Juno News - April 02, 2023


The state of the conservative movement

Topics
Conservative movement renaissance solving problems
Guests
Canada Strong
Mentioned
Stephen Harper Pierre Polly Ev Preston Manning Danielle Smith Jamil Giovanni Gen Zers Every Conservative Brian Mulroney Yuri Chassin Eric Duhem Joe Clark Conservatives
Niagara Falls mayor says feds are bungling asylum seekers What’s next for Candice Bergen？

Episode Stats


Length

4 minutes

Words per minute

225.31

Word count

949

Sentence count

64


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, I sit down with Canada Strong and Free Network President Jameel Javidani to talk about the upcoming Conservative Party Leadership Convention in Toronto, as well as some of the highlights from this year's event.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 Sitting down with Canada Strong and Free Network President Jameel Javani.
00:00:04.240 Jameel, we spoke when you were taking over the reins of the organization,
00:00:07.880 and obviously you had the Conservative leadership race going on last year,
00:00:11.320 so that adds a bit of energy.
00:00:13.140 But even now, this is like one of the record-setting years, I've been told, for attendance.
00:00:16.960 You had Stephen Harper speaking.
00:00:18.460 What's the big point of this?
00:00:19.780 What's the theme of this this year?
00:00:21.200 Well, there are two things happening right now.
00:00:22.740 One is that the middle class in this country is hurting.
00:00:26.100 Not enough people are talking about solutions to that.
00:00:28.800 We believe the Conservative movement has solutions, and we want to bring those to the front, right?
00:00:33.140 We want to bring those to spotlight.
00:00:35.120 That's one of the things we're trying to do here.
00:00:36.540 The other thing is we're trying to connect generations.
00:00:38.340 You mentioned Prime Minister Harper speaking, Preston Manning.
00:00:41.620 We want them to share what they learned from their time in politics with young people,
00:00:45.200 with the Millennials and the Gen Zers who are going to be the future leaders of the Conservative movement,
00:00:49.500 and we're bringing those generations together this week.
00:00:51.660 If you look at past Conservative Prime Ministers in this country,
00:00:54.460 people like Joe Clark and Brian Mulroney, I mean, it's not a large list of Conservative Prime Ministers,
00:00:59.740 but the ones that are still around today, they don't have the relevance to modern Conservatives that Stephen Harper does.
00:01:05.880 And I'm curious if you think that's just because Stephen Harper was more recent,
00:01:08.720 or if it's because Stephen Harper was just a different breed of Conservative leader that still resonates today.
00:01:13.280 I do think something very unique about Mr. Harper, which is that he is a principled man,
00:01:19.140 and I think Conservatives that might not always agree with his principles respect the fact that he tried to apply Conservative thinking to solve problems.
00:01:27.620 That is a timeless effort.
00:01:29.700 Every Conservative, every Conservative politician, member of the Conservative movement, has the same task.
00:01:34.780 So when you see someone you respect in taking that responsibility on, it's something that I think we're naturally drawn to,
00:01:40.400 and that is what I hope to see from whoever the next Conservative Prime Minister might be,
00:01:44.960 is the same commitment to solving problems as a Conservative, applying our principles,
00:01:49.880 being relevant to both the movement and also to the rest of the country.
00:01:53.440 You've got all the heavy hitters of the Conservative movement here this year.
00:01:56.260 You've got Stephen Harper, Pierre Polly Eva speaking, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith.
00:02:00.440 Do you think the fact that there has been this energy and this vibrance in the Conservative movement
00:02:04.840 is what Stephen Harper was talking about, about that Conservative renaissance,
00:02:08.360 that right now there's not really that malaise that you sometimes have when you're in opposition?
00:02:12.960 Yeah, I think that's exactly right.
00:02:14.540 I mean, look, I'm very happy with the elected officials who are here.
00:02:18.380 I think they represent exactly where we believe Conservative politics should be going.
00:02:22.520 We think about people like Pierre Polly Eva, Danielle Smith, Stephen Harper.
00:02:26.400 There is a Conservative tradition here that we want to be well-represented.
00:02:30.220 The reality is not everyone who calls themselves a Conservative believes in those same things.
00:02:34.100 We believe that is the right direction and we want to show that to the rest of the country.
00:02:38.800 I know you and I have talked in the past about how this is not a Conservative party event.
00:02:42.200 It's a Conservative movement event.
00:02:43.540 But I'm curious for your thoughts on the PPC situation.
00:02:46.000 I don't see people here that are identifying themselves as PPC supporters.
00:02:49.540 We know they're a part of the right-of-centre movement in Canada.
00:02:51.880 So what's the place that that has, if anything?
00:02:54.520 Look, a lot of the people who we embrace through our events,
00:02:58.440 people who speak at our events, might identify as PPC.
00:03:01.300 We don't ask people who they vote for, what party they belong to.
00:03:04.400 I think one thing that we believe is important, though, is trying to solve problems
00:03:07.940 and not just sort of the theatre of politics.
00:03:10.240 And that's what I would say to anyone who feels underrepresented is,
00:03:13.040 show us your solutions.
00:03:14.300 We'd like to work with you.
00:03:15.140 We're open as long as you're actually trying to solve problems.
00:03:18.360 Yeah, and it was interesting hearing Preston Manning and Stephen Harper talk about this,
00:03:21.960 of a split-off party that said the status quo is not working for us.
00:03:26.500 But they took a very constructive approach that ended up becoming what we now know
00:03:30.460 as the Conservative Party of Canada and what was a government for about a decade.
00:03:34.220 Yeah, and to me, that is the bar, right?
00:03:36.080 That is the standard, which is, are you making a difference?
00:03:38.800 Are you putting ideas forward that are going to make our country better?
00:03:41.700 I'm open to hearing that from anybody.
00:03:43.360 I mean, if a Liberal or an NDP wanted to come on our stage and had a good idea,
00:03:46.800 I'd be open to that too.
00:03:47.980 But the reality is-
00:03:49.040 You might be waiting for a while.
00:03:49.740 Yeah, but that is our standard, right?
00:03:51.900 And we were lucky to have an M&A from Quebec, Yuri Chassin, speak this morning.
00:03:56.680 We are open to a lot of different political parties.
00:03:58.840 Eric Duhaime from the Conservative Party of Quebec will be speaking tomorrow.
00:04:02.760 So we do work with a lot of different parties, but that is the bar.
00:04:05.720 Are you solving problems?
00:04:06.880 Do you have ideas there to help our country?
00:04:08.960 That's what we're looking for.
00:04:10.180 Jamil Javani, thanks very much.
00:04:11.380 Thank you very much.
00:04:11.960 Thank you.
00:04:12.260 Appreciate it.