Juno News - Surely the governors-general can pay for own clothes

00:00:00.960 Welcome to Canada's most irreverent talk show. This is the Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by TrueNorth.

00:00:14.160 Okay, I don't usually do the cold open, but I've been just like staring at my monitor for so long,

00:00:22.000 learning that in 16 months the governor general of canada that is mary simon if you'd forgotten you

00:00:30.060 are just like everyone else in canada so i don't think it's too too bad spent 38 000 on clothing

00:00:36.960 38 000 on clothing in 16 months now i don't even think i've spent that much on clothing in my

00:00:47.240 entire life and before the twitter trolls start saying well no surprise there hold on hold on

00:00:52.240 hold on i do not claim to be the best dressed person in canada i sometimes might claim to be

00:00:58.180 the best dressed person at true north but even then i think that's probably a competitive category

00:01:02.360 that i would lose out on to uh ellie kenton nantel uh yeah he no he's the best dressed at

00:01:07.580 true north but i don't even think my colleague ellie kenton nantel spends 38 000 on clothes 1.00

00:01:13.460 in 60 months. If so, we're probably paying him too much. Harrison Faulkner, he likes the white

00:01:19.800 shirts. Sometimes those can be expensive, even though in my experience, the expensive white

00:01:24.780 shirts look the same as the cheap white shirts and don't last nearly as long. So I don't know,

00:01:31.280 maybe he spends $38,000 on white shirts. Candace Malcolm, she's very fashionable. I just sat down

00:01:36.500 with her for an interview. I don't know what her clothing budget, but I don't think if you took all

00:01:40.640 the true north people combined and said all right add up how much you spend on clothes that were

00:01:45.460 near what the governor general of canada spent in the span of 16 months this is uh baffling to me

00:01:54.300 the national post has a story about it it was first reported by black locks reporter in the last

00:01:59.840 five years uh governor general julie payette and mary simon expensed about 88 000 in clothing so

00:02:07.820 that's between the two of them now uh with julia payette i mean the space suits are probably pretty

00:02:12.160 expensive i don't know if she was expensing the space suits or not uh certainly she governed in 1.00

00:02:16.580 that role like she was a space cadet so it's not entirely uncharacteristic if she did uh but some 0.81

00:02:22.040 of these are going to be the ceremonial things you know you got to put on the nice dress you

00:02:25.580 can't wear the same outfit twice the coronation outfit the uh outfit for the queen's funeral

00:02:31.380 these things you might want to spend a couple of thousand dollars on but i don't even know how you

00:02:36.800 get to that. I was looking at this story, $450 for an accrue hat. Now I happen to know what accrue

00:02:44.460 is, and I don't think I've ever spent $450 on anything that was accrue. Maybe paint, actually

00:02:51.700 accrue paint does cost, it accrues, one might say. I'll see myself out. $20 t-shirts, what else do we

00:02:59.480 have here uh 200 clothing items expensed by julie payette and mary simon uh that have price tags

00:03:07.880 ranging from three thousand dollars to a black velvet dress with silk lining payette purchased

00:03:14.060 that in 2018 uh or the 1895 white gloves that mary simon wore to the platinum jubilee for her

00:03:22.420 late majesty queen elizabeth ii i haven't even told you where we are by the way this is the

00:03:26.380 Andrew Lawton show. It's good to have you aboard. I've decided that I'm so terrible at dealing with

00:03:32.180 sports that I have done the one thing I know even less about than sports, which is fashion.

00:03:38.520 Which if you are, look, I mean, this shirt actually is a shirt and I know nothing about it. I was

00:03:44.140 about to tell you the brand and then I realized I have no idea. I just sort of bought it one day

00:03:47.840 and I actually, I hate the shirt because I'm not going to complain. It's got a very stupid thing 1.00

00:03:52.820 on it where like sometimes men's shirts come with a little plastic tab so the collar doesn't 0.99

00:03:57.780 you know like it stays out and the plastic little stick sticks through the collar to such a point

00:04:05.060 where I just don't wear the plastic stick but you know what maybe if I were spending $38,000

00:04:09.340 I wouldn't have a plastic stick infused or induced wardrobe malfunctions the likes of which

00:04:14.720 Canadian taxpayers are on the hook for I'm looking right now our comments are basically

00:04:22.320 uh telling ever telling everyone what people are making apparently it's called a color stay

00:04:28.600 uh harrison has just told me this so maybe harrison is the contender for the best dressed

00:04:33.340 at true north it's it's called a color stay not a pointy plastic stick all right the more you know

00:04:39.260 uh what else is going on here water bottle on twitter perhaps not his or on youtube perhaps

00:04:45.200 not his legal name uh says his pants are 25 plus tax well the tax can get you sometimes

00:04:52.660 Let's see.

00:04:54.540 Renegade writes, I bought a Montreal Expos jersey once for $150.

00:04:58.700 I thought that was expensive.

00:05:00.680 Yeah, I mean, I didn't know anyone bought Montreal Expos stuff,

00:05:04.320 but that's a bit of an antique item right now.

00:05:07.060 And Ryan says, this is no longer irreverent.

00:05:10.780 This is pretentious.

00:05:12.280 I'm being pretentious, he suggests.

00:05:14.400 I'm a man of the people.

00:05:15.860 I'm talking about how little ordinary people spend on clothes

00:05:19.220 relative to our global elites here.

00:05:22.000 Um, Pike asks, would you rather our King's representative looks like a dressed down

00:05:28.160 ragtag? There is an expectation our government officials dress accordingly. So here in lies

00:05:35.200 the very important question. I do not believe for a second that we should just be sending over,

00:05:41.720 you know, rag dolls, uh, to use this term, uh, the people that are not putting on their Sunday best

00:05:47.120 when they are representing His Majesty the King in Canada.

00:05:50.580 The question that I have is whether we need to be spending $88,000 in a five-year period.

00:05:57.820 Why can't we put a royal commission on winners and home cents and just find some clearance stuff?

00:06:02.400 I don't know if Mary Simon has trouble buying off the rack, which I'm told some people do or not.

00:06:08.560 Here's my thing, though.

00:06:10.080 This is a woman who makes $340,000 a year. 1.00

00:06:15.140 I am not suggesting Mary Simon is poorly dressed.

00:06:18.620 I am suggesting that perhaps she can afford to buy her own clothes

00:06:22.440 apart from the ceremonial garb that she wears that is basically a uniform

00:06:27.280 in the same way that if you get a job as Prime Minister of Canada

00:06:30.860 or a Cabinet Minister or a CEO or a lawyer,

00:06:35.460 you are expected to take a little bit of the money you make

00:06:38.640 and buy things for yourself to wear.

00:06:42.180 I 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.

00:06:50.540 Now, the camera goes down here for a reason.

00:06:53.040 True North wouldn't splurge for the pants budget for yours truly.

00:06:56.020 But 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.

00:07:05.360 We're not just talking about Mary Simon's clothing budget.

00:07:09.000 We're also talking about Julie Payette's clothing budget.

00:07:11.280 We're talking about David Johnson's expenses, which he has continued to run up even since losing the gig several years ago.

00:07:19.740 Adrienne Clarkson, who was for a lot of the time, she was the governor general for quite a few years.

00:07:26.580 Mikhail Jean, they were like maintaining offices as the letter of the law allows them to do even after they left that office.

00:07:34.660 and basically making what amounted if you looked cumulatively at multiple governors general

00:07:39.860 to millions of dollars in office expenses well all of them were using those offices to fuel their

00:07:46.980 careers as authors and public speakers where they made money in the private sector but were

00:07:52.820 continuing to have the taxpayers subsidize their work and what they're doing so uh no my issue is

00:07:59.640 not that Mary Simon happens to be well do we have any pictures of Mary Simon to put up I know

00:08:04.580 the thumbnail. Maybe we could just cycle through the outfits and start doing the, who are you

00:08:08.740 wearing? Who are you wearing? To Her Excellency Mary Simon. The issue is not that we don't have

00:08:14.900 any pics of Mary Simon. Okay, so we don't even know. Not that we want to start becoming fashion

00:08:19.060 critics on the show, because that would be like a, that would just be a very, very bad look for me

00:08:24.360 for many, many reasons. But the whole point that I'm bringing here is that this Governor General

00:08:30.220 gig brings out the very worst in people. So I don't even think the individual occupants are the

00:08:35.800 problem as much as the culture. You have all these people that work at Rideau Hall that when they get

00:08:41.280 a new governor general start saying, okay, you can expense this, you can expense this, you can expense

00:08:45.580 this, and it becomes very much consuming. And I'll give you a personal example of this. So years ago

00:08:53.140 when I was a university student, I did a brief internship on Parliament Hill. And when you work

00:08:59.640 on Parliament Hill. You're walking the corridors of power. You have all of these receptions that

00:09:05.000 are giving you drinks and food every night of the week. You feel important, even if you're kind of

00:09:10.020 a know-nothing kid like I was. And the thing was, is that people very quickly learn the way the rules

00:09:16.780 of the game are played. And I remember people telling me, oh, well, you know, you can actually

00:09:22.140 get your dry cleaning done by the Parliament Hill, by the House of Commons dry cleaning service.

00:09:27.020 and if you say it's your if you say it's like a member of parliament's clothes that they're dry

00:09:31.140 cleaning they'll do it for free but it's not for free the taxpayers pay for it and lo and behold

00:09:35.740 people that i knew did that they uh would say oh yes uh here are my boss's uh suits uh to get dry

00:09:42.520 cleaning because at the time and i don't know if it's still the case members of parliament could

00:09:46.460 get their dry cleaning done for free instead of what most normal people would have to do in the 0.82

00:09:51.500 world, which is dry clean their own darn clothes because that was what you needed to do to go to 0.91

00:09:57.280 work. And it might have been billed back to their office budget. But again, it's still one way or 0.96

00:10:02.140 another, the taxpayers who are on the hook for it. So all of these things tend to add up. And when

00:10:08.600 you are a fiscal hawk, someone who looks and sees waste in government and you want to push back

00:10:14.600 against it, it's amazing the amount of resistance you get. I mean, take a look at just one exchange

00:10:20.520 in the Parliamentary Committee yesterday, I think it was,

00:10:24.260 where Chrystia Freeland is fielding what is a very reasonable

00:10:27.880 and fundamentally simple and fair question about the debt

00:10:32.020 and decides to turn it into some smear on Conservatives.

00:10:36.100 Take a look.

00:10:36.860 Tell the committee and Canadians how much we're spending 0.99

00:10:40.260 or projected to spend on interest on the debt this upcoming fiscal year.

00:10:46.160 Just looking for the number.

00:10:47.340 Let me just say, because I think it's important to put things in context, that in both.

00:10:54.640 Minister, my time is very limited.

00:10:56.860 I'm asking if you know the number.

00:10:58.540 You have a lot of officials beside you.

00:11:00.840 Will you tell Canadians how much we're going to spend on servicing the debt next year?

00:11:06.560 Here's what I think.

00:11:07.760 That it's really important to put numbers in context.

00:11:10.220 Without context, numbers are meaningless.

00:11:11.860 Our debt service charges are low in Canada's historical context, and they are low compared to what our peers in the G7 are paying.

00:11:22.800 Thank you for the context. What's the gross dollar value we're going to spend on interest on the debt next year?

00:11:29.220 And let me again, I really am opposed to fiscal fear-mongering by the Conservatives.

00:11:35.640 And 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.

00:11:57.700 So, again, I don't want to extrapolate too much from what was a bit of showmanship on both sides.

00:12:05.380 But I do think it's revealing, you don't need to extrapolate much,

00:12:08.980 that when asked how much Canada will spend to service its debt,

00:12:13.100 which is a very easy question.

00:12:15.360 I mean, when you're paying your mortgage and you get the breakdowns from your mortgage company,

00:12:19.220 they tell you how much principal is left and how much interest is left

00:12:23.520 and how much of each payment went to which.

00:12:25.640 Because it's important.

00:12:26.500 You want to know how much you're spending on nothing.

00:12:28.720 You want to know how much you're spending on interest.

00:12:31.060 And in the case of Chrystia Freeland, she views this very fundamental question,

00:12:34.760 which she clearly doesn't know the answer to as being fiscal fear-mongering,

00:12:40.160 wanting to know how much we're spending on something

00:12:42.500 is to the Finance Minister of Canada fiscal fear-mongering.

00:12:47.980 So you take that attitude and you broaden it to the government halls in general.

00:12:53.300 And it's amazing how much entitlement is the norm that we are not supposed to question.

00:12:58.880 Us mere mortals are not supposed to question.

00:13:01.640 We mere mortals, that should have been.

00:13:02.880 How much is being spent, what it's being spent on, why it's being spent.

00:13:06.980 And this, I mean, I'm actually going to do a bit of an experiment right now.

00:13:11.920 I'm going to type in two words and I'm going to tell you what I typed in

00:13:16.020 because I'm guessing that someone out there has accused,

00:13:20.180 I might have to do this after the show,

00:13:21.900 someone is going to accuse people who criticize Mary Simons

00:13:25.300 and Julie Pate's clothing budget as being sexist or misogynist. 0.99

00:13:29.660 They'd be like, well, they wouldn't criticize men for spending that.

00:13:33.740 Well, let me tell you, I would.

00:13:34.960 And if I find out that David Johnston was spending however many tens of thousands of dollars on clothing,

00:13:41.900 perhaps he was getting stuff out of steel when he was over in China,

00:13:45.880 palling around with Xi Jinping, I would absolutely criticize that.

00:13:49.800 I mean, maybe David Johnston's love of China was also equating to frugality

00:13:54.080 because he only had to pay the manufacturer's factory store prices in Xinjiang.

00:13:58.900 Who knows?

00:13:59.660 But this is exactly the problem that we have with the governor general's role.

00:14:04.160 And I think it's why people sour on this institution that does have a role in Canada,

00:14:09.320 because ideally you don't want your prime minister prancing around like a king or a queen.

00:14:14.320 You want your prime minister to focus on the serious business,

00:14:16.700 and you then want the governor general to be the one that glad hands and goes to the events and all that.

00:14:22.020 But again, when you're paid $350,000 a year to do what is a fundamentally simple job,

00:14:29.300 which a trained monkey, to be honest, I don't even know if you need to train the monkey to do it,

00:14:33.080 but a trained monkey to be charitable could do the job of Governor General of Canada. 0.98

00:14:39.080 Maybe you can buy your own darn dresses and t-shirts and a crew hats. 0.97

00:14:44.840 This doesn't seem like a very difficult ask as a Canadian taxpayer. 0.98

00:14:50.500 But I will say, I mean, if you're talking about overall waste here in government,

00:14:54.740 Billions and billions of dollars.

00:14:56.460 I don't think this is the tip of the iceberg.

00:14:59.440 I don't think it's anything more than the tip of the iceberg.

00:15:01.760 But we've seen that the little things are what people hold on to.

00:15:05.040 I mean, if I were to mention how much does a cabinet minister spend on a glass of orange juice,

00:15:10.240 for years and years, everyone will be able to say $16,

00:15:13.500 because they know that is the going price of orange juice at the Savoy Hotel if you are Bev Oda.

00:15:19.180 But if you say, how much is Canada spending to service its debt?

00:15:22.640 You get Chrystia Freeland going, oh, fiscal fear-mongering, you know, pay no attention 1.00

00:15:27.260 to the giant pile of debt behind the curtain.

00:15:30.000 You don't get to ask those questions.

00:15:31.840 You don't get to talk about those things.

00:15:34.360 And I do think that fiscal transparency, which is not the sexiest topic, it's not necessarily

00:15:39.720 an irreverent topic in my eyes, but to the government it is because they don't want to

00:15:44.700 talk about it.

00:15:45.480 And to governors general, they don't want to talk about it.

00:15:48.040 Like Julie Payette was one of the most disgraceful figures to occupy the role of governor general

00:15:55.520 of Canada because she actually went into it thinking that she was going to be this powerful

00:16:00.020 figure and she didn't actually want to do the part of the job that is the only reason the job 1.00

00:16:04.000 exists, which is the ceremonial bits. Like I remember there was one story I'd read. I can't

00:16:08.260 remember which one it was where it was like, she had basically tried to configure the office in

00:16:12.820 such a way that it was amazed to get to her that no one could actually find her office. And like

00:16:17.400 She 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.

00:16:39.740 but she actually didn't want to do the job

00:16:42.080 but somehow she managed to bill taxpayers 0.98

00:16:44.600 hundreds of thousands of dollars

00:16:46.580 on all of these trappings of the job

00:16:49.180 that she didn't want to do

00:16:50.240 and the whole point here is that

00:16:52.440 this is something that breeds entitlement

00:16:54.520 and we cannot allow

00:16:56.500 we cannot allow this job to be above scrutiny

00:17:00.840 just because it is vice regal

00:17:03.040 and supposed to be apolitical

00:17:04.620 the figure my colleague just shared

00:17:07.020 that Julie Payette did for renovations

00:17:09.920 so far since 2017, $502,000.

00:17:14.620 So more than the average Canadian will spend on a house,

00:17:18.940 she spent just to reconfigure this property 0.99

00:17:22.940 to be to her liking when she didn't like any of it.

00:17:25.680 I mean, the whole point was she didn't even want to stay

00:17:27.400 in official residences when she was traveling.

00:17:29.900 She had this beautiful old palatial estate in Quebec City,

00:17:34.020 the Citadel, and then she didn't want to live at the Citadel.

00:17:36.300 So she was like booking a hotel room.

00:17:38.720 So, but that I think is more the norm than the exception.

00:17:42.420 And I think if this is a role that is about service

00:17:45.300 and about representing your country

00:17:47.540 and representing the crown,

00:17:48.800 then perhaps you can do it while buying your own t-shirt.

00:17:51.780 That's like, I know I've said it like three times,

00:17:53.320 but that's the takeaway here.

00:17:54.660 You know, take your $350,000.

00:17:56.680 Maybe you just siphon off, you know, $50,000 of that,

00:17:59.600 you know, clothing, hair, shoes, makeup,

00:18:02.440 whatever you need, take it out of that

00:18:03.800 and leave the taxpayer coffers alone.

00:18:07.760 In any case, we are going to move to a local story,

00:18:11.660 which I think is one that may have national implications here.

00:18:14.640 And that is the by-election in Portage-Lisker,

00:18:18.120 which is one of the most conservative ridings in Canada.

00:18:22.520 And if you need evidence of that, you need not look further

00:18:25.120 than the results in the last few elections.

00:18:28.240 It was previously held by Candace Bergen,

00:18:30.620 who was up until recently the interim leader of the Conservatives.

00:18:35.600 And Candace Bergen, she, and I'm just pulling up the numbers here,

00:18:38.760 she won that riding in 2021 with 52%.

00:18:41.480 But it also happened to be the strongest showing for the People's Party of Canada

00:18:46.100 in the last election, with the PPC candidate getting 21.58% of the vote.

00:18:53.100 Well, now that there is a by-election, we have a Conservative, Brandon Leslie, running,

00:18:58.320 But 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.

00:19:06.880 And he joins me now. Maxime, good to talk to you. Thanks for coming on the show today.

00:19:11.540 Thank you, Andrew. I'm very pleased to be with you.

00:19:14.360 So obviously you are not a Manitoban. Why are you choosing this riding to run in?

00:19:19.860 Because, like you said, it may be one of the most conservative riding in the country.

00:19:24.920 And like I said, the Conservative Party of Canada is conservative-only name.

00:19:31.240 They're fake conservative, and I will tackle the real conservative issues, family values.

00:19:36.800 That's why today I said to people here in Portage, this guard, that if I'm elected, I will table a bill on abortion.

00:19:44.240 Can you believe that, Andrew?

00:19:45.620 We don't have any legislation on abortion for 35 years.

00:19:50.940 The conservative did nothing the last 35 years.

00:19:54.060 And 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.

00:20:11.620 actually poliev once said the word abortion is too afraid of the mainstream media and also the

00:20:18.660 radical leftist feminist we are not it's a common sense political party and that's why i'm running

00:20:25.780 here and it's a little bit like in both in both one that was a rural riding it's a rural riding

00:20:32.180 here and i'm very pleased also that there's a francophone community here in portage this guard

00:20:38.260 So I'm here, I'm running here, and I will be with them before the election, during the election, and after the election.

00:20:46.040 Since you bring up the abortion issue, I wanted to get to that with you anyway.

00:20:50.560 Let me just first contextualize this for people. Are you pro-life or are you pro-choice?

00:20:55.520 You know, I'm a guy that wants to have a debate, and that's why I'm tabling that legislation.

00:21:02.440 I said we must do the first step, Andrew. We didn't have any legislation.

00:21:06.340 We 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. 0.94

00:21:28.240 And 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?

00:21:49.180 And so answering your question, Andrew, I think that ideally we must have a legislation that will ban abortion the second trimester.

00:21:59.620 Like all European countries and all across the world, we don't have that.

00:22:05.000 But let's start by having that discussion in Parliament.

00:22:08.100 And I believe that it would be easy if we have reasonable people in Parliament to adopt that.

00:22:14.140 Because, you know, killing a baby a couple of hours before giving birth, that's happening in our country.

00:22:20.640 And I know that the radical feminists will say, oh, no, no, it's terrible. It won't happen. 0.56

00:22:26.100 It is. I said this morning at my press conference, every year in Quebec, and I just have the data in Quebec,

00:22:33.220 the Quebec government, and in Quebec, we have late-term abortion, 20 women every year.

00:22:39.720 They are having a late-term abortion in my own province in Quebec.

00:22:44.140 And 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.

00:22:51.880 Yeah, but again, it was a pretty direct question. Are you pro-life or are you pro-choice personally?

00:22:56.480 I 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.

00:23:06.620 and i will answer your question by that answer i ideally it would be great to have a legislation

00:23:13.820 that will ban abortion at the second trimester like all civilized country it's time for canada 0.99

00:23:20.180 to be part of the civilized world so and that's why i'll have a lot of pro-life people here in

00:23:26.680 this writing that agree with me you know you need to start i i mean the answer i want to just get

00:23:33.380 to the precision on here, Maxime, because the legislation that you've put forward, I agree,

00:23:38.440 it's a disgrace that Canada has no law on abortion on the books. And the bill that you've announced

00:23:43.920 this morning would cap it at 24 weeks, as I understand. Now, data are very hard to come by

00:23:50.640 in Canada on this, but it's a minority of abortions that take place after 24 weeks. I've seen estimates

00:23:57.120 that we could be in hundreds of individual abortions on the high end maybe uh eight to

00:24:02.480 nine percent but most abortions are before 24 weeks so do you think that should be a woman's 0.99

00:24:08.360 right to choose before 24 weeks but you're right about the number and yes we know if we had only

00:24:15.480 one abortion late-term abortion it's one murder murder that we must not have first answering your

00:24:22.540 question yes i said ideally we must have that discussion in europe it's all about the second

00:24:28.140 term and it's uh you know they are regulating abortion at the second term and yes we need to 0.90

00:24:34.740 have the discussion but we need to start that discussion before that so let's have that

00:24:39.780 legislation let's approve that legislation in parliament as soon as possible and yes my personal

00:24:45.220 position on that is an answer yes it must be at the second term you know a lady will have three 1.00

00:24:51.140 months to decide if she wants to have an abortion or not. Three months, it's a lot. But that's why 1.00

00:24:59.220 I said, I want to have a victory here. We never had the victory the last 35 years. And the

00:25:07.020 conservatives are so weak. They don't have any conviction. They're afraid to speak about abortion.

00:25:13.340 It 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.

00:25:24.460 And 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.

00:25:44.660 They won't. They won't table any legislation on abortion.

00:25:50.480 That's their policy that must change.

00:25:52.820 And if we vote for a conservative candidate here, it won't.

00:25:56.360 And I understand that people in this writing understand that.

00:26:00.380 I'm curious about your evolution on this issue.

00:26:03.360 I know in the past you voted against pro-life legislation.

00:26:07.720 I think there was one years ago about coerced abortion under the Harper government that you voted against.

00:26:13.260 I think Stephen Woodworth had introduced emotion.

00:26:15.620 So where has your perspective shifted or how has your perspective shifted on this?

00:26:21.820 In 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.

00:26:35.780 And I had a strong position at that time.

00:26:38.060 I said, I'm against sex selection, abortion. 0.71

00:26:40.560 I'm against late term abortion.

00:26:42.080 So 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.

00:26:56.980 But 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.

00:27:13.060 And because I'm raising that debate, journalists will ask questions to Polyef today, if not tomorrow.

00:27:20.060 And I hope you'll do that, Andrew.

00:27:21.720 Ask him the question, why are you so afraid to reopen the debate?

00:27:26.780 When we have 51% of the population, Angus Reid, 2020 survey, 51% of Canadians said,

00:27:34.740 enough is enough, we need to end late-term abortion. 1.00

00:27:38.000 And 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.

00:27:51.400 is taking the conservative vote for granted out west and people in this writing understand that

00:27:57.780 and that's why i believe that people here will make history like they did in 1989 when they

00:28:05.160 elected for the first time a reform party candidate deborah bray deborah when they elected her in 1999

00:28:13.300 that was the first one in a by-election and after that the reform had 51 mps at the last

00:28:19.640 the next election and the other next one, they were the official opposition. So people in this

00:28:25.760 writing understand that they can make history and we can have national debates on important issues

00:28:31.940 for the future of our country. And I will, we've invited your conservative opponent onto the show

00:28:38.000 and we will ask him about this because I agree and you're not saying anything that I find offensive

00:28:42.740 in wanting there to be a debate on this. The question has been about whether you are, I think,

00:28:48.120 the most likely candidate to bring up that debate. So let me just ask you one more question on

00:28:53.260 abortion here, Maxine, because a lot of pro-life advocates reject what's called the gestational

00:28:58.840 approach, which you've just articulated, which is putting a limit in a certain place, because they

00:29:02.740 think that if you say abortion is not acceptable after 24 weeks, you're saying it is acceptable

00:29:09.400 at other points. And I go back to your own personal conviction on this. If you could write

00:29:14.720 any law you wanted not just what you think is politically saleable but what your ideal scenario

00:29:19.840 would be when should abortion be a choice and when should it no longer be a choice for women

00:29:25.160 ideally it must be at the second term like every every every country in europe so i'm asking these

00:29:38.440 radical feminists why you know italy france belgium germany why it's okay very liberal 0.99

00:29:46.260 countries a lot of the time too yeah and and they're progressive countries you're absolutely

00:29:50.940 right and these you know elites germanists are going i know that from quebec that some of them

00:29:58.400 are going to italy for their summer but you know they have a legislation on abortion and you cannot

00:30:04.860 have an abortion after the second trimesters so it must be a discussion here and i'm very pleased

00:30:10.780 that i bring that speaking about my opponent he will be with you and he may say that he agree with

00:30:16.700 my position but that's not the question the question he can say what he wants in the writing

00:30:22.060 but when he'll be in ottawa he will be silent the question is the leader poliev that's the question

00:30:28.380 because you know they are controlling their mp on abortion we know that our sport of that team i know

00:30:34.540 i know that so he can't say anything about abortion it's not important and people in our

00:30:39.340 right in this writing will know they know that it's coming from the the leader of the party

00:30:44.220 is pro-choice and and he won't he he won't allow any debate so i'm very very pleased that we will

00:30:51.660 ask that question to my opponent but please ask that question to my opponent as a leader to pierre

00:30:58.060 Poliev, that's the most important answer that we must have, that Canadians must have. 0.98

00:31:04.340 Let's turn to the riding itself here. So we were discussing earlier, Maxime, the PPC did very well

00:31:10.000 in Portage-Lisker relative to everywhere else in the country. It was the strongest riding. And I

00:31:15.000 know you obviously want to win. But as far as the bigger picture here, what do you consider a win

00:31:20.560 short of a victory on the ballot? I mean, do you feel that you need to get that 20% of the vote

00:31:27.920 to prove that the ppc is still the force it was in 2021 i like your question andrew a win is a win

00:31:36.720 so a win for me will be to be the mp for people in port stage list guard and i'm here campaigning

00:31:44.400 full time for them my schedule is full and i'm very pleased with that so for me a win is to be

00:31:50.320 their mp the night of the election and i believe that it's doable we have a strong team and people

00:31:56.880 understand they have the opportunity to send a message to ottawa right now and you know it's not

00:32:02.480 about splitting the vote that ridiculous uh argument is not valid we won't change the government

00:32:10.160 the trudeau government will be there after the election so it's safe for them to vote for the

00:32:15.360 ppc to vote for me and actually i will be their insurance policy that body have if he's if he has

00:32:23.520 the courage to be a conservative i will i will support him but i will bring that debate in ottawa

00:32:30.080 and i will support poliev when or if he is a real conservative with real conservative family values

00:32:37.120 so it's a win-win for people in this writing and they understand that that's why my answer to

00:32:42.720 to your question is a win is a win no and i appreciate that and it's always funny when you

00:32:47.760 see politicians who lose and then they get on stage and try to find a way to make it seem like they

00:32:52.080 really won like the you know the popular vote or something but but but the point I guess that I was

00:32:56.940 getting at there Maxime is that a lot of political columnists in Ottawa who I know are not always the

00:33:01.240 most credible sources have said that the PPC's success in 2021 was kind of a temporary blip

00:33:08.460 because of the pandemic there was this frustration with all of these circumstances that might not be

00:33:13.700 there right now and I and I guess I'm just curious what for you the stakes are if you don't do as

00:33:19.120 well as your candidate in 2021 did i must say andrew that all these mainstream media journalists

00:33:27.960 they said the same thing in 2019 when i we had 1.6 percent of the vote they said oh that's the

00:33:34.840 end of that party goodbye bernier they all wrote that and now after the last election five percent

00:33:41.760 they were a little bit surprised and didn't have any choice to cover my election the last three

00:33:46.660 weeks of the last campaign and now they're saying and five percent and now they're saying oh you

00:33:53.860 know bernie won't do anything he won't be able to have 20 25 he won't be able to do like his

00:33:59.800 candidates so i don't want to answer that i you know for me they are not credible i'm here on

00:34:05.680 the ground with the people and that's why i believe i can win this riding and i spoke with

00:34:11.500 my people on the ground and they are in agreement with me and they're working hard for that

00:34:16.300 We'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.

00:34:31.360 manitoba is a bit of an interesting province for you to be running in because you're a convict

00:34:37.240 in manitoba now i mean as of yesterday the court has uh put this i think it was a two thousand

00:34:42.120 dollar fine on you for uh campaigning in manitoba and i i played that clip of your arrest back then

00:34:48.020 when you gave that famous line and the police officer asked if you had any weapons and you said

00:34:52.300 only only your words which i i thought was quite quite brilliant and quite clever but let's talk

00:34:58.600 about why you decided to not fight this as much because a lot of people have been looking at

00:35:04.460 the legal challenges that are underway and really hoping that there's going to be this reckoning in

00:35:09.160 the court system on COVID penalties but you actually plead it out as I understand. Yeah what

00:35:15.540 I said it's very important I didn't say that I'm guilty of anything because under a provincial law

00:35:21.040 you're not guilty so what I said to save money for the taxpayer here in Manitoba and to save

00:35:27.200 court time because it was supposed to be a three days hearing it was only uh half a day i said you

00:35:33.600 know and i'm a responsible politician i said yes i was there i i i did a a meeting in a park and i

00:35:41.280 didn't want uh all the the the police and and all these witnesses saying that i was there so i did

00:35:48.000 admit that i was there and i did i did that i did admit that it was uh uh it was not in line with

00:35:55.520 the regulations at that time so because of this admission of facts we had an argument only on the

00:36:02.560 the penalties the fines so and and you you asked a good question why not appealing to that decision

00:36:09.280 and going to the appeal court because here in manitoba there are one case that is right now in

00:36:16.800 front before sorry before the appeal court of manitoba about the same subject illegal gathering

00:36:24.800 in a park so that's why we will have a decision from from the appeal court maybe this year about

00:36:31.680 that so i didn't need to appeal that so for me i'm responsible i said i was that and also i had

00:36:38.480 time to speak to the judge and i told the judge that all these regulations were unconstitutional

00:36:44.240 illegal immoral and i'm not appealing your decision because there's a case and we'll know

00:36:49.600 what the appeal court will say but at the same time don't forget andrew i'm appealing a decision

00:36:55.440 from the federal court with brian petford about my right and the right of canadians to be able to

00:37:01.120 travel freely across our country we are appealing the decision of the vaccine passport that were

00:37:06.000 imposed by the trudeau government because we had a decision not in our favor at the federal court

00:37:13.760 so we are appealing that and we will go up to the federal court uh to the supreme court sorry

00:37:19.920 about that case all right maxime bernier by-election candidate in portage lisker and

00:37:25.760 leader of the people's party of canada what are you most looking forward to about being

00:37:29.760 back on the campaign trail yes i'm going back we have a rally tonight with lara lynn thompson

00:37:35.760 and you know and it's a it's a huge riding i'm a little bit surprised you know going to one part

00:37:42.480 of the riding to the other part of the riding by car it would be it can be two hours so i'll be

00:37:47.920 on my car i will be in each corner of this riding and i'm having fun here i i know that you may you

00:37:53.920 may see it but i'm having fun it's great we'll see and i hope that you'll be able to cover our

00:37:59.520 campaign and i'm very pleased that i had the opportunity to be with you andrew all right

00:38:03.840 thank you very much maxime bernier good to talk to you thank you bye-bye all right that does it for

00:38:09.840 us for today, we'll be following all of the by-elections. Now, interestingly, if you follow

00:38:14.680 the chattering classes, the Laurentian media, they kind of view every one of the by-elections

00:38:21.000 as being a hold for parties. They say the Conservatives are going to hold Portage-Lisker,

00:38:24.940 they're going to hold Oxford, the Liberals are going to hold Notre Dame de Grasse. I forget the

00:38:29.040 fourth one right now, but they're not expecting anything too exciting. But you never know,

00:38:33.180 by-elections are notoriously weird, which is not a scientific analysis by any stretch, but

00:38:39.100 weird things happen in by-elections. There are weird dynamics, and it's kind of a microcosm

00:38:44.100 of whatever the national debate is at a particular point. But fear not, Dominic LeBlanc has told us

00:38:50.740 that the by-elections are going to be free of Chinese interference. So if all of a sudden a

00:38:56.200 Chinese consulate pops up in Portage-Lisker, the government has failed. You have to keep an eye out

00:39:01.980 for that. Or one of these weird... Actually, maybe one of the Chinese police stations can arrest 1.00

00:39:05.500 Maxime Bernier. Apparently more Chinese police stations are setting up all across the country

00:39:10.280 now, so you never know if they start popping up in these ridings that are having by-elections.

00:39:15.780 That does it for us for today. We'll be back in just two days' time with more of Canada's

00:39:20.580 most irreverent talk show. Hopefully all have negotiated one of those Governor General-style

00:39:25.220 clothing budgets with the powers that be at True North. If I show up dressed like Don Cherry on

00:39:29.860 Friday, you'll know I won my fight. If I show up dressed like this, please donate and buy me some

00:39:33.940 close uh we will talk to you all soon thank you god bless and good day to you all thanks for

00:39:39.340 listening to the andrew lawton show support the program by donating to true north at www.tnc.news

Juno News - May 17, 2023

Surely the governors-general can pay for own clothes

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript