Juno News - Rescuing BC from the WOKE mob (w⧸ Caroline Elliott)

00:00:00.000 Hi, I'm Candice Malcolm and this is the Candice Malcolm Show. We have a great episode for you

00:00:06.080 today, folks. As you may or may not know, I grew up in Vancouver and born and raised in British

00:00:10.480 Columbia. I haven't lived there basically since I graduated from high school and I'm still

00:00:15.480 interested in BCA. I spent Christmas out there with my family, visiting, brought my kids out

00:00:19.940 there. We actually got to go skiing, which was really fun. And I had the opportunity to sit down

00:00:24.180 with the interim leader of the BC Conservative Party, Trevor Halford. I had a great interview

00:00:29.440 with him in Vancouver about the issues facing British Columbia. And we talked about the upcoming

00:00:34.080 leadership race. And as I stated, we were going to give you updates, follow that campaign.

00:00:39.560 I'm very pleased today to be sitting and talking to one of the candidates who is running for leader

00:00:45.040 of the BC Conservatives. You may recognize her. She's been a guest on the show before. Her name

00:00:48.300 is Carolyn Elliott. She's a longtime political commentator, policy advocacy, currently running 0.61

00:00:53.200 for leader of the BC Conservative Party. She's an outspoken critic of what she calls the NDP's

00:00:58.000 radical reconciliation agenda and its woke agenda. And I'm really excited to be talking about that

00:01:03.980 with her today. So Carolyn, welcome to the show. Thanks so much for being here.

00:01:07.080 Thanks for having me.

00:01:08.500 Okay. So first of all, why don't you just tell us about the radical reconciliation agenda? It is one

00:01:13.880 of my, I think the most important topics in the entire country. We cover it in great detail

00:01:17.960 here on the show. So why don't you describe what you think it is? What is the problem and how you

00:01:22.960 think we can solve it?

00:01:24.460 Yeah, I think it's one of the most critical issues facing BC. And sometimes I'll get a

00:01:28.040 little bit of flack because people will say, you know, you talk an awful lot about this.

00:01:31.900 And the reason I talk an awful lot about it is because it is affecting every impact of life

00:01:38.040 in British Columbia, every story, every aspect of life in British Columbia. So look at the economy,

00:01:44.280 for example, we're facing significant uncertainty on the land base. We're now seeing the government

00:01:48.460 come down with these so-called consent-based agreements, which means projects that are in

00:01:51.880 the public interest, major mining projects cannot happen if you don't get the consent of these small

00:01:58.880 indigenous governing bodies, which are often representing, you know, a few hundred people

00:02:02.240 or so. These are projects, again, in the provincial interest, representing 5 million plus British

00:02:07.760 Colombians. So I've been very critical of those. I've called them undemocratic. I've talked about how 1.00

00:02:13.560 their agenda threatens our prosperity as a province. I've talked about how ultimately it even

00:02:18.440 threatens our sense of common citizenship as British Columbians. You know, when you have kids

00:02:23.440 going to school and they're learning that the land that they stand on isn't theirs or that it belongs

00:02:28.220 less to them than it does to others by virtue of their ancestry. When you have NDP MLA standing in

00:02:33.320 the legislature saying, you know, non-indigenous British Columbians should be calling themselves

00:02:38.600 uninvited guests and settlers. When they're closing down provincial parks, which, you know,

00:02:43.900 British Columbians pride themselves on, as you know, from living here. When they're

00:02:48.420 saying only indigenous people can enter those parks. Like, these are very problematic things

00:02:52.740 and they all come from, I believe, a very radical sort of land back, you know, original colonial

00:02:59.340 mistake mindset, which David Eby has actually used those words, in terms of trying to atone

00:03:04.300 for the past in some ways that I don't think is very productive for our province.

00:03:07.760 So I think that most people look at the situation as it is today and they do notice that there's a

00:03:13.420 discrepancy, like in the standard of living and the lifestyle, of Canadians versus those who live 0.82

00:03:17.820 on reserve, those who are First Nations. And most people feel like great empathy for that situation.

00:03:23.240 They want to fix it. And it seems to me that the left has come up with this solution. This is how we

00:03:27.600 fix it. We basically say that Canada is an illegitimate country. We start every single meeting with a land 1.00

00:03:32.740 acknowledgement saying that our land is stolen and unseated and that's somehow going to solve the

00:03:37.120 problem. I obviously think that's very wrong. And there's so many different issues that stem

00:03:42.420 from that mindset, whether it be the unmarked grave story, you know, or the land acknowledgements.

00:03:49.880 There's all kinds of things that come out of it. It doesn't seem to me that the BC conservatives have

00:03:54.560 had the most stellar record on this. You know, we know that John Rudstad was removed from leader

00:04:00.120 of the party not too long ago, around the same time as one of his staffers, Lindsay Shepard, who used to

00:04:04.540 work for me and for True North, basically did a social media post criticizing Reconciliation Day and Orange

00:04:11.340 Shirt Day, talking about what she called the masquerade hoax. So I'm wondering, like, I mean,

00:04:16.000 this is a really thorny, complicated issue. And it doesn't seem like it's one that even within the

00:04:20.240 BC conservatives, there's much agreement on. The other one was that the BC MLAs recently rejected

00:04:26.260 a ban on land acknowledgements in the public sector, and they voted against that private member bill.

00:04:32.240 So what do you make of the unwillingness within the party to sort of agree? And what do you think

00:04:38.200 the correct approach to this issue is? Yeah, really good question. And you're right, it's a thorny one.

00:04:44.520 And I think we've really lost our ability to talk about it with any sense of nuance, right? And I think that's

00:04:52.040 what's missing is to actually be able to have a conversation about it. And the first step to having a

00:04:57.400 conversation is not shutting down people and firing them. And in some cases have angry mobs, you know,

00:05:04.740 intimidating people from speaking up on certain things. It's not even a question of are they

00:05:08.940 right? Or are they wrong? To me, it's like you in a functioning democracy, you have to be able to talk

00:05:14.500 about things and especially the hardest things to talk about. It's one of the things that I've written

00:05:18.260 about is talking about this practice. And I don't want to get too technical. But you mentioned the

00:05:23.780 shutting down of the bill around the land acknowledgements in the legislature that was

00:05:27.920 shut down at first reading, it's called that first reading is about just reading it aloud in the

00:05:33.060 house to find out if you even want to find out whether or not you then later debate it.

00:05:40.220 So it's not even debating it. It's shutting down the very idea of a discussion on that. And I

00:05:45.240 disagreed with it. I wrote a column about it at the time. I thought it was wrong. I thought I think

00:05:48.440 it's wrong every time they shut down a bill at first reading, because it's like, I don't even want

00:05:52.000 to hear what's in it. I know I don't like it. And I think that's a very unproductive approach to some

00:05:57.080 of the harder issues. Like if we can't have a civil debate in the legislature, or a civil discussion,

00:06:00.940 or disagree completely, in a civil way in the legislature, then where can where do we expect

00:06:05.680 these conversations to happen? And what happens is they go out to the fringes, where it becomes

00:06:10.220 very, very difficult to have a conversation with nuance in it. And I think we get a lot more

00:06:15.420 polarized. I think we're not setting a good example as politicians when we see things like that

00:06:19.440 happening. So anyway, so that's maybe a little bit of a long answer. But I think it's just one of

00:06:24.460 those issues where we've lost the ability to even talk about things.

00:06:29.120 And sort of on a related note, I mean, I think that our Juno News audience was very surprised,

00:06:34.360 very concerned by the decision made by BC Superior Court about the property rights and the

00:06:40.580 ancestor land for the Cowichan tribe, which, as people may know, is on Vancouver Island. And yet

00:06:47.380 they were given title over land in Richmond, which is part of the little mainland part of Vancouver,

00:06:51.320 the part of Vancouver where the airport is. And now we're talking about thousands of acres or

00:06:56.540 hundreds of acres, potentially people losing private property. It's actually wild, right? And

00:07:02.780 it's all, to me, an outgrowth of the same ideology and the same mindset that we have to give the land

00:07:09.220 back, that Canada is an illegitimate country, and that maybe even our property is in jeopardy.

00:07:15.960 What was your comment on what we can do to rectify it? What would you do as Premier?

00:07:22.100 Yeah. And look, this is, I would do very much the opposite of what David Eby has been doing on this.

00:07:27.180 So he likes to point to the Cowichan decision and say, oh, it's out of our hands. That was the

00:07:31.200 courts. And don't worry. He used the words, I'm going to go to the wall to protect private property.

00:07:35.200 But when you actually look at his actions, they directly led to this case. And not only that,

00:07:40.120 he has not actually changed course to make sure that it doesn't end up in the same place in an

00:07:44.040 appeal. And I'll explain that very briefly. So in the Cowichan case, he created the policy precedent

00:07:51.160 for putting Aboriginal title over top of private property. He did that on Haida Gwaii, which is a 0.77

00:07:55.920 set of islands on the north coast of BC. Formerly known as the Queen Charlottes, exactly. He set that

00:08:03.080 policy precedent, right? And at the time, I wrote about it saying, it's a really bad idea to place

00:08:08.920 Aboriginal title over private property for all of these reasons that are emerging from the Cowichan 0.73

00:08:13.760 case now. The judge actually referenced that, saying, oh, that policy up there showed us that

00:08:20.100 these things can coexist here. So it was part of her reasoning in her decision. David Eby did that.

00:08:25.540 Furthermore, in actually defending private property rights from Aboriginal title, he could have used this 0.97

00:08:30.880 a certain set of arguments. Our lawyers, government lawyers could have used a certain set of arguments

00:08:35.320 that would better defend private property. I won't go into it, but the argument's kind of called

00:08:39.420 extinguishment, meaning when private property rights were placed over that landed extinguished

00:08:44.280 Aboriginal title. It is a live argument that you can make in the courts. The courts have found that.

00:08:49.180 And David Eby chose, he actually issued a directive saying you cannot make that argument. You cannot

00:08:54.200 powerfully protect private property rights using that argument. Shockingly, the judge, having not had that

00:09:01.440 argument made. Her was unable to use that. She even mentioned that in her reasons, saying these

00:09:05.500 arguments were not made. Richmond made the argument, but the province did not. Neither did the federal

00:09:10.860 government. So the thing I would mention with that, not to get too technical, is that that directive

00:09:17.560 is still in place. So when in every other title claim that's happening across BC and in the appeal when

00:09:24.680 it finally happens with Cowichan, as far as David Eby's concerned, government lawyers will still not be able

00:09:31.380 to make those most powerful arguments to protect private property. So he's misleading the public in a, I think,

00:09:36.400 a really egregious way when he says he wants to protect private property.

00:09:39.860 It's really unbelievable to watch it all unfold from the outside. I mean, I think that David Eby's approach

00:09:46.980 when it comes to pipelines is another area of great concern, especially because you have Alberta Premier

00:09:51.940 Daniel Smith seeming to be in some kind of an agreement with Prime Minister Mark Carney and

00:09:57.720 having a memorandum of understanding and saying, you know what, if we want to diversify our trading

00:10:01.700 partners and we want to get our economy going with or without the United States agreement, we probably

00:10:06.440 should get some pipelines built. And it seems like David Eby is dead set on stopping that. So

00:10:11.700 like what is the Conservative position? What would you do, you know, fighting an election against him

00:10:18.720 to try to tell people in British Columbia that actually pipelines are incredibly vital for our,

00:10:23.600 not just for our economy, but for our survival as a country?

00:10:27.440 You put it so well, like that is exactly it. We're like, I really think regular British Columbians

00:10:33.440 really understand that we are blessed with an incredible abundance of natural resources in this

00:10:38.800 country and this province. We're blessed with an incredible geography, like our location relative to the rest of

00:10:45.360 the world, you know, adjacent to the US, across the ocean from the Asia-Pacific. Like we are so lucky.

00:10:52.080 We have an incredible workforce that are very skilled and talented and have amazing credentials.

00:10:57.200 And it's like, we have all these things. We should be the most prosperous nation on earth. We should be

00:11:01.920 the most prosperous province in the most prosperous nation on earth. I really believe that. And I think,

00:11:05.920 I think British Columbians want that. So part of that is making sure that our resources can get to market

00:11:11.200 and not setting up roadblocks, setting up roadblocks every step of the way, which David E.B. is doing.

00:11:16.080 We heard him say around the prospect of a pipeline, it will require the consent of the Coastal First

00:11:21.120 Nations. Coastal First Nations, as you, as you may know, they're not actually a constitutionally

00:11:26.160 ascribed indigenous group. They are an NGO effectively, that is just hell bent on opposing any kind of

00:11:33.840 natural resource development or pipeline through what they call their territory. That is not actually

00:11:39.360 productive. It's not in the public interest. And it's not actually democratic to put a consent

00:11:44.480 power or veto power in the hands of a group like that, which David E.B. insists on doing.

00:11:49.440 It's unbelievable. Even Prime Minister Mark Carney put out a statement saying that these people have

00:11:53.680 been stewarding the land for time immemorial. And he was referring to this NGO, right? It's like,

00:11:59.520 it's kind of wild, even the way that the media put it and other politicians. I'm pleased to hear you

00:12:04.640 calling that out. I want to ask kind of a step back and ask a bigger question, because again,

00:12:10.720 like looking at it from the outside perspective, it's like you have this NDP party that is totally

00:12:16.320 radical and, you know, worse than ever, basically. I believe they've won three elections in a row,

00:12:21.600 or is it two or three? I think they've won three in a row. It seems to me that what British Columbia

00:12:25.920 needs is a strong, united opposition. And I know this from experience because I worked in Alberta,

00:12:31.840 I worked for Danielle Smith when there was the split between the PCs and the Wild Rose party,

00:12:36.560 and it took them uniting in order to eventually beat the NDP. So I'm looking at this happening in

00:12:41.680 British Columbia, it seems like it's almost happening, you know, exactly like it did in

00:12:44.960 Alberta 10 years ago. And I worry that having a united party plus the BC conservatives, and then you

00:12:50.400 have the break off one BC party. Can you describe why there are three parties on the on the center

00:12:55.760 right? And how having a separate conservative party is beneficial to the end goal, which I assume

00:13:02.560 is to replace the NDP? Yeah, look, so you're absolutely right there. Nobody wins except the NDP

00:13:10.000 when the right is divided. And I think people understand that. And, you know, the conservatives

00:13:16.400 are just undisputably, indisputably, the party of the right in British Columbia, they just are,

00:13:22.000 they came within, you know, a handful of votes from forming the last government in the last election,

00:13:27.440 just barely missed that. I think there's a huge opportunity there to do that. Now,

00:13:31.200 like, it's, there are going to be people who want to choose a different path for whatever reason. But

00:13:36.400 I think that's why making the right choice in this leadership race is going to be crucial, because

00:13:41.840 there's some folks out there, if you elect them, then one of the parties on the right pops up and

00:13:46.720 starts saying, well, you're not right wing enough. And, you know, if another person wins,

00:13:50.400 you know, maybe the party on the center more to the center, which is United starts popping up,

00:13:54.160 right? And like, you know, these, these things will happen regardless of, of, of, you know,

00:13:58.880 what I say, certainly, but making the right choice where you can actually kind of bridge that,

00:14:05.280 that divide and saying, look, like we have to come together, we can come together. I think

00:14:10.160 there's absolutely a path to do that under the right leader, but we have to get this right.

00:14:14.800 Okay. So your critics will say that you were, well, you were part of the BC United Party,

00:14:20.640 you were a liberal before that, when it was sort of a coalition of conservatives and liberals

00:14:24.800 in British Columbia. But in the last election in October 24, you ran as a member of the BC United

00:14:30.400 Party. So can you just clarify, like, when did you switch from United to conservative? And like, what,

00:14:36.880 maybe what, what makes you a conservative?

00:14:38.800 Sure. Yeah, no. So, yeah, so I was part of the, the BC liberals and later BC United is probably

00:14:45.360 anybody over 30 who've, who's been involved in BC politics has been. It's been long a coalition of

00:14:52.000 federal liberals and federal conservatives. So, you know, that's just the reality. And, you know,

00:14:58.240 I think the, the important thing to think is a, I did run as a, as a BC United candidate, but what I did

00:15:03.120 is I played a crucial role in standing that party down when it became clear that a split on the right

00:15:09.760 was only going to elect a NDP government, an NDP super majority government. If, if United had stayed

00:15:15.680 in that race, we would be looking at a David Eby government empowered by the, one of the biggest

00:15:20.320 majorities probably the left has ever seen in BC. So it was probably one of the hardest decisions I've

00:15:25.360 ever made to guide the party in that direction. It was very, very difficult for a lot of BC United,

00:15:31.280 my fellow BC United candidates who had to stand down from the hard work that they'd been doing,

00:15:36.160 knocking on doors and so on for, in some cases over a year or more. It was very, very difficult.

00:15:41.200 And I took a lot of flack for it, but it was the right thing to make sure that the conservatives had

00:15:44.720 a clear path to as clear a path, I think, as a party on the right has ever had in BC with no split.

00:15:51.920 So again, very, very tricky decision, but I do stand by those difficult decisions that had to be made at

00:15:56.880 the time. And then what, what is it that made you join the BC conservative

00:16:01.120 party? Was it the fact that they were winning and gaining ground? Or did you think that there,

00:16:05.200 that there's something like better about that party that you could lead that resonates with you?

00:16:09.680 Well, I've always been a federal conservative, even in the BC liberal party, I was part of that

00:16:13.760 federal conservative part of the coalition. You know, I was with Stephen Harper the night before

00:16:18.800 he got elected in at a rally in Surrey in like 2006 or something like as long as, you know,

00:16:24.560 my entire political career, essentially. So I've always been on the conservative side.

00:16:28.240 And so when the, when the conservatives became, as I say, like the, the, the very clear party of the

00:16:34.880 right, I was happy to put my efforts into that. I've always had the same goals. I've always had

00:16:38.240 the same conservative goals, same conservative principles. And, you know, I always say to people,

00:16:43.200 like, you know, look at my, look at what I've said, look at my record, look at everything that's

00:16:47.520 come out of my mouth for years and years and years, whether it's opposing the park closures at Joffrey

00:16:51.120 Lakes, whether it's standing up against the identity politics, DEI hiring and promotion policies in the

00:16:58.000 government, whether it's defending free speech, you know, defending our natural resources,

00:17:02.480 I have a very long history in all kinds of publications that I've been doing long before

00:17:07.840 the BC conservatives were a viable party. So I'm happy to throw those credentials out or,

00:17:13.440 or those columns out there for anyone to look at and decide for themselves.

00:17:17.280 Oh, that's great. Okay. I want to switch gears a little bit to talk about what I call the third world 0.99

00:17:22.480 crime rave hitting British Columbia and hitting all of Canada. It's all over Toronto as well.

00:17:27.360 But recently the mayor of Surrey called a state of emergency as extortion gangs overwhelm law

00:17:33.520 enforcement. Mayor, Surrey, Surrey Mayor Brenda Locke called for a national state of emergency

00:17:39.840 over Indian extortion gangs becoming too big of a problem for police to handle. What on earth is going

00:17:46.240 on out there and what would you do to stop it? It's, it's so bad. You know, I, I'm out in Surrey

00:17:54.800 all the time. I talk to people who are legitimately very, very worried for their own safety. You know,

00:18:01.360 I was talking to somebody who said, look, like I was, it was dark out. I was heading to my car and I saw a

00:18:05.360 car come into the parking lot and I thought, oh my God, like, am I the next one? You know, it's like,

00:18:09.760 I can't imagine living like that. I think it's very, very difficult for a lot of people, but look,

00:18:13.360 the, you know, it's why I've called for the, well, I should give some background over the weekend,

00:18:19.040 last weekend, they arrested three foreign nationals who are on these extortion issues.

00:18:25.760 And I think if you're a foreign national and you're in this country and you're committing 1.00

00:18:29.840 crimes of intimidation, you're committing violent crimes, you need to go. You have lost your privilege

00:18:36.080 of being in this country. We've welcomed you here. We don't welcome you anymore if that's how you're

00:18:40.880 going to act and betray our, our, our good nature as a country. So I think like, there's a lot that

00:18:46.880 can be done in terms of making sure that these people who are committing these crimes, first of

00:18:50.960 all, we need way better immigration vetting in the first place. I know that's a federal issue,

00:18:54.160 not a BC issue, but also we need to be very quickly removing people who are found to be committing

00:19:00.000 these kinds of crimes again, federal, but certainly as leader, I would be calling that out aggressively.

00:19:04.880 Wonderful. I mean, it's honestly wild, right? Like I remember growing up in Vancouver at a time where

00:19:11.440 we wouldn't lock our doors and my friends and I used to ride our bicycles. My parents didn't even

00:19:15.520 really know where I was. And I was probably seven years old. And I think about that, that time,

00:19:20.080 that world, and it's just hard to reconcile that with the Canada that we have today, where you hear of

00:19:25.200 home invasions and extortion and kidnapping and carjacking and all of these crimes that really,

00:19:30.960 I mean, I think of them as like third world crimes, like you would hear about them in Venezuela. 0.71

00:19:35.680 And the fact that it's happening in Canada is like shocking and it should be the number one issue

00:19:41.440 in the country. There's so many other issues that should also be the number one issue in the country,

00:19:45.920 but I think it's a huge problem. And there's a lot of other things that stem from it, obviously.

00:19:53.600 I wonder, like aside from, you know, you kind of mentioned that a lot of it was just federal,

00:20:00.080 but you know, as leader and as premier of British Columbia, like what would your, what would your

00:20:05.920 position or strategy be to sort of make Canada like safe and secure again? Like, I don't want

00:20:12.240 to live in a community where there's open drug use and where there's homeless encampments and there's

00:20:17.600 out of control crime. Like, it just seems that we're kind of like losing our way of life as a country.

00:20:22.720 And I'm wondering, you know, as premier, what would you, what would you do about that?

00:20:26.240 Yeah. And you know what, like, it's, it's funny when you talk about your childhood growing up in

00:20:30.000 Vancouver, mine was very much the same. I grew up in Surrey, which is where a lot of these extortion

00:20:34.080 related crimes are happening. In fact, most of them. I had the same life as you riding my bike

00:20:40.240 around. My parents didn't know where I was with a gang of kids from the neighborhood. It was like,

00:20:43.840 you think back now, it's like, that's idyllic. I would go down to Grambles, like my parents would

00:20:48.160 allow me as a teenager. And it was very normal at the time to go down to Grambles Street on the Sky

00:20:52.320 train and, and, you know, go shopping for shoes or whatever it is we did as teenagers.

00:20:56.880 I would never let my kid go down to Grambles Street as a teenager now. It's just not safe.

00:21:02.080 So it's, it has objectively changed for the worse. And as much as I said that the immigration and the 1.00

00:21:08.160 deportation issue is obviously federal, there's a lot that province could do that they're not doing.

00:21:13.440 Actually making sure that people are caught for repeat offenses are kept in jail. Violent offenders are

00:21:19.120 kept in jail. Again, I mentioned the kind of the way normal people think when we were talking about

00:21:23.040 some of the issues before. I do think normal British Columbians, like this is just intuitive to them.

00:21:27.760 They know that repeat violent offenders do not belong in our neighborhoods. They know they should

00:21:31.760 be in jail. They know that we shouldn't have race-based sentencing. They know that we shouldn't,

00:21:36.480 that we should be taking people who are re-offending again and again and again, whether it's vandalism or,

00:21:41.760 or violent crime or what have you, that they belong in jail, not out in the public, creating a very low

00:21:47.840 trust society. So there's, there's a lot we could do on the prosecution side. There's also a whole

00:21:53.600 side of this that is kind of, I would say like more on the compassionate side around severe addictions

00:21:58.400 and severe mental health challenges. And there, again, provincially, there's a lot we could do,

00:22:04.720 like making sure that we're focusing, putting our entire focus on getting people well, not giving

00:22:09.120 them free drugs, that we're working on making sure that people with severe mental health challenges are

00:22:15.040 actually cared for in facilities and very like clean, good, healthy facilities rather than leaving

00:22:21.040 them down in the downtown east side to be preyed upon by drug dealers. Like I just say to people

00:22:25.520 who are like, oh, that sounds a little bit extreme. It's like, go downtown, go to the downtown east side,

00:22:29.840 take a look around and tell me if that's compassionate. It's not. It's a, it's an absolute

00:22:34.720 horror story down there. And I, anyway, so I, sorry, I feel very strongly about it, but I just can't

00:22:40.320 believe we've let it get to this stage as a, as a province and a country.

00:22:45.440 I couldn't agree with you more. I think that the idea of like the people who are living on the

00:22:50.640 streets don't have the dignity that they deserve and we should be compassionate by helping them,

00:22:55.840 not allowing them to live in squalor. Okay. So let us, help me understand the process here for

00:23:00.640 electing a new leader. So I read here, the party leader will be announced on May 30th, 2026 after

00:23:05.440 tabulation, roughly 9,000 party delegates starting on May 9th by a preferential ballot. So there's

00:23:11.280 no convention. It's just mail-in ballots. How is that all going to work?

00:23:14.880 I, so yeah, so the new party leader will be announced May 30th. Obviously only members can

00:23:20.400 vote, which a lot of people don't always understand. It's an internal party leadership race. So you have

00:23:24.400 to be a member of the party to vote. The cutoff for actually becoming a member is mid-April, like April 18th.

00:23:29.600 So I encourage people like, make sure you take out that BC Conservative membership so that you can have a say in

00:23:34.160 this. Whoever your preferred candidate is, it's really important. It's one of the most

00:23:38.000 underestimated ways to be involved in the democratic process because it has such huge consequences

00:23:42.480 being a party member. So it's actually a pretty cool opportunity. And you can be 14 years old and

00:23:46.560 do it. That's the other thing. The age limit's very low. So it's a great way to get involved as a young

00:23:50.480 person if you care about politics. So I encourage people to do that by April 18th. And then yeah,

00:23:55.840 people will be casting their ballots. Now I have to admit, I'm a little bit unclear as to whether or not

00:23:59.120 it's going to be mail-in or online. I do know that they've really, I think it will be online.

00:24:05.120 I really should know this, but this is for my team to know, not for me. But what I would say is one

00:24:10.800 thing that gives me confidence is the fact that the party has really, I think, sent a lot of signals

00:24:17.120 that they want to make sure it's a race with integrity and that there's a very, very strong

00:24:21.920 verification process for participants and so on before they cast their vote, which I think has been missing

00:24:26.000 in previous leadership elections. So I'm happy about that. Wow. But what an unbelievable

00:24:30.640 opportunity for the audience. If you live in British Columbia, I mean, the leader of the

00:24:34.080 party is going to be determined by a few thousand people. So it really matters to get involved and

00:24:39.360 be part of the process. So really appreciate your time, Carolyn Elliott. It's been great,

00:24:45.120 as always, and excited about the future of British Columbia. So thank you so much for joining us.

00:24:50.240 Thanks for having me on.

00:24:51.360 All right, folks. That's all the time we have for today. Thank you so much for tuning in.

00:24:54.960 I'm Katya Spockley. This is Katya Spockley for the show. Thank you and God bless.

Juno News - February 06, 2026

Rescuing BC from the WOKE mob (w⧸ Caroline Elliott)

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