Juno News - February 06, 2026Rescuing BC from the WOKE mob (w⧸ Caroline Elliott)
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Summary
Carolyn Elliott is a longtime political commentator and policy advocate, currently running for leader of the BC Conservative Party. She is an outspoken critic of what she calls the New Democratic Party's "Radical Reconciliation Agenda" and its "Woke Agenda."
Transcript
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Hi, I'm Candice Malcolm and this is the Candice Malcolm Show. We have a great episode for you
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today, folks. As you may or may not know, I grew up in Vancouver and born and raised in British
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Columbia. I haven't lived there basically since I graduated from high school and I'm still
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interested in BCA. I spent Christmas out there with my family, visiting, brought my kids out
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there. We actually got to go skiing, which was really fun. And I had the opportunity to sit down
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with the interim leader of the BC Conservative Party, Trevor Halford. I had a great interview
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with him in Vancouver about the issues facing British Columbia. And we talked about the upcoming
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leadership race. And as I stated, we were going to give you updates, follow that campaign.
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I'm very pleased today to be sitting and talking to one of the candidates who is running for leader
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of the BC Conservatives. You may recognize her. She's been a guest on the show before. Her name
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is Carolyn Elliott. She's a longtime political commentator, policy advocacy, currently running
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for leader of the BC Conservative Party. She's an outspoken critic of what she calls the NDP's
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radical reconciliation agenda and its woke agenda. And I'm really excited to be talking about that
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with her today. So Carolyn, welcome to the show. Thanks so much for being here.
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Okay. So first of all, why don't you just tell us about the radical reconciliation agenda? It is one
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of my, I think the most important topics in the entire country. We cover it in great detail
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here on the show. So why don't you describe what you think it is? What is the problem and how you
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Yeah, I think it's one of the most critical issues facing BC. And sometimes I'll get a
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little bit of flack because people will say, you know, you talk an awful lot about this.
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And the reason I talk an awful lot about it is because it is affecting every impact of life
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in British Columbia, every story, every aspect of life in British Columbia. So look at the economy,
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for example, we're facing significant uncertainty on the land base. We're now seeing the government
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come down with these so-called consent-based agreements, which means projects that are in
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the public interest, major mining projects cannot happen if you don't get the consent of these small
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indigenous governing bodies, which are often representing, you know, a few hundred people
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or so. These are projects, again, in the provincial interest, representing 5 million plus British
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Colombians. So I've been very critical of those. I've called them undemocratic. I've talked about how
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their agenda threatens our prosperity as a province. I've talked about how ultimately it even
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threatens our sense of common citizenship as British Columbians. You know, when you have kids
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going to school and they're learning that the land that they stand on isn't theirs or that it belongs
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less to them than it does to others by virtue of their ancestry. When you have NDP MLA standing in
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the legislature saying, you know, non-indigenous British Columbians should be calling themselves
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uninvited guests and settlers. When they're closing down provincial parks, which, you know,
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British Columbians pride themselves on, as you know, from living here. When they're
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saying only indigenous people can enter those parks. Like, these are very problematic things
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and they all come from, I believe, a very radical sort of land back, you know, original colonial
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mistake mindset, which David Eby has actually used those words, in terms of trying to atone
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for the past in some ways that I don't think is very productive for our province.
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So I think that most people look at the situation as it is today and they do notice that there's a
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discrepancy, like in the standard of living and the lifestyle, of Canadians versus those who live
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on reserve, those who are First Nations. And most people feel like great empathy for that situation.
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They want to fix it. And it seems to me that the left has come up with this solution. This is how we
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fix it. We basically say that Canada is an illegitimate country. We start every single meeting with a land
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acknowledgement saying that our land is stolen and unseated and that's somehow going to solve the
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problem. I obviously think that's very wrong. And there's so many different issues that stem
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from that mindset, whether it be the unmarked grave story, you know, or the land acknowledgements.
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There's all kinds of things that come out of it. It doesn't seem to me that the BC conservatives have
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had the most stellar record on this. You know, we know that John Rudstad was removed from leader
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of the party not too long ago, around the same time as one of his staffers, Lindsay Shepard, who used to
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work for me and for True North, basically did a social media post criticizing Reconciliation Day and Orange
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Shirt Day, talking about what she called the masquerade hoax. So I'm wondering, like, I mean,
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this is a really thorny, complicated issue. And it doesn't seem like it's one that even within the
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BC conservatives, there's much agreement on. The other one was that the BC MLAs recently rejected
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a ban on land acknowledgements in the public sector, and they voted against that private member bill.
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So what do you make of the unwillingness within the party to sort of agree? And what do you think
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the correct approach to this issue is? Yeah, really good question. And you're right, it's a thorny one.
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And I think we've really lost our ability to talk about it with any sense of nuance, right? And I think that's
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what's missing is to actually be able to have a conversation about it. And the first step to having a
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conversation is not shutting down people and firing them. And in some cases have angry mobs, you know,
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intimidating people from speaking up on certain things. It's not even a question of are they
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right? Or are they wrong? To me, it's like you in a functioning democracy, you have to be able to talk
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about things and especially the hardest things to talk about. It's one of the things that I've written
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about is talking about this practice. And I don't want to get too technical. But you mentioned the
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shutting down of the bill around the land acknowledgements in the legislature that was
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shut down at first reading, it's called that first reading is about just reading it aloud in the
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house to find out if you even want to find out whether or not you then later debate it.
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So it's not even debating it. It's shutting down the very idea of a discussion on that. And I
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disagreed with it. I wrote a column about it at the time. I thought it was wrong. I thought I think
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it's wrong every time they shut down a bill at first reading, because it's like, I don't even want
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to hear what's in it. I know I don't like it. And I think that's a very unproductive approach to some
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of the harder issues. Like if we can't have a civil debate in the legislature, or a civil discussion,
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or disagree completely, in a civil way in the legislature, then where can where do we expect
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these conversations to happen? And what happens is they go out to the fringes, where it becomes
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very, very difficult to have a conversation with nuance in it. And I think we get a lot more
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polarized. I think we're not setting a good example as politicians when we see things like that
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happening. So anyway, so that's maybe a little bit of a long answer. But I think it's just one of
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those issues where we've lost the ability to even talk about things.
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And sort of on a related note, I mean, I think that our Juno News audience was very surprised,
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very concerned by the decision made by BC Superior Court about the property rights and the
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ancestor land for the Cowichan tribe, which, as people may know, is on Vancouver Island. And yet
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they were given title over land in Richmond, which is part of the little mainland part of Vancouver,
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the part of Vancouver where the airport is. And now we're talking about thousands of acres or
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hundreds of acres, potentially people losing private property. It's actually wild, right? And
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it's all, to me, an outgrowth of the same ideology and the same mindset that we have to give the land
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back, that Canada is an illegitimate country, and that maybe even our property is in jeopardy.
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What was your comment on what we can do to rectify it? What would you do as Premier?
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Yeah. And look, this is, I would do very much the opposite of what David Eby has been doing on this.
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So he likes to point to the Cowichan decision and say, oh, it's out of our hands. That was the
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courts. And don't worry. He used the words, I'm going to go to the wall to protect private property.
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But when you actually look at his actions, they directly led to this case. And not only that,
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he has not actually changed course to make sure that it doesn't end up in the same place in an
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appeal. And I'll explain that very briefly. So in the Cowichan case, he created the policy precedent
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for putting Aboriginal title over top of private property. He did that on Haida Gwaii, which is a
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set of islands on the north coast of BC. Formerly known as the Queen Charlottes, exactly. He set that
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policy precedent, right? And at the time, I wrote about it saying, it's a really bad idea to place
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Aboriginal title over private property for all of these reasons that are emerging from the Cowichan
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case now. The judge actually referenced that, saying, oh, that policy up there showed us that
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these things can coexist here. So it was part of her reasoning in her decision. David Eby did that.
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Furthermore, in actually defending private property rights from Aboriginal title, he could have used this
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a certain set of arguments. Our lawyers, government lawyers could have used a certain set of arguments
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that would better defend private property. I won't go into it, but the argument's kind of called
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extinguishment, meaning when private property rights were placed over that landed extinguished
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Aboriginal title. It is a live argument that you can make in the courts. The courts have found that.
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And David Eby chose, he actually issued a directive saying you cannot make that argument. You cannot
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powerfully protect private property rights using that argument. Shockingly, the judge, having not had that
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argument made. Her was unable to use that. She even mentioned that in her reasons, saying these
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arguments were not made. Richmond made the argument, but the province did not. Neither did the federal
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government. So the thing I would mention with that, not to get too technical, is that that directive
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is still in place. So when in every other title claim that's happening across BC and in the appeal when
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it finally happens with Cowichan, as far as David Eby's concerned, government lawyers will still not be able
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to make those most powerful arguments to protect private property. So he's misleading the public in a, I think,
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a really egregious way when he says he wants to protect private property.
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It's really unbelievable to watch it all unfold from the outside. I mean, I think that David Eby's approach
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when it comes to pipelines is another area of great concern, especially because you have Alberta Premier
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Daniel Smith seeming to be in some kind of an agreement with Prime Minister Mark Carney and
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having a memorandum of understanding and saying, you know what, if we want to diversify our trading
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partners and we want to get our economy going with or without the United States agreement, we probably
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should get some pipelines built. And it seems like David Eby is dead set on stopping that. So
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like what is the Conservative position? What would you do, you know, fighting an election against him
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to try to tell people in British Columbia that actually pipelines are incredibly vital for our,
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not just for our economy, but for our survival as a country?
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You put it so well, like that is exactly it. We're like, I really think regular British Columbians
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really understand that we are blessed with an incredible abundance of natural resources in this
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country and this province. We're blessed with an incredible geography, like our location relative to the rest of
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the world, you know, adjacent to the US, across the ocean from the Asia-Pacific. Like we are so lucky.
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We have an incredible workforce that are very skilled and talented and have amazing credentials.
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And it's like, we have all these things. We should be the most prosperous nation on earth. We should be
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the most prosperous province in the most prosperous nation on earth. I really believe that. And I think,
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I think British Columbians want that. So part of that is making sure that our resources can get to market
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and not setting up roadblocks, setting up roadblocks every step of the way, which David E.B. is doing.
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We heard him say around the prospect of a pipeline, it will require the consent of the Coastal First
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Nations. Coastal First Nations, as you, as you may know, they're not actually a constitutionally
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ascribed indigenous group. They are an NGO effectively, that is just hell bent on opposing any kind of
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natural resource development or pipeline through what they call their territory. That is not actually
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productive. It's not in the public interest. And it's not actually democratic to put a consent
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power or veto power in the hands of a group like that, which David E.B. insists on doing.
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It's unbelievable. Even Prime Minister Mark Carney put out a statement saying that these people have
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been stewarding the land for time immemorial. And he was referring to this NGO, right? It's like,
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it's kind of wild, even the way that the media put it and other politicians. I'm pleased to hear you
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calling that out. I want to ask kind of a step back and ask a bigger question, because again,
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like looking at it from the outside perspective, it's like you have this NDP party that is totally
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radical and, you know, worse than ever, basically. I believe they've won three elections in a row,
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or is it two or three? I think they've won three in a row. It seems to me that what British Columbia
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needs is a strong, united opposition. And I know this from experience because I worked in Alberta,
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I worked for Danielle Smith when there was the split between the PCs and the Wild Rose party,
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and it took them uniting in order to eventually beat the NDP. So I'm looking at this happening in
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British Columbia, it seems like it's almost happening, you know, exactly like it did in
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Alberta 10 years ago. And I worry that having a united party plus the BC conservatives, and then you
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have the break off one BC party. Can you describe why there are three parties on the on the center
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right? And how having a separate conservative party is beneficial to the end goal, which I assume
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is to replace the NDP? Yeah, look, so you're absolutely right there. Nobody wins except the NDP
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when the right is divided. And I think people understand that. And, you know, the conservatives
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are just undisputably, indisputably, the party of the right in British Columbia, they just are,
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they came within, you know, a handful of votes from forming the last government in the last election,
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just barely missed that. I think there's a huge opportunity there to do that. Now,
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like, it's, there are going to be people who want to choose a different path for whatever reason. But
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I think that's why making the right choice in this leadership race is going to be crucial, because
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there's some folks out there, if you elect them, then one of the parties on the right pops up and
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starts saying, well, you're not right wing enough. And, you know, if another person wins,
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you know, maybe the party on the center more to the center, which is United starts popping up,
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right? And like, you know, these, these things will happen regardless of, of, of, you know,
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what I say, certainly, but making the right choice where you can actually kind of bridge that,
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that divide and saying, look, like we have to come together, we can come together. I think
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there's absolutely a path to do that under the right leader, but we have to get this right.
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Okay. So your critics will say that you were, well, you were part of the BC United Party,
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you were a liberal before that, when it was sort of a coalition of conservatives and liberals
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in British Columbia. But in the last election in October 24, you ran as a member of the BC United
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Party. So can you just clarify, like, when did you switch from United to conservative? And like, what,
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Sure. Yeah, no. So, yeah, so I was part of the, the BC liberals and later BC United is probably
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anybody over 30 who've, who's been involved in BC politics has been. It's been long a coalition of
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federal liberals and federal conservatives. So, you know, that's just the reality. And, you know,
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I think the, the important thing to think is a, I did run as a, as a BC United candidate, but what I did
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is I played a crucial role in standing that party down when it became clear that a split on the right
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was only going to elect a NDP government, an NDP super majority government. If, if United had stayed
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in that race, we would be looking at a David Eby government empowered by the, one of the biggest
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majorities probably the left has ever seen in BC. So it was probably one of the hardest decisions I've
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ever made to guide the party in that direction. It was very, very difficult for a lot of BC United,
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my fellow BC United candidates who had to stand down from the hard work that they'd been doing,
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knocking on doors and so on for, in some cases over a year or more. It was very, very difficult.
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And I took a lot of flack for it, but it was the right thing to make sure that the conservatives had
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a clear path to as clear a path, I think, as a party on the right has ever had in BC with no split.
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So again, very, very tricky decision, but I do stand by those difficult decisions that had to be made at
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the time. And then what, what is it that made you join the BC conservative
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party? Was it the fact that they were winning and gaining ground? Or did you think that there,
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that there's something like better about that party that you could lead that resonates with you?
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Well, I've always been a federal conservative, even in the BC liberal party, I was part of that
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federal conservative part of the coalition. You know, I was with Stephen Harper the night before
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he got elected in at a rally in Surrey in like 2006 or something like as long as, you know,
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my entire political career, essentially. So I've always been on the conservative side.
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And so when the, when the conservatives became, as I say, like the, the, the very clear party of the
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right, I was happy to put my efforts into that. I've always had the same goals. I've always had
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the same conservative goals, same conservative principles. And, you know, I always say to people,
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like, you know, look at my, look at what I've said, look at my record, look at everything that's
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come out of my mouth for years and years and years, whether it's opposing the park closures at Joffrey
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Lakes, whether it's standing up against the identity politics, DEI hiring and promotion policies in the
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government, whether it's defending free speech, you know, defending our natural resources,
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I have a very long history in all kinds of publications that I've been doing long before
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the BC conservatives were a viable party. So I'm happy to throw those credentials out or,
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or those columns out there for anyone to look at and decide for themselves.
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Oh, that's great. Okay. I want to switch gears a little bit to talk about what I call the third world
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crime rave hitting British Columbia and hitting all of Canada. It's all over Toronto as well.
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But recently the mayor of Surrey called a state of emergency as extortion gangs overwhelm law
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enforcement. Mayor, Surrey, Surrey Mayor Brenda Locke called for a national state of emergency
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over Indian extortion gangs becoming too big of a problem for police to handle. What on earth is going
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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
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all the time. I talk to people who are legitimately very, very worried for their own safety. You know,
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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
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car come into the parking lot and I thought, oh my God, like, am I the next one? You know, it's like,
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I can't imagine living like that. I think it's very, very difficult for a lot of people, but look,
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the, you know, it's why I've called for the, well, I should give some background over the weekend,
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last weekend, they arrested three foreign nationals who are on these extortion issues.
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And I think if you're a foreign national and you're in this country and you're committing
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crimes of intimidation, you're committing violent crimes, you need to go. You have lost your privilege
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of being in this country. We've welcomed you here. We don't welcome you anymore if that's how you're
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going to act and betray our, our, our good nature as a country. So I think like, there's a lot that
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can be done in terms of making sure that these people who are committing these crimes, first of
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all, we need way better immigration vetting in the first place. I know that's a federal issue,
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not a BC issue, but also we need to be very quickly removing people who are found to be committing
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these kinds of crimes again, federal, but certainly as leader, I would be calling that out aggressively.
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Wonderful. I mean, it's honestly wild, right? Like I remember growing up in Vancouver at a time where
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we wouldn't lock our doors and my friends and I used to ride our bicycles. My parents didn't even
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really know where I was. And I was probably seven years old. And I think about that, that time,
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that world, and it's just hard to reconcile that with the Canada that we have today, where you hear of
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home invasions and extortion and kidnapping and carjacking and all of these crimes that really,
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I mean, I think of them as like third world crimes, like you would hear about them in Venezuela.
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And the fact that it's happening in Canada is like shocking and it should be the number one issue
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in the country. There's so many other issues that should also be the number one issue in the country,
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but I think it's a huge problem. And there's a lot of other things that stem from it, obviously.
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I wonder, like aside from, you know, you kind of mentioned that a lot of it was just federal,
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but you know, as leader and as premier of British Columbia, like what would your, what would your
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position or strategy be to sort of make Canada like safe and secure again? Like, I don't want
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to live in a community where there's open drug use and where there's homeless encampments and there's
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out of control crime. Like, it just seems that we're kind of like losing our way of life as a country.
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And I'm wondering, you know, as premier, what would you, what would you do about that?
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Yeah. And you know what, like, it's, it's funny when you talk about your childhood growing up in
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Vancouver, mine was very much the same. I grew up in Surrey, which is where a lot of these extortion
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related crimes are happening. In fact, most of them. I had the same life as you riding my bike
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around. My parents didn't know where I was with a gang of kids from the neighborhood. It was like,
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you think back now, it's like, that's idyllic. I would go down to Grambles, like my parents would
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allow me as a teenager. And it was very normal at the time to go down to Grambles Street on the Sky
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train and, and, you know, go shopping for shoes or whatever it is we did as teenagers.
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I would never let my kid go down to Grambles Street as a teenager now. It's just not safe.
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So it's, it has objectively changed for the worse. And as much as I said that the immigration and the
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deportation issue is obviously federal, there's a lot that province could do that they're not doing.
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Actually making sure that people are caught for repeat offenses are kept in jail. Violent offenders are
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kept in jail. Again, I mentioned the kind of the way normal people think when we were talking about
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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.
00:24:51.360
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.