticism
00:02:18.800 from some of the Ottawa Parliamentary Press Gallery types for being inaccessible to media.
00:02:23.800 And I know in recent weeks you're sitting down with me, you've spoken to ethnic media,
00:02:27.900 you've been on radio shows, but you've not done the conventional press conference approach to politics.
00:02:34.900 So why is that?
00:02:37.160 Well, you know, first of all, I think that for too long the debate in Canada has been dominated.
00:02:44.000 by a very small group of Laurentian elites, mostly in Ottawa, who believe that they should have a kind of monopoly on the political discourse.
00:02:57.540 I don't agree with that.
00:02:58.480 And so I've made a point, I also don't agree with the idea that the press gallery represents all the media in Canada.
00:03:06.960 There's plenty of media that are not part of the press gallery.
00:03:09.360 And I don't believe they should be excluded.
00:03:12.240 So instead, I've talked to multicultural media in Toronto and Vancouver and elsewhere.
00:03:19.240 I've done one-on-one interviews with news outlets like yours, but also talk radio.
00:03:26.440 I've used social media and I've used the platform in the House of Commons.
00:03:31.760 And I think those combined methods are the best way to communicate directly with Canadians
00:03:36.980 and go around the filter of the mostly liberal press gallery on Parliament Hill.
00:03:44.440 There are some good reporters who are in the press gallery,
00:03:46.700 but for the most part, there is a definite bias in favour of just defending the government
00:03:51.820 and regurgitating its talking points.
00:03:54.520 And I don't need to validate that.
00:03:57.760 And so I'll answer questions from a broad range of media.
00:04:02.440 And in fact, just over the weekend, I was doing a very extensive press conference in Toronto
00:04:07.560 with multicultural outlets from all different kinds of backgrounds.
00:04:11.680 Chinese Canadians, South Asian Canadians, Latinos, people from African descent.
00:04:18.140 They have all their publications and I wanted to talk with them and I did.
00:04:22.240 It must have been there for an hour or so.
00:04:24.420 So you'll see a lot more of that.
00:04:26.140 And there'll be a lot more voices heard under my leadership than there is under Justin Trudeau.
00:04:33.640 Let's talk about that idea of expanding your base, if you will,
00:04:38.800 because, you know, obviously we've seen a fair bit of divisiveness from Justin Trudeau's rhetoric,
00:04:43.140 whether it's been on people against vaccine mandates or I think in general along Conservative Canadians.
00:04:48.440 The last election, we saw the PPC rise from, you know, I think 1.9% or something in the 2019 election,
00:04:56.680 almost tripling that.
00:04:57.840 And a lot of those people were Conservative voters traditionally,
00:05:00.940 who felt very disenfranchised by the Conservative Party.
00:05:04.560 So do you have an active strategy to re-engage those people?
00:05:08.880 Is that part of your approach?
00:05:11.200 Well, I want everybody to join.
00:05:12.600 We've had my leadership race brought in,
00:05:14.280 my leadership campaign brought in all kinds of people who had been voting NDP,
00:05:18.380 working class folks who wanted to take back control of their lives,
00:05:23.180 some of who voted PPC.
00:05:25.600 I had former Liberals show up at my rallies.
00:05:29.100 And so it has to be a big, broad spectrum of everyone who wants to have more freedom through less government,
00:05:35.660 who wants their dollar to go further,
00:05:37.960 who wants freedom of speech on the Internet,
00:05:40.340 who believes that the government is a servant and not master.
00:05:47.200 All of those people are welcome in our tent,
00:05:49.460 and we're not going to push anyone away.
00:05:52.060 Over the last seven weeks, we've heard scores of witnesses,
00:05:56.700 hours and hours of testimony before the Public Order Emergency Commission
00:06:00.180 investigating Justin Trudeau's use of the Emergencies Act.
00:06:03.620 Now, I know that the Conservatives and you were against that act,
00:06:07.460 but looking back on this, we're now coming up on 10 months,
00:06:10.740 almost a year since the convoy protests and since the Emergencies Act.
00:06:15.340 Where is your perspective on this now after the commission hearings have commenced?
00:06:20.120 The same place that it was before the protesters even arrived in Ottawa.
00:06:25.180 I was out there, actually out that way,
00:06:28.900 I was on the steps of the John A. Macdonald building across from the Parliament buildings,
00:06:34.360 and they asked me,
00:06:35.400 what do you think about all the terrible people that are coming for this protest?
00:06:39.320 And I said, well, you know, you're talking about,
00:06:43.820 you know, they pick one or two examples of bad actors,
00:06:46.760 and I said, look, there are in any protest going to be good people and bad people.
00:06:53.460 You have thousands of people attending a protest.
00:06:55.980 You can pick a group that are not behaving properly.
00:07:01.260 But on the whole, I supported the peaceful and law-abiding protesters
00:07:06.440 who wanted their liberty and livelihoods back
00:07:10.520 while simultaneously condemning anyone who broke laws, behaved badly,
00:07:15.680 or blockaded critical infrastructure.
00:07:18.080 And that's what I feel today.
00:07:20.320 I also think Justin Trudeau provoked this entire crisis
00:07:23.160 with an entirely unnecessary and unscientific vaccine mandate on truckers.
00:07:28.680 It was imposed as the rest of the world was beginning to lift mandates,
00:07:33.660 and it was imposed on the very people least likely to spread a virus
00:07:37.860 because they're in a truck by themselves all day long.
00:07:42.980 And so I thought, this is unfair and unjust.
00:07:47.060 And if he had not done that, there would have been no trucker protest on Parliament Hill.
00:07:52.300 We wouldn't even be having this conversation.
00:07:54.600 And he has, to this date, not provided any scientific evidence
00:07:58.520 that there was a medical reason for doing it.
00:08:01.200 So I think it was part of a deliberate strategy to divide and conquer,
00:08:05.340 one that his own Liberal MP, Joel Lightbound, called out during the convoy protests.
00:08:12.820 And we're dealing with all of these costs, all of this division,
00:08:16.440 all of this distraction, because he deliberately provoked it at the outset.
00:08:20.740 Let me return to that comment you gave,
00:08:22.900 which I've heard you say before about condemning lawbreakers
00:08:26.220 and supporting law-abiding peaceful protesters.
00:08:28.720 Because one of the big questions about this protest is,
00:08:32.120 at what point did it become, in the government's eyes, unlawful?
00:08:34.900 So when you talk about someone like Tamara Leach, for example,
00:08:37.680 is she an example of the one you support and who is peaceful and law-abiding?
00:08:40.660 Or is she an example of one of the law-breaking ones you condemn?
00:08:43.680 Well, I'm not going to talk about any particular individual,
00:08:46.800 because I think she has a case for the courts,
00:08:49.100 and I'll let the courts determine.
00:08:51.820 Because I haven't studied every single person's conduct
00:08:54.360 over that two or three week period.
00:08:56.180 I wasn't on the ground surveilling people.
00:08:59.980 So I can't say what people did and what they didn't do.
00:09:03.000 But I can say that from the vast majority of people that I witnessed
00:09:07.440 who participated in it,
00:09:09.060 seemed to be just doing the normal Canadian peaceful protest.
00:09:14.840 Now, again, there were people who behaved badly
00:09:18.000 or blockaded critical infrastructure.
00:09:20.180 I don't support blocking borders or shutting down highways.
00:09:24.140 What about Wellington Street?
00:09:25.260 Is a trucker on Wellington Street a peaceful law-abiding protester?
00:09:28.360 Well, look, I think it depends if they're on foot.
00:09:31.720 I think my preference would have been for them to be on foot
00:09:35.200 and to park their trucks off-site.
00:09:38.260 I think that would have been better.
00:09:40.520 But that said, I think overall,
00:09:43.900 the reason we had these protests and all of this disruption
00:09:47.960 was because of an unnecessary and very disruptive vaccine mandate
00:09:53.820 that deprived all of these truckers of their livelihoods.
00:09:58.680 And that's why they felt like they had nowhere to go.
00:10:01.660 You know, it was the middle of February, I think, and cold.
00:10:06.120 And I don't think it was a luxury for them to be sleeping in their trucks.
00:10:10.080 They did it because they had nowhere to go.
00:10:12.100 They had no job to return to
00:10:13.940 because their job required them to seamlessly pass through the border
00:10:17.780 with their goods.
00:10:20.320 And the Prime Minister took away that livelihood from them.
00:10:23.820 And that's why this thing went on for so long.
00:10:26.080 If he had not done that, we wouldn't be having this conversation today.
00:10:29.760 If the Commissioner finds that the Emergencies Act was not justified,
00:10:33.520 one of the concerns that's been raised is that Parliament can take it,
00:10:36.900 review it, perhaps propose amendments,
00:10:38.620 but there really isn't a sanction or a penalty attached to the government on that.
00:10:42.960 And Jagmeet Singh, as I understand it, has said that even if that happens,
00:10:46.500 he's going to continue supporting the Liberals.
00:10:48.200 So how are you in a position, if you are at all,
00:10:50.820 to really demand accountability if this was an overreach?
00:10:54.220 Well, I think we need to look at...
00:10:57.100 I've consulted with some legal scholars on ideas
00:11:00.080 to protect Canadians against abuses of power under the Emergencies Act.
00:11:05.760 And I think we need to have some review of that
00:11:10.440 because, obviously, the Prime Minister used it when it was unnecessary.
00:11:15.860 You know, the border blockades were already lifted, as you know,
00:11:19.520 when the Emergency Act came.
00:11:22.620 And it's hard for the Prime Minister to explain what the emergency was.
00:11:26.340 There's obviously some disruption in downtown Ottawa on several blocks.
00:11:31.180 But, you know, that doesn't constitute a national emergency,
00:11:36.440 like a, you know, catastrophic earthquake or a foreign invasion
00:11:40.940 or some sort of terrorist attack that takes down a large building.
00:11:48.680 That's what you think of when you say national emergency.
00:11:51.080 And we didn't have a national emergency.
00:11:54.720 What we had was a large protest
00:11:58.000 and some roads blocked in a downtown setting
00:12:02.680 while the borders were completely open to commerce.
00:12:06.360 So I think we need to have another look at the Emergency Act powers
00:12:10.180 to make sure that no Prime Minister is able to abuse
00:12:13.600 the power in the Act like that again.
00:12:16.940 And there may be some more checks and balances required to do it.
00:12:21.260 Pivoting to another issue you actually raised in a video last week,
00:12:24.560 there is a very real crisis taking place caused by drugs.
00:12:28.380 And you did a video which I think went very viral in Vancouver.
00:12:33.040 And you talked about some of the overdose problems there.
00:12:35.320 But it's existing in communities across the country here.
00:12:38.540 And you took aim at a political aspect of this,
00:12:42.000 which was the granting of so-called safe supply
00:12:45.160 that we see particularly in British Columbia.
00:12:47.680 And a lot of people on the left defend that
00:12:50.260 by saying it's harm reduction,
00:12:51.660 that it actually is taking an approach to drugs
00:12:54.300 that is causing less harm overall.
00:12:56.320 Do you dispute that?
00:12:59.060 Well, I think the facts dispute the approach
00:13:01.160 that both federal liberals
00:13:03.080 and provincial and municipal New Democrats have been taking.
00:13:07.640 Look at the results.
00:13:09.320 They're in places like Vancouver.
00:13:13.840 The massive increase, tripling of drug overdoses
00:13:18.320 over the last seven years.
00:13:20.520 Nationwide, there have been 30,000 drug overdose deaths
00:13:23.520 since 2015, since Justin Trudeau took office.
00:13:27.420 And so the current approach is not working.
00:13:29.760 What I would say is, first, there's no question
00:13:36.720 that we should use medications to revive overdose victims.
00:13:43.600 There's no question that we should use medications
00:13:45.600 to make the withdrawal symptoms of quitting drugs more tolerable.
00:13:51.000 Because it's obviously incredibly painful
00:13:52.880 for someone trying to get themselves off these drugs.
00:13:55.100 And there are medications that can reduce that suffering
00:14:00.600 and therefore help people make the difficult step
00:14:03.940 to clean up their lives.
00:14:07.620 But the problem with the current approach
00:14:10.340 is that it's harm perpetuation rather than reduction.
00:14:15.980 And what I think we need to do is,
00:14:18.340 one, shift resources over to recovery and treatment.
00:14:22.320 We're seeing that in Alberta.
00:14:23.360 They've doubled the number of inpatient care facilities.
00:14:30.200 So it used to be there were 4,000 beds.
00:14:32.520 Now there's 8,000.
00:14:34.080 You bring the addict in.
00:14:36.000 Give them the medications to help them
00:14:38.040 wean off the addictive substance.
00:14:40.720 Detox, counseling, getting into a routine
00:14:44.980 and putting together a plan
00:14:46.520 for when they get out of the facility to stay clean.
00:14:50.140 That's the best way to save lives
00:14:53.100 is by getting people off of the drugs in the first place.
00:14:56.580 Secondly, I think we need to target
00:14:59.820 the most violent repeat offenders.
00:15:02.660 I don't think that people,
00:15:04.520 I don't think we should put people in jail
00:15:06.600 for using these substances.
00:15:08.340 But the violent repeat offenders and kingpins
00:15:12.920 who use coercion and other criminal violations
00:15:18.860 to spread drug use
00:15:20.720 and those who lace drugs with poisons,
00:15:24.300 they should be put in jail.
00:15:27.060 And what we're seeing like in Vancouver,
00:15:28.660 in Toronto, sorry,
00:15:29.220 in British Columbia,
00:15:30.940 the Union of Mayors wrote a letter
00:15:32.500 saying that in Vancouver,
00:15:34.320 40 offenders committed 6,000
00:15:37.320 negative interactions with police,
00:15:39.960 mostly arrests.
00:15:40.920 You have 40 people in one year
00:15:43.600 having negative interactions with cops.
00:15:47.140 That means 150 negative interactions
00:15:49.620 per person per year.
00:15:52.400 Imagine if you just got those 40 off the streets,
00:15:55.240 how much less crime you'd have
00:15:56.660 in downtown and east side Vancouver.
00:16:00.660 And then finally,
00:16:02.220 we need to try to keep
00:16:05.460 some of these precursors out.
00:16:06.600 I know it's difficult
00:16:07.320 because a lot of them come in by mail,
00:16:10.200 but we should work where we can
00:16:12.300 to stop both the flow of illegal drugs
00:16:14.740 and firearms into our country
00:16:17.080 from other places.
00:16:18.560 So that's the approach I would take.
00:16:20.140 I think it's common sense.
00:16:21.760 In Alberta, the approach I described
00:16:23.740 has already led to a reduction
00:16:25.880 by almost half
00:16:26.800 in the number of overdose deaths.
00:16:28.640 And that's what we should do.
00:16:29.980 I don't think we should leave people
00:16:31.140 on the street dying in tents.
00:16:33.020 I don't think we should accept
00:16:34.380 that their permanent fate
00:16:36.000 is to be hopelessly addicted to opioids
00:16:39.220 because we know that eventually
00:16:41.180 that will kill them.
00:16:42.560 You mentioned firearms.
00:16:44.020 The Liberals in committee last week
00:16:45.640 had proposed an amendment
00:16:46.820 that effectively would expand
00:16:48.740 their ban in C-21
00:16:50.320 to virtually every semi-automatic rifle
00:16:53.120 out there except for small-caliber 22s.
00:16:55.980 Is this an amendment
00:16:57.220 that you would oppose?
00:16:58.380 And C-21 in general,
00:16:59.660 if this is law by the time
00:17:00.980 you become prime minister,
00:17:02.280 if that happens,
00:17:03.000 would it be repealed?
00:17:04.040 So I oppose both Bill C-21
00:17:06.420 and the amendments
00:17:08.140 that they most recently brought in.
00:17:10.600 The idea that we should...
00:17:11.960 This amendment, by the way,
00:17:14.340 effectively bans
00:17:15.720 there's hundreds of thousands,
00:17:17.740 if not millions of Canadians,
00:17:23.080 sorry, millions of firearms
00:17:24.940 that are in Canada today
00:17:26.380 that are used for hunting.
00:17:28.000 These are hunting rifles
00:17:28.880 and hunting shotguns.
00:17:31.140 And so there,
00:17:32.460 as Raquel Dancho,
00:17:35.140 our public safety critic,
00:17:36.220 said they're going after Grandpa Joe
00:17:38.100 and his rifle, right?
00:17:39.400 Yeah.
00:17:40.000 And there's no science behind this.
00:17:42.960 There's no evidence
00:17:43.720 that the massive increase
00:17:46.380 in violent crime
00:17:47.440 in our inner cities
00:17:48.660 is the result of people
00:17:50.640 in the country
00:17:51.320 using hunting rifles
00:17:54.000 or shotguns.
00:17:54.920 So obviously,
00:17:56.120 conservatives oppose that
00:17:57.180 and we'd repeal it.
00:17:58.740 And I would replace
00:18:00.120 this approach
00:18:01.280 with a...
00:18:02.960 I put in place
00:18:04.140 a committee
00:18:05.180 of cops,
00:18:08.300 border guards,
00:18:10.240 licensed and law-abiding
00:18:12.700 First Nations hunters,
00:18:15.420 anglers,
00:18:17.380 and sports shooters
00:18:18.400 who can put together
00:18:21.380 serious, clear criteria
00:18:23.380 to determine
00:18:24.060 how a firearm is classified.
00:18:26.660 You know,
00:18:27.240 the old machine guns
00:18:30.320 and traditional firearms
00:18:33.920 that were banned
00:18:34.660 back in the 70s,
00:18:35.840 obviously those
00:18:36.480 should stay banned.
00:18:37.600 But those that are appropriate
00:18:38.640 for use in hunting
00:18:39.860 and recreational sports shooting
00:18:42.520 should be classified accordingly.
00:18:45.000 And my approach
00:18:46.320 would be
00:18:46.800 to put that right in law
00:18:48.200 so it's very clear
00:18:49.740 and the government
00:18:51.480 and the politicians
00:18:52.180 can't constantly
00:18:53.140 and suddenly change the rules
00:18:54.640 at great cost
00:18:55.960 both to the lawful property owner
00:18:58.760 but also to the taxpayer.
00:19:00.880 That's the other thing
00:19:01.480 that no one's talking about
00:19:02.360 is if they're going to do
00:19:03.000 a buyback
00:19:03.700 of all these hunting rifles,
00:19:06.460 we could be talking
00:19:07.180 about billions of dollars.
00:19:08.920 And for what?
00:19:09.680 Like, there's no
00:19:11.020 public safety benefit
00:19:13.000 to taking hunting rifles
00:19:14.680 away from people
00:19:16.200 in the countryside.
00:19:17.680 Why not take the same money,
00:19:19.120 bolster the borders,
00:19:20.040 keep out the smuggled guns
00:19:21.140 that are leading
00:19:22.220 to the killings
00:19:23.080 in our urban settings?
00:19:24.760 Turning to Alberta
00:19:25.720 for a moment.
00:19:26.460 There's a new premier there,
00:19:27.660 Danielle Smith,
00:19:28.340 who's proposed
00:19:28.960 as her first order of business
00:19:30.400 a sovereignty act
00:19:31.660 to reclaim sovereignty.
00:19:33.520 Now, your leadership campaign
00:19:34.980 was all about
00:19:35.600 taking back control.
00:19:36.600 Is that something
00:19:37.600 that you'd support
00:19:38.360 from a federal perspective
00:19:39.480 province is doing?
00:19:41.000 Well, when I'm prime minister,
00:19:42.100 bills like this
00:19:43.060 will be unnecessary
00:19:43.760 because I'm going to respect
00:19:45.200 provincial jurisdiction.
00:19:47.140 And, you know,
00:19:48.140 it's entirely reasonable
00:19:50.400 that premiers across the country,
00:19:52.540 whether it's Quebec's Legault
00:19:54.280 or Saskatchewan's Scott Moe
00:19:58.220 or Danielle Smith
00:19:59.320 or anyone else
00:19:59.980 would want to protect
00:20:00.760 their jurisdiction
00:20:01.500 because Trudeau
00:20:02.480 has invaded it
00:20:03.700 with C-69
00:20:04.540 which appropriates
00:20:06.920 federal control
00:20:07.960 over provincial resource decisions
00:20:09.800 with carbon tax
00:20:11.020 which again imposes
00:20:12.640 a federal mandate
00:20:13.920 to,
00:20:14.820 proposes a provincial tax
00:20:16.900 through a federal law
00:20:17.940 through these recent
00:20:19.500 firearms policies
00:20:21.040 which ban
00:20:22.240 hunting rifles
00:20:23.660 that harm law-abiding people
00:20:25.940 in places like Alberta.
00:20:27.160 these are all examples
00:20:29.400 of massive federal interference
00:20:31.760 in provincial jurisdiction.
00:20:33.880 As prime minister,
00:20:35.180 I would repeal C-69,
00:20:37.120 I would repeal the carbon tax,
00:20:39.000 I would also repeal
00:20:40.580 the hunting rifle
00:20:42.060 and hunting shotgun ban
00:20:43.780 that Trudeau is proposing.
00:20:46.000 So, I suspect
00:20:47.160 not long after
00:20:48.660 I become prime minister,
00:20:49.700 most premiers
00:20:50.720 will stop talking
00:20:52.180 about this stuff.
00:20:53.020 You remember,
00:20:53.300 none of this was happening
00:20:54.120 when Harper was prime minister.
00:20:55.200 That is true.
00:20:55.880 I don't remember,
00:20:57.240 even in Quebec,
00:20:58.560 they briefly had a PQ government
00:21:00.660 while Harper was in
00:21:02.060 and other than
00:21:03.620 the normal squabbles,
00:21:04.820 there was nothing
00:21:05.440 on this scale.
00:21:07.340 And in fact,
00:21:08.200 when Harper left office,
00:21:09.320 the separatist movement
00:21:10.260 in Quebec
00:21:11.260 was annihilated
00:21:12.480 and in Alberta,
00:21:14.960 it was unheard of.
00:21:16.480 No one talked
00:21:17.360 about separation
00:21:18.080 and that is because
00:21:20.340 when the federal government
00:21:21.500 respects provincial jurisdictions
00:21:23.060 and lets local provinces
00:21:25.360 make their own decisions
00:21:27.020 in their own realms,
00:21:29.040 you tend to have
00:21:29.700 a more united country
00:21:30.660 because people aren't
00:21:31.460 antagonized by each other.
00:21:33.200 Would you appoint
00:21:33.980 the winners of Alberta's
00:21:35.180 provincial Senate elections?
00:21:37.000 That would be
00:21:37.700 my inclination.
00:21:38.520 Although,
00:21:38.680 I have to figure out
00:21:39.440 when I take office,
00:21:40.840 it's 2025,
00:21:41.880 how long it will have been
00:21:42.960 since the election.
00:21:44.320 But my view is
00:21:45.580 that election should lead
00:21:47.300 to who goes in the Senate
00:21:48.840 and not just
00:21:50.700 a prime ministerial edict.
00:21:52.060 Although,
00:21:52.760 in most provinces,
00:21:53.560 there are no elections
00:21:55.840 and will be none.
00:21:56.760 So I will have
00:21:57.580 to appoint senators
00:21:58.980 and I will appoint
00:22:00.380 those who respect
00:22:01.720 the will of the people.
00:22:03.080 Just as you look forward now
00:22:04.580 and the last election
00:22:05.640 came around,
00:22:06.480 the Conservatives
00:22:07.140 had this approach
00:22:07.860 that it was
00:22:08.360 an unnecessary election,
00:22:10.160 which struck me
00:22:10.840 as a bit odd
00:22:11.360 because they had also
00:22:12.180 been talking for years
00:22:13.060 about how Justin Trudeau
00:22:14.560 was doing all this stuff
00:22:15.760 that was wrong.
00:22:16.700 What's your approach
00:22:17.280 on an election now?
00:22:18.160 Is it the sooner
00:22:18.740 the better for you?
00:22:20.780 Well,
00:22:21.140 I have to go back
00:22:24.900 to the serenity prayer
00:22:25.840 because at the end of the day,
00:22:28.700 I can't choose
00:22:29.340 the election timing.
00:22:30.460 It's up to the majority
00:22:32.000 in the House.
00:22:32.540 And right now,
00:22:33.260 that majority
00:22:34.060 is the Trudeau-Sing coalition.
00:22:36.680 And those two
00:22:37.620 have coalesced
00:22:38.880 to stay in office
00:22:40.140 until 2025.
00:22:43.020 My view is
00:22:44.080 we have voted
00:22:44.800 non-confidence
00:22:45.440 in the government
00:22:46.680 by opposing its budgets,
00:22:47.940 by opposing its spending,
00:22:50.100 and by saying
00:22:51.160 the government
00:22:51.520 is on the wrong track.
00:22:53.320 But at the end of the day,
00:22:54.300 it will be up
00:22:54.720 to Jagmeet Singh
00:22:55.520 to decide
00:22:55.940 how long he wants
00:22:56.700 to perpetuate
00:22:57.520 an inflationist government
00:22:59.360 that has contributed
00:23:01.360 to doubling housing prices,
00:23:02.920 41-year highs
00:23:03.740 in inflation,
00:23:05.020 major tax increases
00:23:06.320 on home heating,
00:23:07.120 gas,
00:23:07.500 and groceries,
00:23:08.880 and countless other attacks
00:23:11.120 on working-class people.
00:23:12.340 If the NDP
00:23:13.360 wants to continue
00:23:14.060 to support that,
00:23:14.860 then we will hold
00:23:15.440 them accountable
00:23:15.920 for their decision
00:23:17.940 at election time.
00:23:19.220 If there were
00:23:19.680 an election
00:23:20.060 in the coming months,
00:23:20.760 would you be unhappy with it?
00:23:21.800 I'll ask it that way.
00:23:22.540 Well, we'll take it
00:23:23.220 whenever it comes.
00:23:24.200 Fairfellow, yeah.
00:23:24.740 Thank you.
00:23:25.180 Thank you very much.
00:23:26.080 Good to be with you.
00:23:26.660 Thanks for listening
00:23:27.560 to The Andrew Lawton Show.
00:23:29.280 Support the program
00:23:30.020 by donating to True North
00:23:31.260 at www.tnc.news.
00:23:34.680 Thank you.