In 16 months, the Governor General of Canada spent $38,000 on clothing. 38,000 dollars on clothing in 16 months? That's a lot of money for a governor general who is pretty much like everyone else in Canada.
00:06:42.180I mean, you don't get to use the, well, if my company expects me to wear underwear to the office, I've got to buy underwear and bill the company.
00:06:50.540Now, the camera goes down here for a reason.
00:06:53.040True North wouldn't splurge for the pants budget for yours truly.
00:06:56.020But the problem we have right now in Canada is that the governor general's office seems to breed entitlement no matter who is in it.
00:07:05.360We're not just talking about Mary Simon's clothing budget.
00:07:09.000We're also talking about Julie Payette's clothing budget.
00:07:11.280We're talking about David Johnson's expenses, which he has continued to run up even since losing the gig several years ago.
00:07:19.740Adrienne Clarkson, who was for a lot of the time, she was the governor general for quite a few years.
00:07:26.580Mikhail Jean, they were like maintaining offices as the letter of the law allows them to do even after they left that office.
00:07:34.660and basically making what amounted if you looked cumulatively at multiple governors general
00:07:39.860to millions of dollars in office expenses well all of them were using those offices to fuel their
00:07:46.980careers as authors and public speakers where they made money in the private sector but were
00:07:52.820continuing to have the taxpayers subsidize their work and what they're doing so uh no my issue is
00:07:59.640not that Mary Simon happens to be well do we have any pictures of Mary Simon to put up I know
00:08:04.580the thumbnail. Maybe we could just cycle through the outfits and start doing the, who are you
00:08:08.740wearing? Who are you wearing? To Her Excellency Mary Simon. The issue is not that we don't have
00:08:14.900any pics of Mary Simon. Okay, so we don't even know. Not that we want to start becoming fashion
00:08:19.060critics on the show, because that would be like a, that would just be a very, very bad look for me
00:08:24.360for many, many reasons. But the whole point that I'm bringing here is that this Governor General
00:08:30.220gig brings out the very worst in people. So I don't even think the individual occupants are the
00:08:35.800problem as much as the culture. You have all these people that work at Rideau Hall that when they get
00:08:41.280a new governor general start saying, okay, you can expense this, you can expense this, you can expense
00:08:45.580this, and it becomes very much consuming. And I'll give you a personal example of this. So years ago
00:08:53.140when I was a university student, I did a brief internship on Parliament Hill. And when you work
00:08:59.640on Parliament Hill. You're walking the corridors of power. You have all of these receptions that
00:09:05.000are giving you drinks and food every night of the week. You feel important, even if you're kind of
00:09:10.020a know-nothing kid like I was. And the thing was, is that people very quickly learn the way the rules
00:09:16.780of the game are played. And I remember people telling me, oh, well, you know, you can actually
00:09:22.140get your dry cleaning done by the Parliament Hill, by the House of Commons dry cleaning service.
00:09:27.020and if you say it's your if you say it's like a member of parliament's clothes that they're dry
00:09:31.140cleaning they'll do it for free but it's not for free the taxpayers pay for it and lo and behold
00:09:35.740people that i knew did that they uh would say oh yes uh here are my boss's uh suits uh to get dry
00:09:42.520cleaning because at the time and i don't know if it's still the case members of parliament could
00:09:46.460get their dry cleaning done for free instead of what most normal people would have to do in the
00:09:51.500world, which is dry clean their own darn clothes because that was what you needed to do to go to
00:09:57.280work. And it might have been billed back to their office budget. But again, it's still one way or
00:10:02.140another, the taxpayers who are on the hook for it. So all of these things tend to add up. And when
00:10:08.600you are a fiscal hawk, someone who looks and sees waste in government and you want to push back
00:10:14.600against it, it's amazing the amount of resistance you get. I mean, take a look at just one exchange
00:10:20.520in the Parliamentary Committee yesterday, I think it was,
00:10:24.260where Chrystia Freeland is fielding what is a very reasonable
00:10:27.880and fundamentally simple and fair question about the debt
00:10:32.020and decides to turn it into some smear on Conservatives.
00:11:07.760That it's really important to put numbers in context.
00:11:10.220Without context, numbers are meaningless.
00:11:11.860Our debt service charges are low in Canada's historical context, and they are low compared to what our peers in the G7 are paying.
00:11:22.800Thank you for the context. What's the gross dollar value we're going to spend on interest on the debt next year?
00:11:29.220And let me again, I really am opposed to fiscal fear-mongering by the Conservatives.
00:11:35.640And so the important point to make for Canadians is that in historic context, our debt service charges are reasonable and sustainable and lower than they have been in many previous years.
00:11:57.700So, again, I don't want to extrapolate too much from what was a bit of showmanship on both sides.
00:12:05.380But I do think it's revealing, you don't need to extrapolate much,
00:12:08.980that when asked how much Canada will spend to service its debt,
00:15:45.480And to governors general, they don't want to talk about it.
00:15:48.040Like Julie Payette was one of the most disgraceful figures to occupy the role of governor general
00:15:55.520of Canada because she actually went into it thinking that she was going to be this powerful
00:16:00.020figure and she didn't actually want to do the part of the job that is the only reason the job
00:16:04.000exists, which is the ceremonial bits. Like I remember there was one story I'd read. I can't
00:16:08.260remember which one it was where it was like, she had basically tried to configure the office in
00:16:12.820such a way that it was amazed to get to her that no one could actually find her office. And like
00:16:17.400She had, it was like, I was imagining like Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire where she like, she's the goblet in the middle of the maze and she just has like dragons and traps and things that if anyone tries to get near her, they end up just getting like vaporized into thin air, which to be honest would make a Rideau Hall a lot more of an interesting place if we actually did do traps and dragons and snakes and sharks with laser beams on their fricking heads and all that stuff.
00:16:39.740but she actually didn't want to do the job
00:16:42.080but somehow she managed to bill taxpayers
00:18:41.480But it also happened to be the strongest showing for the People's Party of Canada
00:18:46.100in the last election, with the PPC candidate getting 21.58% of the vote.
00:18:53.100Well, now that there is a by-election, we have a Conservative, Brandon Leslie, running,
00:18:58.320But we also have Maxime Bernier, the leader of the People's Party of Canada, who has stepped up to seek a seat in the House of Commons once again.
00:19:06.880And he joins me now. Maxime, good to talk to you. Thanks for coming on the show today.
00:19:11.540Thank you, Andrew. I'm very pleased to be with you.
00:19:14.360So obviously you are not a Manitoban. Why are you choosing this riding to run in?
00:19:19.860Because, like you said, it may be one of the most conservative riding in the country.
00:19:24.920And like I said, the Conservative Party of Canada is conservative-only name.
00:19:31.240They're fake conservative, and I will tackle the real conservative issues, family values.
00:19:36.800That's why today I said to people here in Portage, this guard, that if I'm elected, I will table a bill on abortion.
00:19:45.620We don't have any legislation on abortion for 35 years.
00:19:50.940The conservative did nothing the last 35 years.
00:19:54.060And I said, enough is enough. We need to have a legislation that will forbid late-term abortion. And that was a discussion of today. And it is in line with the values of the people here in this writing. But the fake conservative won't speak about that.
00:20:11.620actually poliev once said the word abortion is too afraid of the mainstream media and also the
00:20:18.660radical leftist feminist we are not it's a common sense political party and that's why i'm running
00:20:25.780here and it's a little bit like in both in both one that was a rural riding it's a rural riding
00:20:32.180here and i'm very pleased also that there's a francophone community here in portage this guard
00:20:38.260So I'm here, I'm running here, and I will be with them before the election, during the election, and after the election.
00:20:46.040Since you bring up the abortion issue, I wanted to get to that with you anyway.
00:20:50.560Let me just first contextualize this for people. Are you pro-life or are you pro-choice?
00:20:55.520You know, I'm a guy that wants to have a debate, and that's why I'm tabling that legislation.
00:21:02.440I said we must do the first step, Andrew. We didn't have any legislation.
00:21:06.340We are the only country, all the European countries have legislation on abortion, and usually it's illegal to have an abortion the second trimester. In my legislation, I'm saying we must end the late-term abortion. It must be illegal for a woman to have an abortion after six months.
00:21:28.240And so I believe that every reasonable person must agree with that. And I'm saying to Pierre Poliev right now at your show, Pierre, why do you want on board babies to be killed after six months of pregnancy? Why? If you agree with me, why you don't want to reopen the debate?
00:21:49.180And so answering your question, Andrew, I think that ideally we must have a legislation that will ban abortion the second trimester.
00:21:59.620Like all European countries and all across the world, we don't have that.
00:22:05.000But let's start by having that discussion in Parliament.
00:22:08.100And I believe that it would be easy if we have reasonable people in Parliament to adopt that.
00:22:14.140Because, you know, killing a baby a couple of hours before giving birth, that's happening in our country.
00:22:20.640And I know that the radical feminists will say, oh, no, no, it's terrible. It won't happen.
00:22:26.100It is. I said this morning at my press conference, every year in Quebec, and I just have the data in Quebec,
00:22:33.220the Quebec government, and in Quebec, we have late-term abortion, 20 women every year.
00:22:39.720They are having a late-term abortion in my own province in Quebec.
00:22:44.140And so that's the case. And we need to change that. We need to have this debate. And I'm opening that debate right now.
00:22:51.880Yeah, but again, it was a pretty direct question. Are you pro-life or are you pro-choice personally?
00:22:56.480I would be very direct, Andrew. I won't answer your question. I won't, because the reality is this bill is there and the goal is to end late-term abortion.
00:23:06.620and i will answer your question by that answer i ideally it would be great to have a legislation
00:23:13.820that will ban abortion at the second trimester like all civilized country it's time for canada
00:23:20.180to be part of the civilized world so and that's why i'll have a lot of pro-life people here in
00:23:26.680this writing that agree with me you know you need to start i i mean the answer i want to just get
00:23:33.380to the precision on here, Maxime, because the legislation that you've put forward, I agree,
00:23:38.440it's a disgrace that Canada has no law on abortion on the books. And the bill that you've announced
00:23:43.920this morning would cap it at 24 weeks, as I understand. Now, data are very hard to come by
00:23:50.640in Canada on this, but it's a minority of abortions that take place after 24 weeks. I've seen estimates
00:23:57.120that we could be in hundreds of individual abortions on the high end maybe uh eight to
00:24:02.480nine percent but most abortions are before 24 weeks so do you think that should be a woman's
00:24:08.360right to choose before 24 weeks but you're right about the number and yes we know if we had only
00:24:15.480one abortion late-term abortion it's one murder murder that we must not have first answering your
00:24:22.540question yes i said ideally we must have that discussion in europe it's all about the second
00:24:28.140term and it's uh you know they are regulating abortion at the second term and yes we need to
00:24:34.740have the discussion but we need to start that discussion before that so let's have that
00:24:39.780legislation let's approve that legislation in parliament as soon as possible and yes my personal
00:24:45.220position on that is an answer yes it must be at the second term you know a lady will have three
00:24:51.140months to decide if she wants to have an abortion or not. Three months, it's a lot. But that's why
00:24:59.220I said, I want to have a victory here. We never had the victory the last 35 years. And the
00:25:07.020conservatives are so weak. They don't have any conviction. They're afraid to speak about abortion.
00:25:13.340It even looked like last week. Trudeau said to Poitier, oh, you want to reopen the debate on abortion? And, oh, no, Poitier said, no, no, I don't want to reopen the debate.
00:25:24.460And actually, if you read the policy declaration on the website of the Conservative Party of Canada at page 30, policy 76, they're saying, and I just want to read that to you, they're saying that a conservative government won't reopen the debate on abortion.
00:25:44.660They won't. They won't table any legislation on abortion.
00:25:52.820And if we vote for a conservative candidate here, it won't.
00:25:56.360And I understand that people in this writing understand that.
00:26:00.380I'm curious about your evolution on this issue.
00:26:03.360I know in the past you voted against pro-life legislation.
00:26:07.720I think there was one years ago about coerced abortion under the Harper government that you voted against.
00:26:13.260I think Stephen Woodworth had introduced emotion.
00:26:15.620So where has your perspective shifted or how has your perspective shifted on this?
00:26:21.820In 2018, when we created the People's Party of Canada and the 2019 election, I said that during that election that, you know, we need to reopen the debate.
00:26:35.780And I had a strong position at that time.
00:26:38.060I said, I'm against sex selection, abortion.
00:26:42.080So that was a position. And you're right to say that when I was an MP under the conservative, as a conservative, under the Harper government, I did vote for a bill that was viewed as pro-choice.
00:26:56.980But that's why people here in this writing understand that. And they're very happy that I did that evolution. And now they have a strong leader of a populist, conservative, true conservative party, common sense party that is ready to have that debate.
00:27:13.060And because I'm raising that debate, journalists will ask questions to Polyef today, if not tomorrow.
00:27:21.720Ask him the question, why are you so afraid to reopen the debate?
00:27:26.780When we have 51% of the population, Angus Reid, 2020 survey, 51% of Canadians said,
00:27:34.740enough is enough, we need to end late-term abortion.
00:27:38.000And Poitiers, like all these other important issues, he won't speak about it. He won't speak about climate change and the Paris Accord. He's in line with the Paris Accord. We will withdraw from the Paris Accord.
00:27:51.400is taking the conservative vote for granted out west and people in this writing understand that
00:27:57.780and that's why i believe that people here will make history like they did in 1989 when they
00:28:05.160elected for the first time a reform party candidate deborah bray deborah when they elected her in 1999
00:28:13.300that was the first one in a by-election and after that the reform had 51 mps at the last
00:28:19.640the next election and the other next one, they were the official opposition. So people in this
00:28:25.760writing understand that they can make history and we can have national debates on important issues
00:28:31.940for the future of our country. And I will, we've invited your conservative opponent onto the show
00:28:38.000and we will ask him about this because I agree and you're not saying anything that I find offensive
00:28:42.740in wanting there to be a debate on this. The question has been about whether you are, I think,
00:28:48.120the most likely candidate to bring up that debate. So let me just ask you one more question on
00:28:53.260abortion here, Maxine, because a lot of pro-life advocates reject what's called the gestational
00:28:58.840approach, which you've just articulated, which is putting a limit in a certain place, because they
00:29:02.740think that if you say abortion is not acceptable after 24 weeks, you're saying it is acceptable
00:29:09.400at other points. And I go back to your own personal conviction on this. If you could write
00:29:14.720any law you wanted not just what you think is politically saleable but what your ideal scenario
00:29:19.840would be when should abortion be a choice and when should it no longer be a choice for women
00:29:25.160ideally it must be at the second term like every every every country in europe so i'm asking these
00:29:38.440radical feminists why you know italy france belgium germany why it's okay very liberal
00:29:46.260countries a lot of the time too yeah and and they're progressive countries you're absolutely
00:29:50.940right and these you know elites germanists are going i know that from quebec that some of them
00:29:58.400are going to italy for their summer but you know they have a legislation on abortion and you cannot
00:30:04.860have an abortion after the second trimesters so it must be a discussion here and i'm very pleased
00:30:10.780that i bring that speaking about my opponent he will be with you and he may say that he agree with
00:30:16.700my position but that's not the question the question he can say what he wants in the writing
00:30:22.060but when he'll be in ottawa he will be silent the question is the leader poliev that's the question
00:30:28.380because you know they are controlling their mp on abortion we know that our sport of that team i know
00:30:34.540i know that so he can't say anything about abortion it's not important and people in our
00:30:39.340right in this writing will know they know that it's coming from the the leader of the party
00:30:44.220is pro-choice and and he won't he he won't allow any debate so i'm very very pleased that we will
00:30:51.660ask that question to my opponent but please ask that question to my opponent as a leader to pierre
00:30:58.060Poliev, that's the most important answer that we must have, that Canadians must have.
00:31:04.340Let's turn to the riding itself here. So we were discussing earlier, Maxime, the PPC did very well
00:31:10.000in Portage-Lisker relative to everywhere else in the country. It was the strongest riding. And I
00:31:15.000know you obviously want to win. But as far as the bigger picture here, what do you consider a win
00:31:20.560short of a victory on the ballot? I mean, do you feel that you need to get that 20% of the vote
00:31:27.920to prove that the ppc is still the force it was in 2021 i like your question andrew a win is a win
00:31:36.720so a win for me will be to be the mp for people in port stage list guard and i'm here campaigning
00:31:44.400full time for them my schedule is full and i'm very pleased with that so for me a win is to be
00:31:50.320their mp the night of the election and i believe that it's doable we have a strong team and people
00:31:56.880understand they have the opportunity to send a message to ottawa right now and you know it's not
00:32:02.480about splitting the vote that ridiculous uh argument is not valid we won't change the government
00:32:10.160the trudeau government will be there after the election so it's safe for them to vote for the
00:32:15.360ppc to vote for me and actually i will be their insurance policy that body have if he's if he has
00:32:23.520the courage to be a conservative i will i will support him but i will bring that debate in ottawa
00:32:30.080and i will support poliev when or if he is a real conservative with real conservative family values
00:32:37.120so it's a win-win for people in this writing and they understand that that's why my answer to
00:32:42.720to your question is a win is a win no and i appreciate that and it's always funny when you
00:32:47.760see politicians who lose and then they get on stage and try to find a way to make it seem like they
00:32:52.080really won like the you know the popular vote or something but but but the point I guess that I was
00:32:56.940getting at there Maxime is that a lot of political columnists in Ottawa who I know are not always the
00:33:01.240most credible sources have said that the PPC's success in 2021 was kind of a temporary blip
00:33:08.460because of the pandemic there was this frustration with all of these circumstances that might not be
00:33:13.700there right now and I and I guess I'm just curious what for you the stakes are if you don't do as
00:33:19.120well as your candidate in 2021 did i must say andrew that all these mainstream media journalists
00:33:27.960they said the same thing in 2019 when i we had 1.6 percent of the vote they said oh that's the
00:33:34.840end of that party goodbye bernier they all wrote that and now after the last election five percent
00:33:41.760they were a little bit surprised and didn't have any choice to cover my election the last three
00:33:46.660weeks of the last campaign and now they're saying and five percent and now they're saying oh you
00:33:53.860know bernie won't do anything he won't be able to have 20 25 he won't be able to do like his
00:33:59.800candidates so i don't want to answer that i you know for me they are not credible i'm here on
00:34:05.680the ground with the people and that's why i believe i can win this riding and i spoke with
00:34:11.500my people on the ground and they are in agreement with me and they're working hard for that
00:34:16.300We'll see what will happen. But for me, I strongly believe that it's a writing that I can win, and I'm doing all the effort to do that. So what these journalists are writing, it's not important for me, and I don't mind.
00:34:31.360manitoba is a bit of an interesting province for you to be running in because you're a convict
00:34:37.240in manitoba now i mean as of yesterday the court has uh put this i think it was a two thousand
00:34:42.120dollar fine on you for uh campaigning in manitoba and i i played that clip of your arrest back then
00:34:48.020when you gave that famous line and the police officer asked if you had any weapons and you said
00:34:52.300only only your words which i i thought was quite quite brilliant and quite clever but let's talk
00:34:58.600about why you decided to not fight this as much because a lot of people have been looking at
00:35:04.460the legal challenges that are underway and really hoping that there's going to be this reckoning in
00:35:09.160the court system on COVID penalties but you actually plead it out as I understand. Yeah what
00:35:15.540I said it's very important I didn't say that I'm guilty of anything because under a provincial law
00:35:21.040you're not guilty so what I said to save money for the taxpayer here in Manitoba and to save
00:35:27.200court time because it was supposed to be a three days hearing it was only uh half a day i said you
00:35:33.600know and i'm a responsible politician i said yes i was there i i i did a a meeting in a park and i
00:35:41.280didn't want uh all the the the police and and all these witnesses saying that i was there so i did
00:35:48.000admit that i was there and i did i did that i did admit that it was uh uh it was not in line with
00:35:55.520the regulations at that time so because of this admission of facts we had an argument only on the
00:36:02.560the penalties the fines so and and you you asked a good question why not appealing to that decision
00:36:09.280and going to the appeal court because here in manitoba there are one case that is right now in
00:36:16.800front before sorry before the appeal court of manitoba about the same subject illegal gathering
00:36:24.800in a park so that's why we will have a decision from from the appeal court maybe this year about
00:36:31.680that so i didn't need to appeal that so for me i'm responsible i said i was that and also i had
00:36:38.480time to speak to the judge and i told the judge that all these regulations were unconstitutional
00:36:44.240illegal immoral and i'm not appealing your decision because there's a case and we'll know
00:36:49.600what the appeal court will say but at the same time don't forget andrew i'm appealing a decision
00:36:55.440from the federal court with brian petford about my right and the right of canadians to be able to
00:37:01.120travel freely across our country we are appealing the decision of the vaccine passport that were
00:37:06.000imposed by the trudeau government because we had a decision not in our favor at the federal court
00:37:13.760so we are appealing that and we will go up to the federal court uh to the supreme court sorry
00:37:19.920about that case all right maxime bernier by-election candidate in portage lisker and
00:37:25.760leader of the people's party of canada what are you most looking forward to about being
00:37:29.760back on the campaign trail yes i'm going back we have a rally tonight with lara lynn thompson
00:37:35.760and you know and it's a it's a huge riding i'm a little bit surprised you know going to one part
00:37:42.480of the riding to the other part of the riding by car it would be it can be two hours so i'll be
00:37:47.920on my car i will be in each corner of this riding and i'm having fun here i i know that you may you
00:37:53.920may see it but i'm having fun it's great we'll see and i hope that you'll be able to cover our
00:37:59.520campaign and i'm very pleased that i had the opportunity to be with you andrew all right
00:38:03.840thank you very much maxime bernier good to talk to you thank you bye-bye all right that does it for
00:38:09.840us for today, we'll be following all of the by-elections. Now, interestingly, if you follow
00:38:14.680the chattering classes, the Laurentian media, they kind of view every one of the by-elections
00:38:21.000as being a hold for parties. They say the Conservatives are going to hold Portage-Lisker,
00:38:24.940they're going to hold Oxford, the Liberals are going to hold Notre Dame de Grasse. I forget the
00:38:29.040fourth one right now, but they're not expecting anything too exciting. But you never know,
00:38:33.180by-elections are notoriously weird, which is not a scientific analysis by any stretch, but
00:38:39.100weird things happen in by-elections. There are weird dynamics, and it's kind of a microcosm
00:38:44.100of whatever the national debate is at a particular point. But fear not, Dominic LeBlanc has told us
00:38:50.740that the by-elections are going to be free of Chinese interference. So if all of a sudden a
00:38:56.200Chinese consulate pops up in Portage-Lisker, the government has failed. You have to keep an eye out
00:39:01.980for that. Or one of these weird... Actually, maybe one of the Chinese police stations can arrest
00:39:05.500Maxime Bernier. Apparently more Chinese police stations are setting up all across the country
00:39:10.280now, so you never know if they start popping up in these ridings that are having by-elections.
00:39:15.780That does it for us for today. We'll be back in just two days' time with more of Canada's
00:39:20.580most irreverent talk show. Hopefully all have negotiated one of those Governor General-style
00:39:25.220clothing budgets with the powers that be at True North. If I show up dressed like Don Cherry on
00:39:29.860Friday, you'll know I won my fight. If I show up dressed like this, please donate and buy me some
00:39:33.940close uh we will talk to you all soon thank you god bless and good day to you all thanks for
00:39:39.340listening to the andrew lawton show support the program by donating to true north at www.tnc.news