00:02:21.560And her nose are in front of my eyes.
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00:02:32.560And her nose are in front of my eyes.
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00:02:41.560Hi, I'm Candice Malcolm and welcome to our live election kickoff event.
00:03:11.540new show. I'm so excited about it. We're live here in Toronto, the studio, and sorry to keep you
00:03:16.260folks waiting for a few minutes. This is the first time we're using the studio, and we had
00:03:19.720a couple of little glitches, but you know what? It's election kickoff day. We were plunged into
00:03:25.180this election. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau went down to Ottawa today. He went down to Rideau
00:03:29.480Cottage and announced that we are going to have an election, and so we threw this show together
00:03:34.980sort of last minute, but we're so pleased that you could be here. We're so pleased that we've
00:03:38.900been able to take true north to this level where we can now do these kind of live broadcasts and
00:03:43.040we can offer you the kind of coverage that you deserve that you're not being offered that you're
00:03:47.280not being given by the legacy media in this country and we're going to break it all down
00:03:51.500for you on this show we're going to be interviewing great guests we're going to be having we have a
00:03:56.620reporter in ottawa who's going to be giving us the entire scoop and rundown of what's happened
00:04:00.880over there today and we're going to unpack it all for you the viewer at home so thank you so much
00:04:05.540for tuning in and watching. I'd like to introduce you to some of my guests that are here,
00:04:09.760my friends that are in studio with me. So I'm joined by Sue-Anne Levy. Sue-Anne is a veteran
00:04:14.960columnist and investigative reporter. She's had an amazing career writing for the Toronto Sun.
00:04:19.980And we're so honoured, Sue-Anne, that, you know, you retired. Rather than, you know, taking it easy
00:04:24.640and relaxing and just, you know, having a quiet life, you've decided to continue working in
00:04:29.720journalism, continue to provide the other side of the story. So it's an honour and pleasure to have
00:04:34.180you here and thank you and alongside sue ann is our our friend anthony fury anthony is the editor
00:04:39.860over at the toronto sun and what what is the name of the the podcast that you host anthony uh full
00:04:45.400comment that's my my post media podcast i gotta say i miss sue ann so much as a sun colleague and
00:04:51.100but you know i i love contributing to true north so uh it's awesome that uh to see sue in here yeah
00:04:56.780well thank you so much for both of you for joining me in studio here in toronto and we do have uh
00:05:02.380Andrew Lawton who's over in Ottawa so we're going to be going to him in a few minutes but before we
00:05:07.480do I I'm just a little perplexed I don't know why we're having this election I mean we're still in
00:05:13.560the middle of COVID I don't think COVID is over I don't think the lockdowns are over I wish they
00:05:17.320were I wish that as a country we were at a place where we could say okay look most people are
00:05:21.580vaccinated let's carry on with our lives a few cases isn't going to to destroy our country um
00:05:27.540but but but there is still a fear that we're going to have more lockdowns that that this
00:05:31.640thing is just not yet over. And I think that Justin Trudeau is making a huge mistake by putting
00:05:37.160us into this election because it's liberal voters who are still afraid of COVID. And I think that he
00:05:42.180might not get the majority that he truly deserves. Yeah, it's an interesting point. I mean,
00:05:48.560I look at it like for the past year and a half, some pretty crazy things have been done to people
00:05:53.580that, you know, government has made edicts about our lives that most of us have never witnessed
00:05:57.340before in our life. So I'm like, I kind of, you know, big fan of democracy. So I'm totally good
00:06:02.060with people having their say. I appreciate that the polling looks for Trudeau like, oh, maybe this
00:06:06.420is gonna be good for me, which is why he wants it. And then Aaron O'Toole is going, oh, the numbers
00:06:09.600aren't so great for me. So maybe I'll say, you know, can we push it back a little bit kind of
00:06:12.920thing. But I think you are right, Candace, totally that the liberal voter mindset is much more like,
00:06:18.100no, it's not safe to go and line up, you know, outside with masks on for polling station and so
00:06:23.340forth so they might actually pick up that argument like I think it's safe to
00:06:26.820you know have people go into a polling station do their voting and so forth and
00:06:30.420the BLM rallies and the American presidential rally everything was fine
00:06:33.600you know like it all turned out okay but you're right that that some of his key
00:06:38.340supporters might be like why they thought we shouldn't gather like this so
00:06:41.580that's where it may backfire well and sorry if I said that the like the
00:06:45.100majority that he deserves that he thinks he deserves I don't think yeah I just
00:06:48.300want to be completely clear I don't think he deserves a majority I don't
00:06:51.300think that he even deserves another minority. And I think that for him, he risks, like it's all or
00:06:56.380nothing for him. I think that if Trudeau goes in, like he launched this election, he forces to have
00:07:01.580it in the midst of what could potentially be a fourth wave. And if he doesn't get his majority
00:07:07.100and he only gets a minority, that's a loss for him because we're spending, what, $610 million
00:07:12.420as a report of how much this election is going to cost. What if we get right back to square one
00:07:18.180where we are back with another minority, I think that Trudeau will basically have to resign at that
00:07:22.660point, or at least he has no mandate to leave the country, and he's just put us into a ridiculous
00:07:27.560situation. I think that is the worst case scenario for him. You have to eat crow, I think. And 610
00:07:32.680million, as far as I'm concerned, is absolutely outrageous. Let's just remember, here in Ontario,
00:07:38.520for example, businesses are just not fully back. They are just getting back up to speed. They were
00:07:44.180locked down for some of them for almost 300 days um and they're they're trying to get themselves
00:07:52.340back on their feet and i know in toronto in downtown toronto every second storefront has
00:07:58.020a release sign in it and i think it's absolutely outrageous that our federal government spending
00:08:03.380this kind of money when our poor small business and you know have suffered so tremendously
00:08:10.100Let's not even talk about the number of people who've died because of COVID, the seniors, but the small businesses, I can't fathom the expenditure when these small businesses and have gotten very little help from the federal government.
00:08:24.780Well, if anything, they have someone working against them because I've heard so many anecdotal stories from business owners, you know, here in Toronto, but around the country about how hard it is to keep employees, partially because employees are still collecting CERB.
00:08:39.060And it's like, why would you commute and go to work and have to, like, you know, put your time somewhere else if you can just get paid for free?
00:08:46.920And I mean, to me, that might be the biggest scandal of the entire COVID.
00:08:50.700I mean, there's a lot of scandals when it comes to COVID.
00:08:53.440But just this idea that Trudeau has launched this huge program that just hands out money to everyone.
00:08:59.700I mean, I can't imagine the kind of fraud that they're going to find if they ever do go through the books.
00:09:33.660All right. Well, we've got our colleague Andrew Lawton patiently waiting in Ottawa. I think he's just, you know, jumping at the bit to give his report from what happened today. So let's not make you wait any longer, Andrew. Let's go to Andrew Lawton in Ottawa and hear about what happened today.
00:09:48.460Hey, thanks very much for having me with you on this great evening. I'm very proud to be a part
00:09:56.200of this. Let's actually get right to it here and roll a package I sent over your way that has
00:10:02.180really what are some of the core themes that are emerging from this campaign so far,
00:10:54.560...than would normally be expected in a general election campaign.
00:10:58.540Aaron O'Toole and the Conservatives in particular have said they will be relying significantly on a studio they had purpose-built at a downtown Ottawa hotel.
00:11:08.680The fact that the election is taking place in the midst of what Canada's chief public health officer,
00:11:14.060Theresa Tam, has called a fourth wave was very much front and centre
00:11:18.840as Justin Trudeau took questions from the media and as Erin O'Toole spoke.
00:11:23.760Justin Trudeau, who previously said that he would not have an election until the pandemic was over,
00:11:29.620was asked repeatedly by reporters what he wants to gain from this election and why now.
00:11:35.340Here was one such question from Toronto Star reporter Tonda McCharles.
00:11:39.360You didn't use the word majority, but I know you would like a majority to enact that plan.
00:11:43.680However, the NDP says you have the confidence of Parliament.
00:11:46.800They'd support you in any of these measures that you talk about and all of these ambitions.
00:11:51.840So how can you justify to Canadians the need for an election that'll cost $500 million in the middle of a fourth wave
00:11:59.440when you said to Canadians you would not go to the polls before the end of the pandemic?
00:12:05.340this is a really important moment in canada's history for the past two years for the past 17
00:12:12.780months specifically of the pandemic we've been making really big really consequential decisions
00:12:20.460and in the last election nobody was talking about what we might do in a pandemic
00:12:26.300so the government and indeed parliament needs an opportunity to get a mandate from canadians
00:12:32.860to hear from Canadians on how to end this pandemic,
00:12:38.480how to build back better in really meaningful ways.
00:12:43.780As Canadians know, this is a moment where we're going to be taking decisions
00:12:48.300that will last not just for the coming months, but for the coming decades.
00:23:39.040I found, though, the answer to that question that Andrew played, that Tonda asked about, you know, what's going on, why do we have this election?
00:23:45.040And Trudeau, I found him kind of, like, honest, and to unpack what he was saying,
00:23:49.260I feel like he was saying, all right, I want this great reset thing.
00:25:12.840Like, I think people think that the Liberal Party is like a centrist party, and then you've got the left-wing NDP party, but there's really no difference.
00:25:18.760Like, I really feel for Jagmeet Singh, because, like, what's the difference between the Liberal and NDP party?
00:25:35.780I think that Jagmeet is totally lost because, you know, you had Trudeau running up to the left of Thomas Mulcair back in 2015, sort of famously saying that he was not going to balance the budget where Mulcair was.
00:25:47.360And that was sort of like, OK, this is interesting because we have the Liberal Party outflanking the new Democrats on socialism or at least on big government spending.
00:25:54.700And then Jagmeet Singh came along and he was supposed to be this like new kind of youthful energy for the party.
00:26:00.160He was going to bring all of these, like, new changes and sort of bring the party back to, I guess, more of its socialist roots.
00:26:07.240But I just feel like under Jagmeet, the party is not gaining momentum.
00:26:27.800His dress cost thousands of dollars, right?
00:26:29.200And it's like, you know, I don't care. Right. It's their money. They can spend whatever they want. But just from an image perspective, you know, this is a socialist party.
00:26:36.600And literally the day that they announced that they put that picture up, they announced their platform, which was not costed.
00:26:43.220And it included a luxury tax, a tax on luxury goods. So here are these two people who are clearly like, you know, part of the new rich elite or whatever.
00:26:51.680They're driving BMWs. He's like a French socialist. That's how they are in France. They're all like very wealthy.
00:26:56.220You know, the Francois Hollande people, they're like super wealthy.
00:26:58.860So he's kind of like, no, Jagmeet's wardrobe, you know, he's a well-dressed guy.
00:27:18.420And he goes all the way to Delhi for his tailor.
00:27:20.900And he has a collection of Rolex watches.
00:27:23.460Like, you know, this is supposed to be the party of the everyman. This is supposed to be the working class party with the unions. And here you have this very slick looking, you know, cosmopolitan guy. And it's great. I think that he could be a great role model for his community, you know, or for all for the entire Canadian country.
00:27:40.640Like, he's got a good following on social media, he's got a beautiful wife, you know, he's got a lot going for him.
00:27:46.580And instead, you know, what do we hear from him?
00:27:48.300We hear that Canada's a racist country and Canada's, you know, terrible, the rich get richer, we need to crack down on the ultra-rich.
00:27:55.540I'm just getting mixed messages from the guy.
00:28:04.820But he's not the kind of like traditional CAW, you know, roll up your sleeves, hit the campaign hustings for the NDP kind of thing, like back in the 90s.
00:28:15.160Yeah, I mean, that faction, I don't know where it's going.
00:28:16.860Like Doug Ford worked really hard to win over some of those unions back in the 2018 election kind of thing.
00:28:21.360And Donald Trump fought to get those unions on side himself in 2016.
00:28:25.000So things are kind of like they're splitting the NDP world.
00:28:28.120Well, I know that Aaron O'Toole has sort of made it his point that he wants to target these people as well.
00:28:34.500Like I know, actually, one of the things I liked about what Aaron O'Toole was saying was when he got like early Trump comparisons, you know, Andrew Scheer was really squeamish about those.
00:28:43.280He didn't want anyone comparing him to Trump, whereas O'Toole didn't really flinch away from those.
00:28:47.320I mean, obviously, Trump is a very flawed person and there's a world of difference between Aaron O'Toole and Donald Trump.
00:28:53.520But, you know, when asked, he was like, no, you know, I like the Trump coalition.
00:28:57.200I like how he went after, you know, these sort of like steel or rust belts kind of voters.
00:29:01.600And I think that's what you're talking about, that the NDP has abandoned those.
00:29:05.600But I'm not sure if they're coming in the Conservative side.
00:29:07.560The NDP and the Liberals, they're kind of becoming the party of no in terms of they're telling you everyone they don't want to associate.
00:29:12.580Whereas, yeah, Varun O'Toole becomes like the party of yes of like, OK, well, you know, we may not totally get along or, you know, we're different culture, different religion or I'm not in your union or whatever.
00:29:20.540But like we agree on this, that and the other. And these are the important things today.
00:29:24.020Well, let's hang out. Let's grab a beer. Please vote for me. And let's form that coalition.
00:29:27.460So I think there are interesting coalitions that are happening, and the momentum can be in the Conservatives' favour, I think, to really, you know, to broaden it.
00:29:35.100We used to talk about the big blue tent a lot, and I think there can be an even bigger blue tent.
00:29:40.080Absolutely. All right, we have a guest who's going to be joining us. I'm really excited about this one.
00:29:46.320Danielle Smith is the president of the Alberta Enterprise Group Business Advocacy Organization.
00:29:50.900She was formerly the leader of the then Wild Rose Party of Alberta, leader of Alberta's official opposition.
00:29:55.300Before both and after her political career, Danielle was an Alberta journalist, most recently at the host of the talk show, Danielle Smith, on 770 CHQR.
00:30:06.800Danielle, thank you so much for joining us. It's great to see you.
00:30:13.040So what do you think? We're going into an election. What are you hearing out in Alberta right now?
00:30:18.380Well, I'm kind of alarmed at the Friday press conferences and getting more coverage.
00:30:22.800I think what happened is everybody expected that they'd bring in a vaccine mandatory passport for those who were public servants, so people who worked in Ottawa, parliamentarians.
00:30:34.540I think we got blindsided by this vaccine passport that now is going to apply to airlines as well as cross-border travel by train and cruise ships.
00:30:44.600But they were pretty clear that it's going to apply to all federally regulated industries, which means if you look at what is federally regulated, oil and gas pipelines are federally regulated, grain elevators are federally regulated, the trucking industry is federally regulated, all of the broadcast media is federally regulated, all of the banks are federally regulated.
00:31:06.120And I'm just not, I'm a bit surprised that nobody seems to be making a big fuss about that, that we've essentially, on the day, two days before the election, have the government announcing that we're going to be bringing in a national mandatory vaccine passport with no end of sight in sight.
00:31:24.180So that is one thing that I find pretty alarming.
00:31:26.360I saw earlier in the week that the chambers of commerce had lined up to support this.
00:31:30.740I just want you to know, as an advocate for business with my own group over at Enterprise Group, not a single one.
00:31:36.120of our members had called up asking for vaccine passports.
00:31:39.620I'm not even quite sure where the business community
00:32:32.000I think it's a really scary direction that the country is going in that, you know, just people, for whatever reason, people have their own reasons not to get vaccinated.
00:32:42.260I'm vaccinated, and I think that everyone should go ahead and get that.
00:32:44.920It makes life a bit easier when we can get on to normal.
00:32:47.540But the idea that the Trudeau government is implementing this sweeping vaccine passport, I think it's a pretty risky issue to bet an entire election on.
00:32:59.160And I saw a couple of liberal strategists writing about it in the newspapers in the days before the announcement saying, you know, it's a great issue.
00:33:06.060It's an 80-20 issue, which is, you know, when 80 percent of the population are for it, go for it.
00:33:10.380But it's like, well, but what about that 20 percent?
00:33:12.200Like this is going to be a pure like tyranny of the majority situation where, you know, you have like 80 percent of the country forcing 20 percent of the country to either stay inside and not be able to participate in life or to get a vaccine.
00:33:25.100And they might have a, you know, a moral issue or a medical issue or whatever the reason is for not getting vaccinated.
00:33:30.940I mean, aren't we a country of, you know, the charter?
00:33:35.520I think it should be a big, big issue.
00:33:37.520One of the things that I always observe is that no one ever really thinks about who does the enforcement on these things. Now, keep in mind, I run a restaurant. We've had 4,000 customers since we announced Freedom Day in Alberta on July the 1st. And so they're asking me as a business owner to ask my 20-year-old servers to be mandating that everybody flash their vaccine passport when they come in the door.
00:34:03.300if this applies to the trucking industry, are we seriously going to be asking for every single
00:34:08.820truck that crosses a border traveling from ports in British Columbia all the way across the country
00:34:14.020to be stopped at the border to be checked to make sure that all of the drivers have been vaccinated?
00:34:19.780I mean, this is the thing that I don't think people understand is that when you start putting
00:34:24.500in mandates, what follows is enforcement. And in France, what they're looking at is charging
00:34:31.940business owners 45 000 euros if they allow somebody in their business without a vaccine
00:34:38.260passport they're talking about the potential for jail time if uh if you go into a business with
00:34:44.480without having your vaccine passport and so this is where i think the disconnect comes in is there's
00:34:49.380one thing uh to to support a high level of vaccination for the good of society yes but once
00:34:55.380you start putting in mandates and enforcement comes in you're either asking business owners
00:34:59.760to do something that they are not prepared to do they are not by law enforcement officers they are
00:35:03.920not officers um that that get a mandate from their provincial or federal governments or you're asking
00:35:10.160for an excessive and aggressive use of force by your your police services and we saw all kinds
00:35:16.320of excessive use of force throughout the course of the of the pandemic so i i just i'm kind of
00:35:22.160astonished that this has been snuck in because our premier in alberta has been pretty clear that we
00:35:26.880don't want vaccine passports here but the way they can do this through federally regulated industries
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00:35:32.160they can make it they can make it very widespread they've they also admitted that uh because
00:35:36.960provincially regulated industries wouldn't come i wouldn't have to comply to this that they're
00:35:41.040working through health canada to put pressure on universities and others to try to bring through
00:35:47.120these kinds of mandates at the at the provincial level as well where they don't have jurisdiction
00:35:52.000So I'm wondering if this is going to be an election issue because we also know that we've
00:35:57.840got third party advertising rules. So anytime you talk about an issue that a particular political
00:36:03.200party has taken a position on, you've got to register under the third party election
00:36:08.000advertising rules. Otherwise, you end up falling afoul of those Elections Canada laws. And they
00:36:12.720also have huge fines associated with it, $50,000 if you fail to register. So to me, it almost looks
00:36:19.280like they made this decision in the 11th hour took everyone by surprise so that there couldn't
00:36:24.940be any kind of organized campaign against it because now we're in a red period and i find
00:36:29.540that sneaky and i find i find it unconscionable that they would do something like that when it
00:36:33.860has such huge implications on freedom and huge implications on business freedom
00:36:37.340points and i i just don't think that people have thought that through danielle because
00:36:42.700you're right it's it's one thing to say look everyone should just go get your vaccine and
00:36:46.740then we can all just go on and carry on with our lives. But it's another to, like, imagine a society
00:36:51.520where you have police officers roaming around demanding that people show them their papers. I
00:36:55.960mean, you know, is that really the kind of post-COVID world that we're going to live in,
00:37:00.820where we have enforcement officers making sure that, you know, teenage servers at restaurants
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00:37:05.720have actually been fully vaccinated? And I mean, it'll be interesting because I think, you know,
00:37:12.520when it comes to places like Alberta and Ontario, both the premiers have said that they're not going
00:37:16.600to implement their own kind of um that their own their own kind of i mean what you're doing is
00:37:21.320dividing society in half into haves and have nots and saying that some people just aren't welcome
00:37:25.640um whether they're going to you know enforce it and and and and eventually like comply with it i
00:37:31.080i think i think it's really interesting uh anthony so do you guys want to jump into the conversation
00:37:34.760here well i i think danielle just is making a great point that people haven't thought through
00:37:39.480the implications of it like how long is this going to happen for for how many years is that
00:37:43.400that teenage server going to have to badger people, you know, for their documents. And the
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00:37:48.460other point, we're talking about booster shots now. I think a lot of people, they like the vaccine
00:37:52.240passport because they think it just validates the choice they have already made because most
00:37:56.140people are vaccinated. But what if come November, they're like, oh, no, your vaccine passport's
00:38:00.240invalid until you get your third dose. And I don't know. Nobody's commented on that. Is that
00:38:03.720going to be? Apparently, Israel is, Israel's brought in a third dose for over 40s now. And
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00:38:08.220I was just speaking to somebody I know there who's involved in politics. And they said, yeah,
00:38:10.960they may add it to their their green pass system so like let's just talk about these details a bit
00:38:15.340more folks before we jump in so eagerly absolutely it's just like the uh the hotel quarantine which
00:38:22.160was not thought through thoroughly so it's another uh issue i mean we know how botched up that was
00:38:29.400and people find so and i'm really concerned um like your guest says that people the uh i guess
00:38:37.440whomever is going to oversee this is going to run around abuse their power give huge fines like they
00:38:45.660did with the quarantine the hotel quarantine i mean people fighting seven thousand eight thousand
00:38:50.980nine thousand dollar fines at this point it's wild uh well daniel well i just want to ask you
00:38:55.980one more question before we let go uh you're out you're at west and you have your finger on the
00:39:00.120pulse of the sort of mood and the vibe out there do you think the western alienation is going to
00:39:05.420play a role in this campaign? I mean, I know that in the last, you know, two years or the last
00:39:09.900five years under Trudeau, we've seen it flare up worse than ever, perhaps, or at least in the last
00:39:15.34020 years. And I haven't really heard much about the sort of Western separatist movement recently,
00:39:20.680but I was just wondering if you could give us a little bit of an update on what the mood is like
00:39:25.800in terms of this issue. Well, let me add one more issue to the list, because again, in the dead of
00:39:30.960summer on July 20th, the natural resources minister, Seamus O'Reagan, launched a just
00:39:36.000transition, a consultation. Just transition is the language that the extreme left, like Naomi
00:39:41.440Klein and others use, to talk about phasing out fossil fuels altogether and retraining energy
00:39:46.840workers to, I don't know, install solar panels or do sustainable farming or something. Imagine
00:39:51.240if the head of Unifor, Jerry Diaz, was told that the government was going to phase out all
00:39:57.680autoworkers jobs. People would be lighting their hair on fire all the way through Ontario and
00:40:02.260abroad. And yet we're, I guess, just supposed to nod and smile and accept this in Alberta.
00:40:07.880So I can tell you that the combination of the opposition that the federal government has taken
00:40:14.320to our premier on so many issues, combined with essentially campaigning to phase out our energy
00:40:20.660sector, combined with giving $6 billion to Quebec for their daycare plan and not allowing
00:40:27.900Alberta to have a similar deal. We have an equalization referendum that's going to be
00:40:32.280happening a month after the federal election. And if the prime minister chooses to campaign
00:40:38.340on divide and conquer, I suspect that's going to have a very strong mandate. But beyond that,
00:40:45.580If you look at what's happening in the election, there is a party that is headed up by Jay Hill, a familiar name out east, because he used to also be the whip for the conservative parties underneath Stephen Harper.
00:40:58.800He's headed up the Maverick Party, and it is a separatist party.
00:41:01.940He's running, I think he said, 26 MPs.
00:41:05.520They've carefully selected the ridings where they think that they can run a Maverick without causing a vote split that will elect a liberal.
00:41:13.280So ridings with people like Michelle Rempel and Shannon Stubbs and John Barlow, I don't know if they're going to be successful.
00:41:21.220I don't know if they'll be able to have that kind of breakthrough.
00:41:23.700But the kind of issues that the prime minister has chosen to campaign on are not unifying issues.
00:45:37.220But, you know, I was thinking as you were talking and as Danielle was talking that there are people who had a really bad reaction to the vaccine.
00:49:27.660He doesn't want to talk about cultural stuff.
00:49:29.400He doesn't want to talk about social issues.
00:49:30.980When it comes to sort of non-economic policies, you know, he's pretty good on China.
00:49:35.800And otherwise, you see him kind of not really standing out in any way.
00:49:39.720And that's frustrating for people like me and people like you.
00:49:42.060But I think that's the strategy. I think that the idea is, you know, we've had too many elections that have been lost by conservatives because of social issues. Cultural issues are divisive. Let's try to run a campaign on the economic issues, which we're solid on. And Trudeau is a total mess.
00:49:57.500And so, you know, what I see is sort of the strategy that they're kind of doing this in a way to really show that the thing that they want, the thing they care about, is the economic side of the equation.
00:50:09.220Trudeau's finances are a total mess, as we were talking about.
00:50:11.500And so I think that O'Toole's been doing a pretty good job.
00:50:14.940And from what I've seen so far, just, you know, today, he seemed confident.
00:50:18.220I think that he's really hitting his stride as leader.
00:50:20.240No, he is prime ministerial in his presentation.
00:50:24.440Well, I want to announce something really exciting that we have going on at True North.
00:50:29.400We have decided to bring on and hire an in-house pollster for the duration of the campaign.
00:50:34.460We want someone who is able to provide analysis, give us a better understanding of the demographics of the country,
00:50:40.880figure out which ridings to look out for, where the selection is going to be fought, where it's going to be won.
00:50:46.760So I'm tremendously proud, excited to announce that Hamish Marshall will be joining True North as our in-house pollster.
00:50:53.220And unfortunately, Hamish is at the cottage because, you know, who would have known that the election was going to happen today in the middle of August.
00:50:59.560But fortunately, I was able to catch up with Hamish a couple of days ago before he left.
00:51:04.680And he really just provided a lot of context about what he's going to be doing for True North and give you a little bit of a sneak peek as to what you can expect from True North through this campaign.
01:05:04.480Yeah, I mean, I think Jagmeet Singh has done a decent job in the last two years of making himself a safe harbour for disgruntled Greens,
01:05:12.800which have many reasons to be disgruntled these days, and Liberals, progressive voters.
01:05:18.580The overall people right now, advocates just did a poll, people think Liberals are going to win the election.
01:05:24.90045% of people think Liberals are going to win, compared to only 18% people think Conservatives are going to win.
01:05:29.180Only 9% of NDP voters right now think that the Conservatives are going to win the election, which means that unless things change dramatically, the Liberals' ability to scare those NDP voters with the prospect of a Conservative victory is reasonably smaller than it has been in the past.
01:05:51.060That can be very, very good news for Jagmeet Singh, because it'll allow him to pick up 2%, 3%, 4% perhaps in some key writings.
01:05:58.320the question becomes for him is well i've no doubt that will buoy his overall popular vote
01:06:04.720number especially in ontario it's not clear to me that it will result in many more seats
01:06:10.480you know especially in a lot of these seats in the 905 you know the ndp going from 17 and a 905 seat
01:06:16.400to 21 you know might be enough maybe it's a split that will help the conservatives depending on the
01:06:22.720circumstances but it certainly isn't enough for the ndp to win they're so far back in many of these
01:06:27.440905 seats and that's that's the big thing so will the ndp get more votes at the moment it looks that
01:06:32.880way uh but will it turn into dramatically more seats uh that's i'm sure it'll turn into a few
01:06:38.640more seats but will they go from uh you know the 20 uh something seats they won last time to 30 or
01:06:45.040four you know 35 or 45 seats at the moment i don't think it's looking that way all right
01:06:51.120uh i got a few more questions for you the first one is uh you know ndp tends to be a spoiler for
01:06:56.400the liberals there's been a couple of new upstart right-wing parties out on the horizon and i was
01:07:02.240wondering if you could give uh the viewers some understanding of whether or not any of those
01:07:07.360parties um have a shot at you know spoiling a um a potential conservative mp um and and making them
01:07:16.720lose because of splitting the vote on the right yeah i mean i think i think it's potential i mean
01:07:20.880in 2019 um you know the the the people's party mexican brainy's people party party got you know
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01:07:26.6401.6 percent of the vote nationwide and depending how you want to count it uh cost conservatives
01:07:33.360six or seven seats um so not enough to fundamentally change the nature of the election
01:07:38.480but it certainly would have been a stronger result um uh so they can certainly have an impact there
01:07:45.200on a few seats the question for me is you know we've seen the maverick party uh you know the
01:07:50.160rebranded in western independence party we've seen them they've got 20 something candidates nominated
01:07:57.440there seem to be running primarily in seats uh where they're not likely to make a big difference
01:08:03.040you know they don't have a candidate in edmonton center i believe for instance um so the chances
01:08:07.840you know if they're running a candidate in some rural alberta seat and the conservative np gets
01:08:13.360you know 80 of the vote instead of 85 doesn't make much of a difference um so they don't seem
01:08:19.840to be making much difference the question for the on the People's Party is the People's Party as
01:08:26.720far as I can tell seems to have more from being in populist anti-immigration party to sort of a
01:08:34.560populist anti-vaccination party and whether they'll be able to profit from that is unclear to me
01:08:45.520they might very well be there there's a lot of people who've got a lot of concerns about
01:08:48.480vaccination and then they could very well go for the pbc the interesting thing is those voters are
01:08:53.680no more likely are are not significantly more likely to be conservatives in fact we've seen
01:08:58.800public research that shows that the the voters who are most likely to be concerned about vaccinations
01:09:04.000are actually middle-aged women who are more likely to vote liberal so if the ppc with the right
01:09:08.720candidate can can happen to some anti-vax um sentiment in some constituencies the the chances
01:09:16.880of the that will disproportionately hurt the conservatives i think is actually relatively low
01:09:20.240i think they'll draw from everybody um the one obvious exception is is maxine bernier
01:09:26.160maxine bernier running in the boats is always a threat and shouldn't be taken uh for granted
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01:09:30.880although i think you know the conservative mp there richard lewes is very very strong and very
01:09:37.040well liked and has a very strong local record um and my suspicion is that um uh bernier is gonna
01:09:44.320actually have a harder time than he did last time but he can't be can't be ignored it's interesting
01:09:48.960hamish i always thought of the anti-vaccination campaign as a fixture of
01:09:57.600is the big question for the conservatives is whether they'll basically write an election
01:10:03.360saying let's deny trudeau his majority versus left of them uh what to do and that's further
01:10:10.240confuses the issue so i think there's layers upon layers into this vaccine hesitancy or outright
01:10:15.280anti-vax activism interesting yeah and we'll definitely continue to unpack that throughout
01:10:20.080the campaign all right hey my final question here so what what is the ballot boxes i know
01:10:25.200it's early days the campaign was just announced but you know looking at things now you know is
01:10:29.920this election to be fought over covered management and spending or are canadians sick of that and are
01:10:34.000we going to have you know some some other issues that come to the forefront what do you think the
01:10:38.320ballot question will be in this election well i mean i think at core about question is does
01:10:43.120trudeau deserve a majority um and that's really what his core message is going to be it's going
01:10:48.080to be he deserves a majority because he's got all these big plans and if it's fought over um
01:10:53.920coveted management i think he's gonna that he's happy with that background as well
01:10:57.920um uh there was a survey the other day angus we did a survey it said 51 percent acadians
01:11:02.800think that the pm has done a good job of managing uh covet you know in that same survey i think the
01:11:09.040liberals at 36 so 15 of people who aren't even voting liberal think he's done a good job so this
01:11:14.000is a very you know that that's the ballot question they'll be very very happy about that um you know
01:11:20.160the question is the big question for the conservatives is whether they'll basically
01:11:25.920run an election saying let's deny trudeau his majority versus you know elect a conservative
01:11:31.280government um and and you know at which that's a big strategic trade-off and we'll we'll see
01:11:37.440what they go about the way they do but i i i see it this as does trudeau deserve a majority time
01:11:42.960for a change numbers are lower than they were uh two years ago trudeau is more popular today not
01:11:47.600dramatically but he is more popular today than he was for this point before the 2019 campaign um
01:11:54.320things that view the country is generally better than it was then so i i think as a as a ballot
01:11:59.840question it's not a it's not a bad one for the liberals and that's why they're having we're
01:12:04.240having an election right now is because they think they can win on those terms well thank
01:12:08.560you so much hamish you've been very insightful and i know uh i'm personally excited to have you
01:12:13.120joining us throughout the campaign i know our viewers will too uh what what can we expect from
01:12:17.440you throughout this campaign well i'll be i'll be joining you on on some shows i'll be uh writing a
01:12:22.160little bit for uh for true north uh and we should have some interesting uh proprietary research uh
01:12:27.840that's exclusive to Triorth, which hopefully will shed some light on things that the mainstream
01:12:34.920media isn't covering. Excellent. Well, thank you so much for joining us. We look forward to having
01:12:39.260you on the campaign. My pleasure. So happy to have Hamish Marshall joining the team. Andrew Lawton
01:12:50.900here from Ottawa, where the election call was going down today. And we've talked a fair bit
01:12:57.220this show about the bigger picture, higher level aspects. I want to get into the weeds in just a
01:13:02.420moment. We've got a couple of conservative candidates standing by. We'll get to Garnet
01:13:07.060Jenis in a couple of moments and Kathy Wagenthal in just a moment. But I do want to tell you all
01:13:12.400of these things that we're doing here are so important in a media landscape that is so often
01:13:17.940not favorable to the issues that those of you watching, those of you who subscribe to True
01:13:22.480North pay attention to. I'm in Ottawa right now. I didn't walk here. I've got to get back home.
01:13:27.780Even traveling around to be where the story is comes with a cost. If you can chip in
01:13:31.860to support our election coverage, please head over to donate.tnc.news, donate.tnc.news.
01:13:40.240And we love that you're watching. We love that you share it. It's so important. But again,
01:13:44.120we have to be able to make this coverage happen for all these people that are going to be receptive
01:13:48.400to these issues, but just aren't exposed to us. And that's why we're so glad to be doing this
01:13:52.860and covering this campaign. Kathy Wagenthal is a longtime conservative member of parliament in
01:13:58.920Yorkton, Melville, Saskatchewan, and now the conservative candidate in Yorkton, Melville,
01:14:04.400one of those technicalities of an election. Kathy, good to have you on the show. Thanks for joining me.
01:14:09.800Thanks for having me, Andrew. Appreciate it.
01:14:12.000Let's start with what I think in a lot of context to the media is the elephant in the room, which is
01:14:17.400the fact that the Conservative Party of Canada has in the caucus a number of social conservatives,
01:14:23.200a number of social conservative voters in Canada of conservative persuasions and sometimes not
01:14:29.060conservative on other issues. And we were told in 2019 that these were issues that just shouldn't
01:14:35.440be entertained in an election. And I know there's been a fair bit of discussion within the party on
01:14:40.440this. You've been a very prominent voice in the Conservative Party and in Canada on social issues.
01:14:45.820You introduced a really very unique and I think a very important bill not that long ago dealing with sex-selective abortion.
01:14:53.880What's your message to Canadians that are oftentimes conflicted about these issues based on kind of what they're told to think about them from the media coverage of campaigns?
01:15:06.480They are told certain things by the media.
01:15:09.940And what I have found in being out amongst Canadians on this issue is that they are not polarized the way the media and some political parties would like them to be in regards to the issue of abortion, specifically on certain issues.
01:15:27.960And sex-selective abortion is one that 84% of Canadians want a law against.
01:15:33.260So clearly, when you're talking about that critical mass, that is a significant number of Canadians that go well beyond the borders of the Conservative Party, and obviously into many other parties as well.
01:15:47.100So what we have here is an issue that I would like to see dealt with in a way that pleases Canadians.
01:15:53.600There's no laws at all in Canada around abortion, and there are certain things that are important to Canadians that they want to see those limitations there.
01:16:02.680So I think our problem, as you probably saw, if you did follow the bill at all, is that it isn't Canadians that are the problem.
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01:16:09.720It's the other political parties that have set parameters on anyone who wants to run in their party to have certain perspectives on these issues, or they can't even run.
01:16:19.320And that, to me, is not democracy, and they're no longer reflecting the views of Canadians.
01:16:23.680One thing that I would point out here that I found interesting, this morning at the very first hour of the campaign, one prominent Liberal MP, Bartish Chagher, had jumped in and made some comment about how Aaron O'Toole lets his caucus vote in accordance with their conscience, as though that's a criticism.
01:16:43.220And I'm curious if you could explain the dynamic here, because Aaron O'Toole, the party leader, has not been a social conservative voice himself, but he has been clear in supporting free votes.
01:16:54.020As someone who served as an MP in the last parliament is hopefully going to be serving again in the next parliament.
01:17:00.660How do you address the concerns that some social conservative members of the party have put forward that, you know what, the leader is not necessarily where we are on these issues?
01:17:09.760Sure. Actually, I'm able to say that I am comfortable with that in the fact that, as you
01:17:16.240say, Aaron, it's not that he allows, it's that we have the privilege. And certainly, when it comes
01:17:23.520to presenting a private member's bill, that is something that I, as a member of parliament,
01:17:28.240take very seriously. And we are well represented in the party. And we have amazing opportunities
01:17:35.360to have discussions in our caucus i cannot imagine what it's like to be in those other parties and
01:17:40.080trying to navigate in the way that canadians want us to on a lot of these issues and that is to
01:17:46.240actually have conversation actually have debate and still hold each other in high regard and that
01:17:52.560is certainly the approach that i took when aaron you know made it very clear that he would not be
01:17:56.400supporting the bill but we have an opportunity in our party and this is what i do tell a lot
01:18:02.320lot of my colleagues and people who do get concerned that we have an opportunity in the
01:18:07.020Conservative Party of Canada that no other party provides to their members. And I believe that we
01:18:13.340as social conservatives have played a significant role on an awful lot of bills in the House,
01:18:18.540specifically, you know, you think of MAID. We had the opportunity to raise it to an issue where
01:18:25.480we got the support of every disability group across Canada as they became more and more aware
01:18:31.960of the dynamics of that bill so that sense of where the true compassion is in this country
01:18:36.900it's in the conservative party i think that's an important point and i know that oftentimes
01:18:42.740social conservatives tend to get typecast into very narrow issues you know people brought this
01:18:49.020up with andrew sheeran in 2019 of oh he's just trying to litigate re-litigate same-sex marriage
01:18:53.740which wasn't the case you have all of these coming to the forefront now on medically assisted dying
01:19:00.080on the sex elective abortion question, even now with vaccinations, there are a lot of questions
01:19:06.480about personal choice and, and conscience rights for healthcare practitioners. And I spoke out
01:19:11.700about the assisted dying bill significantly, because I'm a survivor of a suicide attempt,
01:19:16.500I've done mental health advocacy. And this was a bill where most of the mental health groups
01:19:21.320were themselves very concerned with a bill that was really legitimizing this culture that, you
01:19:28.280know, we should take away hope from people that are in crisis. And, you know, in a lot of cases,
01:19:33.480there were even some liberals in the Senate that seemed eventually receptive to this idea. Not
01:19:38.800enough of them, mind you, but receptive to this idea that I don't think we should be ramming this
01:19:43.100bill forward exactly as it's being presented. Absolutely not. You know, I had a wonderful
01:19:48.160conversation with a wonderful young man who came to me to talk about C6, the conversion therapy
01:19:54.540bill, who is gay and was concerned and was so pleased to have the conversation with me to
01:19:59.520understand the true perspective of this bill within the Conservative Party. We come at it from
01:20:05.720different angles. And, you know, it's said that we're divided on it. We're not. We all agree that
01:20:12.760there must be a ban on conversion therapy. We just had different perspectives on how that should be
01:20:19.080done. And when we have the opportunity to form government, you know, our shadow minister indicated
01:20:23.940right away that this is something very important to us and you know he's he brought up the issue
01:20:28.980of made and said that you know if the way that they are putting it forward now had been available
01:20:34.740to him a year or two earlier he would have taken his own life and he is very upset that they have
01:20:41.580broadened uh the definition of the capability of an individual to get assisted suicide within 24
01:20:49.540hours and so uh he was very very pleased with the approach that we as a party took on these issues
01:20:57.300i know we've been talking a lot about the social issues in the campaign i think they are important
01:21:01.860and i've never made that a secret but i wanted to put to you what you think some of the other issues
01:21:06.580are that are going to be valid issues for people in your riding and across the country as we go
01:21:11.700through the next few weeks sure well there's definitely a concern in my riding about the
01:21:16.580approach that this government has taken to our freedoms and they're very concerned about the
01:21:22.900potential of moving our whole society and our economic prosperity to an approach of you know
01:21:31.140this basic income and taking away the opportunities and the privileges to be a canadian and to to
01:21:40.100become self-sufficient and to succeed in our society on the basis of everyone having the
01:21:45.940same opportunity and being able to move forward and succeed within the economy. So there's no
01:21:53.460question that securing the future is really important, that there is a real desire to see
01:22:00.740the benefits that are attached to COVID be removed so that we can get back to having people employed.
01:22:07.220So many of my businesses have signs up saying they're looking for employees and no one is
01:22:13.220coming forward, they are not able to open the way that they want to because people are not coming
01:22:19.180back to work because they have this free money available to them. And they're very concerned
01:22:25.240that he's taking advantage of the circumstances of COVID to really shut down our economy and move
01:22:31.680us to more of a state-controlled government. Yorkton Melville Conservative candidate and
01:22:36.420long-time MP Kathy Wagenthal. Kathy, thank you so much for coming on tonight.
01:22:46.660We've got our studio in Toronto, which we'll go back to in just a moment here.
01:22:51.520And I do want to say something because this afternoon I went to Maxime Bernier's launch.
01:22:57.040The People's Party of Canada had its kickoff press conference as well.
01:23:00.340And it was actually quite astonishing how few members of the media were there.
01:23:06.280There were a couple of Radio Canada reporters.
01:23:08.880There was a CBC reporter who had phoned in, but not a lot of coverage.
01:23:13.440And I know Candace in her chat with Hamish Marshall addressed this to some extent.
01:23:17.260We're talking about a party that in 2019 got a relatively small percentage of the vote.
01:23:22.560But I still think it's an important aspect of the conservative movement.
01:23:26.480And certainly we hear from people all the time that are very frustrated with the status quo conservative party that say they're voting PPC.
01:23:42.880And one thing I've actually been very proud of in the coverage at True North since before
01:23:47.720I joined it, and certainly since then as well, is the interest in covering these parties
01:23:52.540that don't often make it onto the mainstream media's radar.
01:23:56.200You look at how the Green Party has been, by the media, elevated to this very significant
01:24:02.280status that is vastly larger than its actual electoral footprint. And I'm saying, well,
01:24:08.880why aren't we doing that with parties on the right? So that's a big part of what True North
01:24:13.720is doing, covering the PPC, covering the Maverick Party, covering the Conservative Party of Canada,
01:24:20.100Justin Trudeau. I even went to an NDP press conference last time. I don't know if they'll
01:24:24.220let me in this time, but that is a big part of it here. And again, I'll say if you can support
01:24:29.180this work that we're doing, please do head on over to donate.tnc.news. Donate.tnc.news.
01:24:36.460And with that, we will go back to the studio with Candace Malcolm, Anthony Fury, and Sue Ann Levy.
01:24:44.620Thank you so much for the work that you're doing on the ground in Ottawa. It's great to have
01:24:47.980reporters doing the work that I wish the mainstream media would do a little bit more.
01:24:52.460You know, you're going to the events, just the pure fact that you went and covered the People's
01:24:56.140party uh when like you said there's so few people that are willing to do that i mean maxine bernier
01:25:00.300was a former cabinet minister of this country like if there was a left-wing cabinet minister
01:25:04.220that left the liberal party inserted their own party you know that the cbc would be there you
01:25:09.100know that the that the mainstream media legacy media parliamentary press gallery would be there
01:25:13.580and the fact that it's happening on the conservative side it's like no we're too good to go there we're
01:25:19.100too good to touch it so i'm so pleased to have you on the ground and hopefully you're going to
01:25:22.780continue to do these breaking reports throughout the campaign. That's certainly the plan.
01:25:28.600Great, thank you so much. And now we have another MP that's going to jump on with us, Garnett
01:25:33.000Janis, and it's great to have him on the program as well. So I'll just quickly read your bio here,
01:25:40.160Garnett. Garnett is a Conservative Member of Parliament for Sherwood Park. He was first
01:25:43.700selected in 2015 and re-elected in 2019. He's the Shadow Minister for International Development and
01:25:49.020human rights for the official opposition. Prior to his election, Garnett worked as an advisor in the
01:25:54.340Prime Minister's office to then Prime Minister Stephen Harper. So Garnett, thank you so much
01:25:58.620for joining our program. Thank you. It's great to be with you. And my camera may be a little funny
01:26:04.500here, so I don't know if you can see me properly. But either way, it's great to be able to have this
01:26:09.280conversation today. It's good and sounds good to me. So Garnett, what do you make of the election
01:26:14.380being called today and kind of this new wedge issue that the prime minister has introduced the
01:26:19.100idea that we need to have vaccine passports in order to travel uh inter-provincially and that
01:26:24.780you know if you work for a federal government or a federally regulated industry which is incredibly
01:26:28.540vast uh that you need to get a vaccine passport well it's interesting because the prime minister
01:26:33.260himself had called these these types of measures divisive in the past uh the conservative party i
01:26:40.380want to be very clear is supportive of individual freedom. We're also supportive of vaccinations.
01:26:45.980We recognize the value and we encourage people to get vaccinations. And we also believe in
01:26:51.980individual choice. And it's funny how at one time in this country, what it meant to be liberal in
01:26:56.220the small l sense was saying that you might believe something is good and beneficial,
01:27:01.820but you're not going to try to impose that on somebody else, even if you think it's the right
01:27:05.820decision to make we we've we've moved away from that with the big al liberal party and i think
01:27:10.860that's quite evident today something that is entirely illiberal you're saying that if you're
01:27:17.900not willing to get something that look i i agree i'm double vaccinated i think it's incredibly
01:27:22.940important for canadians to get vaccinated i also know someone who had a vaccine injury when she was
01:27:27.740two years old and because of it she actually can't get vaccinated so it's like you know
01:27:32.860what about people like that? What about people in different situations? You know, there's
01:27:36.080polling from Statistics Canada that shows that the highest vaccine hesitancy community
01:27:41.800is black Canadians, that some 55% of black Canadians say that they don't want to get
01:27:46.420vaccinated. So it's so weird that we have a liberal government that is going to be imposing
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01:27:51.440these kind of policies. And I hope that you conservatives stand out against it. Garnett,
01:27:56.980you're sort of the go-to guy when it comes to human rights abuses, foreign affairs. I know
01:28:02.200that's that's really your house and you're an expert so can you can you talk a little bit about
01:28:05.800what's going on in afghanistan right now and maybe how that might influence the uh election how that
01:28:10.520will play out here in canada yeah i'm so glad you asked that question it is just uh devastating
01:28:18.440what is happening right now um on so many levels and and you know i don't i don't i don't know if
01:28:25.640i even want to talk about the political implications because i i don't think that's the important thing
01:28:29.480The important thing is that, I mean, I just saw on social media, someone posted a photo of two children of an Afghan interpreter who are sleeping at the airport waiting to be airlifted out.
01:28:43.560The honour of our country is at stake here.
01:28:46.320There are people who fought alongside Canada, who stood with Canadian soldiers in their efforts,
01:28:54.120who in all likelihood are going to get left behind with their families
01:28:58.840because of a failure to evacuate people.
01:29:04.720In addition to this, we have been calling for six years.
01:29:07.220This was the first statement I made as an elected MP in December of 2015.
01:29:11.040We have been calling for six years for a special program
01:29:13.860to allow the private sponsorship of vulnerable minority communities in Afghanistan.
01:29:19.120We've got this very small Sikh and Hindu community left in Afghanistan.
01:29:23.220Communities here in Canada have stood up and said, we want to provide private sponsorship.
01:29:27.320It's not a question of government dollars.
01:29:28.420We want to provide private sponsorship for a few hundred families.
01:29:33.040And the government has, despite having large representation in caucus from those communities,
01:29:48.080Like, you can't just ignore all of this for six years and then say, oh, great, we've come up with a big number that we want to throw at the wall politically, when in actual fact, people are going to get left behind.
01:30:04.760So it's devastating from a human rights standpoint that very likely these minority communities, as well as anyone who collaborated with Western others, are simply going to be slaughtered by the Taliban.
01:30:17.080And our policy failure is going to leave behind these women, men and children.
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01:31:22.580Just quickly, I don't think they've really embraced it.
01:31:26.420I mean, what we're hearing from private refugee sponsoring organizations across the board is that there's a piling on of red tape.
01:31:32.120And it's just it's becoming harder for refugee sponsoring organizations to run as volunteer operations.
01:31:38.560They're they're being sort of required to have the level of administrative sophistication that that is that is just harder for volunteers to do.
01:31:45.420And it's not really necessary that the data has been there for a long time that the private sponsorship programs are just, you know,
01:31:50.600far more effective at engaging and integrating people uh and they don't they don't cost the
01:31:55.320taxpayer right so if you have people standing up and saying we want to help vulnerable people around
01:31:59.800the world we will support them in their integration and by the way the data shows they're more likely
01:32:03.640to be successful in canada if they come into an existing community um you know liberals generally
01:32:08.840don't believe in that because they're skeptical about the role of community organizations in the
01:32:13.240private sector and they want to see bigger government um in any event this has been a
01:32:18.040six-year project people pushing for particular options and support for these afghan minority
01:32:24.280communities and unfortunately now it's probably too late i'm sorry to hear that and i mean it
01:32:29.160just makes perfect sense when it comes to private sponsorship because it's like who's going to be
01:32:32.600more successful in canada someone who comes in lands in an airplane and gets a social worker
01:32:37.080that they might be able to talk to like once or twice a week versus someone who's welcomed by a
01:32:40.840community by a church by a charity who's really excited who's done all the legwork to fundraise
01:32:46.040to bring this person to canada you know they're going to be there every step of the way to explain
01:32:49.880this is how you get a bank account this is how you sign your kids up for sports this is how you
01:32:54.520you know just all the basic things how to ride a bus in canada things that a refugee would just
1.00
01:32:59.320really have no concept of so i'm glad to see the conservatives uh fighting for that it's it's
01:33:03.800unfortunate that the liberals aren't taking it i'll just ask you one question to bring it back
01:33:07.800to the to the campaign here what what are the conservatives wanting canadians to know about
01:33:13.320their party what's what's a one takeaway message you would like to get the canadians to know about
01:33:17.880what a conservative alternative would be to this true to liberal government yeah so i i mean i look
01:33:24.200forward to us being able to share lots of specific plans on on policy issues but but if i could try
01:33:29.080to wrap it together uh in in sort of one concept uh i i think i think we have a government right
01:33:36.040now that is encouraging people not to think about the future uh that is saying uh don't worry we're
01:33:41.240going to provide you with a lot of money that is heavily deficit financed in the short term.
01:33:48.600And Conservatives have a plan that emphasizes securing the future that says we want to pass
01:33:54.280a better country, a more prosperous, more just and more free country onto our children and
01:34:00.120grandchildren. And that means taking a hard look at debt and deficit. That means establishing the
01:34:06.840conditions for protecting our security, recognizing that we can't take our security for granted in
01:34:12.600the face of various foreign threats. It means we can't take our freedom for granted. All the things
01:34:16.600we have in Canada, the freedom, the prosperity, the justice we have, those things didn't fall
01:34:21.560out of the sky. We have them because of hard work and good policy in generations past. And if we
01:34:28.440step away from the things that have made us successful in the past, we're going to lose
01:34:31.880the fruits of that success. So we will have a lot to say about the specifics,
01:34:36.280but in one concept it's about securing the future it's about thinking about the kind of country we
01:34:40.840pass on to the next generation well that sounds inspiring so i i wish you uh well on the campaign
01:34:46.280hopefully we'll be able to catch up again garnett jenis the mp for sherwood park thank you so much
01:34:50.600for joining us thank you so much i look forward to chatting again great well to everyone who's
01:34:56.680who's stuck with us who's watched this this entire broadcast it's it's really been a pleasure to be
01:35:00.680able to share the news with you have this conversation break it all down and i just want
01:35:06.040to show a contrast between what true north does and what what you see in the mainstream media
01:35:11.240this has become a little bit of a joke and a meme around uh true north because it's so silly but i
01:35:16.600want to show you a clip of how trudeau treated the cbc in particular but in general the legacy media
01:35:23.720during the last campaign. So here's that clip.
01:35:43.540So what you saw there was, what you saw there was Justin Trudeau, the Prime Minister of the
01:35:48.540country, jokingly creating a poutine dish and serving it to the CBC, reminding all the press
01:35:54.820in attendance that the Liberals are always there for the CBC. So this is the kind of chummy
01:35:58.940relationship that you have. And I mean, if you think about it, during the last campaign,
01:36:02.420the 2015 campaign, two campaigns ago, the Conservative government was running on a pledge
01:36:10.240to keep the CBC as a status quo. They weren't even going as far as what Aaron O'Toole is saying
01:36:14.780today, and I hope he sticks to that pledge, that he will defund the English news section.
01:36:19.320Trudeau ran on a pledge of increasing the amount of money that CBC gets. Keep in mind, they get
01:36:23.660$1.2 billion a year. That organization would not exist in its current iteration or any form,
01:36:30.200perhaps, without all of that government subsidies. And at the same time, you have the CBC giving
01:36:35.960incredibly favorable news coverage to Trudeau, and Trudeau treating him to what? Buying him lunch
01:36:41.680on the campaign trail and everyone's laughing and Trudeau's making jokes about that. I mean,
01:36:45.780how can you really trust the CBC? It's wild. And so I just, I'm going to make a final plea here
01:36:51.780because if you're watching this far and you're enjoying our coverage, I really urge you to head
01:36:56.060on over to donate.tnc.news. That's our website. You can go make a donation. Consider it doesn't
01:37:01.740have to be a lot of money. If you can throw in $10, if you're enjoying this broadcast,
01:37:05.040so you can pitch in a little more, that would be great too. But the idea that so many Canadians
0.99
01:37:09.600still turn to the CBC to get news is distressing. And it is my goal. I think it's like my life
01:37:15.600mission to make Canadians aware that the news that they're getting on the CBC is not accurate.
01:37:21.040It's not a real picture of what's going on. It's not a real representation. I'll give you another
01:37:25.180example. This is perhaps the flagship reporter at the CBC these days, Rosemary Barton. And look,
01:37:31.600I don't have anything against her personally. She seems like she's a nice woman. But the way
01:37:35.520that she covers politics in her job i mean she doesn't even hide her love and admiration for
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01:37:42.100trudeau let's play that clip once once i'm done politics i'm done politics uh last book you've
01:37:51.160read or book you're reading um the just finished uh the um the patch which was uh chris turner's
01:38:01.360history of uh of the oil patch um but i'm also about to start the new uh ken follett with the
01:38:09.920third third book that is uh the sequel to um pillars of the earth that's your nerdy side
01:38:16.720no that's that's my uh no no it's not it's not sci-fi it's it's just a sweeping historical
01:38:24.200epic i'm sure but i haven't started it yet so oh prime minister you're so nerdy it's so cute
01:38:31.300Seriously, I mean, it's parody, right?
01:38:33.160It's like they give poutine, they ask softball questions about what podcasts you're listening to.
01:46:33.560All right. I don't know what to say. What's your take on that?
01:46:42.500Well, I thought initially it was cringeworthy when I first saw it yesterday. And of course,
01:46:48.500all the leftists were wringing their hands in despair. The progressives were wringing their
01:46:56.000hands in despair because they said it was feminizing the prime minister and it's an
01:47:01.360attack on females i wouldn't go that far i just found it a little puerile but you know it's
01:47:08.220memorable let's put it that way you look at it and you will remember it it gets stuck in your
01:47:13.240head right that's why i always think like i know i saw the reaction and there were a lot of like
01:47:17.480high profile conservatives that were like slamming it which is you almost don't really get that very
01:47:22.380often in canada like because of our parliamentary system like you usually especially in election the
01:47:27.480MPs will do what the leader says. You had MPs, you had former Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall,
01:47:35.480you know, dissing it. But look, I think it does sort of what it's intended to do, which it gets
01:47:41.400people talking about the Conservatives. And, you know, part of the problem that Aaron O'Toole has
01:47:45.880is he's sort of failing to break through and create a big name for himself. A lot of people
01:47:50.360still don't really know who he is or not familiar. And this is something it's like, how many views
01:47:54.720that got how many news stories are there how many you know television stations are playing it in
01:47:59.200the nightly news and i know we've been hard on the legacy media and i wish that their numbers were
01:48:03.280smaller but the reality is a lot of people still do get their news from the legacy media so the
01:48:07.600fact that they're getting all of this free advertising i think it might be one of those
01:48:11.440like no publicity is bad publicity kind of thing yeah like it's very like internet native right
01:48:17.280it's like this like weird old video that has like trudeau's face and then the the most awkward part
01:48:22.800is like the very end where it's like don't care how i want it and then it says like conservative
01:48:27.680or it says majority election or whatever and it's like well it puts it down to the bare facts and i
01:48:32.480mean the bear his motives so yeah it's it is memorable and in a way having now watched it
01:48:40.880again a couple of times um it portrays him as frankly the narcissist and the child childish
01:48:52.160narcissist that he is. I mean, if you want to take read between the lines, there's a lot going on
01:48:57.760there. Yeah. And that's why in some ways on like a weird meta level, it works. Let's bring Andrew
01:49:02.740Lawton on this. I know he had his comments and he had his thoughts on it. Andrew, what do you think
01:49:06.900about this? You guys are going soft. This was an absolutely terrible ad. I think it's the exception
01:49:12.600to the all publicity is good publicity rule. But here's where I disagree with the media reaction
01:49:18.560on this why does it have to be sexist why can't it just be a bad commercial because at first i'm
01:49:24.480like oh yeah this is hokey and cringeworthy and then it's like oh well it's actually you know it
01:49:28.640says that you know the conservatives are like whiny little girls and girls are bad i was like
01:49:32.100it's just a it's just a dumb thing but i was hoping aaron o'toole would lean into it i i had
01:49:37.720sent a message to a producer phil this morning i said you know what i'm really hoping that aaron
01:49:42.900o'toole will do the wonka entrance to his press conference and just you know limp out and then
01:49:47.740flip into like the somersaults and the hop up but alas it was no it was not to be
01:49:52.140because it's a liberal hack machine but the top story wasn't about trudeau calling an election
01:50:17.720It was about this ad and how horrible it was. And it like just really, you know, triggered the media, the fact that they kind of goes back to our ongoing criticism of all of them that instead of writing about the topics that matter to Canadians, they're obsessed with process, they're obsessed with criticizing conservatives for silly things, and they won't focus on the things that actually matter to Canadians. And I thought that this story just sort of summed it all up.
01:50:39.940Yeah, and one thing I will say on this is that whatever I think of the ad, and it may have missed the mark on this, the media is never, ever the target audience for these sorts of things.
01:50:52.280You know, there have been a lot of situations where, not just with Aaron O'Toole, but with other leaders, provincial, federal, different parties in the past, where the media just completely loses their minds, but it was not meant to be for them, and them not getting it kind of proves the point of it.
01:51:08.920And like I said, I don't know if this is one of those cases for sure, but there have been a lot of those.
01:51:14.860I mean, one notable example was when Aaron O'Toole was apparently a dirty misogynist because his wife gave him a beer when he got home from a run.
01:51:22.360And, you know, it's like no one real cares about that.
01:51:28.800So I guess that's the one saving grace is just because the media does decide to push something into trend does not mean that average Canadians are taking issue with it in the same way.
01:51:38.920it was the same shameless double standard of the media because remember it's not too long ago that
01:51:44.280the unifor ad came out with the truck falling apart and criticizing erin o'toole and we didn't
01:51:50.680hear the same outcry from the legacy media about that did we yeah no i think we have that clip
01:51:57.080actually if we can throw to that because it was just such a silly concept i i felt like they got
01:52:01.960it all wrong and it really illuminates so much that's wrong with the media if we have that clip
01:52:06.200But they're reinforcing the same stereotype about the conservatives.
01:52:44.580And that spoke entirely to the stereotypes that these brazen people,
01:52:51.900entitled unions, try to portray about the conservatives,
01:52:55.600that they're inhumane, they're going to cut all these things.
01:52:59.360You know, when the point is, if there's not enough money,
01:53:02.820If there's a deficit, you can't fund all these things in perpetuity.
01:53:08.180Well, I thought it was kind of interesting because I was talking earlier in the program how I thought that Aaron O'Toole has shown incredible discipline throughout this campaign so far.
01:53:15.120Because one of the sort of like things that conservatives are good at, and I talked about how Aaron O'Toole is running as a fiscal conservative and he's not touching the social issues and he's not going into the culture war stuff.
01:53:25.340And he's doing a pretty good job focusing on what his strengths are.
01:53:28.240But one of the problems that conservatives have with running as fiscal conservatives is that it tees them up for the easy critique that they're going to cut health care, that like anytime you have a fiscal conservative, that means that they're not going to be able to overspend and blow the budget the way that left wing politicians do, which equates to cuts to health care.
01:53:46.140And the liberals are really good at sort of that wedge issue and that critique.
01:53:50.260And it's almost like Unifor was expecting Aaron O'Toole to say, I'll balance the budget in a year or I'll balance the budget in two years.
01:53:56.300And so they had this whole thing, oh, he's going to cut health care.
01:53:59.040And then Aaron O'Toole didn't do that.
01:54:00.820He, pardon me, he came up and said, you know, it's going to take a long time.
01:54:05.040Trudeau really ramped this thing up and we're in a pandemic and it's going to take a while.
01:54:09.240So I feel like that ad just didn't work because that's not what Aaron O'Toole was talking about.
01:59:55.900Well, I don't think he deserves it, but I also don't think he deserved a second chance
02:00:00.240in 2019 and I don't think you deserve the first chance back in 2015 either but every election is
02:00:06.360about earning the trust of Canadians and earning the right to govern and he hasn't earned that
02:00:11.140right to govern this so far in 2019 uh citizens in Canada were real clear electors were really
02:00:17.460clear they wanted to punish the liberal government and so they punished them they took away the
02:00:21.820majority government said to him and to his uh key cabinet ministers you're going to have to
02:00:26.680negotiate with opposition parties and that hasn't been the case for the past two years. He's held
02:00:31.560parliament hostage, he tried to shut us down for extended periods of time, he's you know treated
02:00:37.240opposition parties more so as an audience rather than you know equal participants in the democratic
02:00:42.920process so absolutely he doesn't deserve it especially speaking as a westerner he does not
02:00:47.320deserve another chance. I can't afford another four years of Justin Trudeau. Well let's pick
02:00:52.360up on that you said speaking as a westerner so how will western values play out i i know
02:00:57.720there's been a bit of a surge basically since trudeau has been in office but uh we've heard
02:01:02.280a lot about this sort of grumbling of western alienation um there's some talk of western
02:01:07.400separatism that's always a movement that that uh we're seeing on the fringes and now it's starting
02:01:11.960to pick up a bit of steam so how will sort of western concerns and values play out in this
02:01:17.480campaign well like i always make the distinction there's like the west and there's like prairie
02:01:22.360canadians those of us on the east side of what many derogatorily call you know flyover country
02:01:28.200and i don't think of this as flyover country this alberta where i'm from is the greatest province
02:01:33.720in canada i'm sorry every other province is just the truth uh this is the greatest place to earn
02:01:38.440a living to raise a family and to have opportunities you'll find nowhere else uh and that's why it
02:01:43.240attracts so many canadians from all across the country to come here to work and to raise a family
02:01:48.760um and what's different about western canada is we have a long history of changing you know the
02:01:53.720political makeup makeup of canada the reform party started out here the social credit party started
02:01:58.760out here the populist movement started out here the progressive movement started out here we have
02:02:03.640a long history of changing how canada works and also bringing new ideas to the front ideas like
02:02:09.640you know a triple e senate ideas like reforming the house of commons the way you know members
02:02:15.080of parliament do their work and in this election we saw it you know like my leader aaron o'toole
02:02:20.040the very first announcement he did is like the touchiest of all issues which is equalization
02:02:25.320he took my private members bill and made it one of the central pieces of our campaign in the
02:02:29.960prederick provinces we're going to completely get rid of a lot of the rules are really hurting
02:02:34.200alberta and saskatchewan and giving us back the full equalization rebate because when our economies
02:02:38.920are hurting we can't contribute as much to the public treasury in personal income taxes and in
02:02:43.800other income taxes uh we should see a huge rebate on the huge contributions that we've made to
02:02:49.320confederation it's only fair and that's just the kind of the opening salvo as i call it of all the
02:02:54.600fixes we're going to bring to confederation on behalf of prairie canadians specifically that's
02:02:59.880great i'm glad you're talking a little bit about policy because sometimes during elections we only
02:03:04.040talk about strategy we only talk about the horse race and we never really get an opportunity to
02:03:08.120talk about the policy and how a conservative government would be different um than a liberal
02:03:13.000government so you touched a little bit on it but maybe you could help uh explain to our viewers
02:03:17.000explain to the audience how a conservative government would be different than the liberal
02:03:21.880government how would you do things differently what would canada look like um you know in five
02:03:26.040years with a conservative government in place so this is just you know day one essentially or like
02:03:32.040three quarters of day one of what the election campaign will be like so we've already put out
02:03:36.920our innovation policy of what we think will be best set for small and medium enterprise to
02:03:42.360innovate in canada keep their patents here commercialized in canada i saw some of that in
02:03:47.320this week and then how would we govern i mean respecting the traditions respecting parliament
02:03:52.600as an institution that makes decisions government is supposed to go there and check with the people's
02:03:57.800representatives to double check with them this is what you want to do uh this is the direction
02:04:02.040we like to go in uh you know we can tinker with some of the ideas that a government proposes but
02:04:07.160generally uh parliament is there to give its final stamp of approval whereas with the liberal
02:04:12.200government uh parliament has just been a stamp of approval there's no consideration no debate
02:04:16.440debate doesn't matter uh rushing things through as fast as possible we've said for example that
02:04:20.680we'll balance the budget over the next 10 years i have a lot of supporters and i'm one of those i
02:04:26.040i consider myself a fiscal conservative through and through i'd love to be able to balance the
02:04:31.000budget faster but what we're facing here and what the parliamentary budget officer has said
02:04:35.480at the present pace of how the liberals are spending uh we won't have a balanced budget
02:04:39.640till 2070. now that's unacceptable uh you can't uh have you know future taxpayers bearing the
02:04:46.440burden of services that they haven't consumed that they haven't used so we you know introduce
02:04:51.080we'll introduce a few more ideas as we go now we're going to manage the public finances in
02:04:55.880terms of how we spend and where we spend those monies you know finding ways to save and economize
02:05:01.880to use you know that favored uk tory term economize wherever we can in the provision of
02:05:07.000public services because people have an expectation they pay taxes and there's a public service that's
02:05:11.560supposed to come to them uh on the opposite end what they don't want to see is things like you
02:05:16.120know the wheat charity scandal they don't want to see hundreds of millions of dollars of contracts
02:05:20.120going to great constituents of the finance minister just because uh they feel that's the
02:05:25.720best way to do things uh they want you know it's almost like a fee-for-service concept so we'll take
02:05:30.68010 years to make sure we balance the budget in a way where we're not chopping away at services that
02:05:36.520canadians have come to expect and to rely on and also to draw down as quickly as possible a lot of
02:05:42.600this emergency spending that was approved because the vast majority of the spending that's been
02:05:46.840approved so far has been spent to help canadians during the pandemic and i don't think anybody
02:05:51.400complaints about it but between i think the last numbers i saw 100 to 125 billion dollars
02:05:57.240even uh third party reviewers have said have nothing to do with pandemic spending there's
02:06:02.120just additional spending the government has decided to do so that's kind of what the policy
02:06:06.200end of what we're interested in doing we have some ideas on innovation um i have some ideas
02:06:10.840i'm hoping that will be you know center stage in in our policy platform specifically on bereavement
02:06:17.480leave that i've been working on for the last few months so i think what they'll see from us is both
02:06:23.160a quite a fiscally conservative platform that will speak to canadians want for you know a balanced
02:06:28.920budget which has been the accepted political concept of the last decade since the reform party
02:06:34.520brought it to the very front of public policy debates in canada and the second part is a kind
02:06:39.000of a compassionate conservatism looking after people in a way that's you know reasonable but
02:06:45.480doesn't impose on future taxpayers an enormous cost that they're simply supposed to accept and
02:06:50.920bear uh there has to be a balance between future taxpayers and present needs and wants and that's
02:06:56.600what we're going to be proposing as we go forward it's going to be a battle of ideas i always tell
02:07:00.760people uh that it's not about the personalities you may like or you may dislike justin trudeau
02:07:06.200and the other liberals but it's a battle of ideas that's what every single election is supposed to
02:07:11.000be about who has the better ideas who has the better vision we're the only party that wants
02:07:15.720to secure the future of canadians secure their jobs secure the economy um and if a voter wants
02:07:21.880one of the other options there's lots of other options for maximum spending maximum taxation
02:07:27.800and you know the the status kind of state of things as they are right now they want more of
02:07:33.000what's been done during pandemic they got lots of options there if they want a party that's
02:07:37.400entirely focused on jobs the economy and securing our future there's only the conservative party of
02:07:42.200canada well let's quit the pitch i will leave it at that because i don't think uh there's anything
02:07:46.600else that we could add but thank you so much for your time tom and i look forward to seeing
02:07:50.120you uh throughout the campaign conservative mp tom kmich thank you that was tom that was
02:08:07.400media so thanks to him for coming on the show had a few questions i wanted to get to just as we wind
02:08:13.320down our show here and put them to the whole team the first one a few people have asked this but
02:08:19.080But we're attributing it to the one who asked it best, Paula in Saskatoon, who says the Conservatives booted social conservative Pierre Lemieux and UConn candidate Jonas Smith, who opposed mandatory vaccines as a lifelong Conservative Party of Canada supporter.
02:08:36.100I'm very disappointed by the CPC and Aaron O'Toole.
02:08:39.540The question is, can the Conservatives motivate the base?
02:08:43.200This is, I'm just going to say up front, a big question and one that I think certainly will colour our coverage.
02:08:49.080in the course of the campaign, because a lot of people have put very similar concerns.
02:08:53.800Candace, in the studio, what do you think of this?
02:08:56.340Well, Andrew, you were the one, first, you know, credit where credit is due.
02:08:59.220You broke that story about Pierre Lemieux, and you obviously have your finger on the pulse of this issue.
02:09:14.180I think he has an explanation that is owed to the base, because as you were mentioning in your interview that you did earlier with the MP, you know, the idea is that the Conservative Party is different from the other party.
02:09:27.900So we already have three left wing parties. We already have three parties that basically have the same view when it comes to almost everything.
02:09:34.320When it comes to abortion, when it comes to immigration, when it comes to the economy, debt, deficit, there's so many things that are already the same about all those parties.
02:09:43.380And the beauty of the conservative party and the movement is that there is more room for actual, you know, exchange of ideas and discourse.
02:09:54.720And that's what I love about conservatism is that you don't always have to have the same views as the people on your side.
02:10:00.680I mean, conservatism is made up of classical liberals, of libertarians, of social conservatives, of free market people.
02:10:07.880I mean, there's so many different types of conservative.
02:10:09.880You could be someone that really stresses order and tradition.
02:10:12.860You can be a conservative that really believes in freedom and the rights and freedoms of Canadians.
02:10:28.560Well, I think one thing I found covering politics over the years is the conservatives are not good at keeping their internal squabbles internal.
02:10:38.260They, you know, you don't hear anything as much as they, you know, have issues, whether it be Ontario or federally, they keep it all in under their tent.
02:11:14.100Yeah, it's tough because this was one of the big pitches that Aaron O'Toole made during the leadership to social conservatives.
02:11:21.320And we talked about this a little bit earlier with Kathy Wagenthal.
02:11:23.780It was, I'm not one of you, but I believe you have a place in the party.
02:11:27.320And that was a big contrast between Aaron O'Toole and Peter McKay, who had famously called social conservatives the stinking albatross hanging around the neck of the 2019 conservative campaign.
02:11:38.740So when you had a series of ejections, you had Derek Sloan, you had Pierre Lemieux, you had a couple of others in there where people were thinking, whoa, hang on, this isn't what we thought was going to happen.
02:11:51.060And it does threaten that big tent issue that the party has always tried to claim.
02:11:57.600And I think that's going to be a big thing going forward because you can never I mean, the line, it's not mine.
02:12:03.320It actually came from from Mark Stein, but I think it bears quoting here is that it's a lot easier for the base to get itself a new leader than for a leader to get itself a new base.
02:12:11.580And that's a big issue that conservative leaders in general, I think, need to remember.
02:12:17.480I also wanted to go to another question.
02:12:20.160Just to remind you one other thing. It's that, you know, when it comes to conservatives, Aaron O'Toole is basically betting this entire election on the idea that he can win on just fiscal issues, economic issues. And I've given him credit throughout the show. I think that he's been very disciplined and very good.
02:12:36.960And it kind of goes there. There's sort of a conventional wisdom. And I think it really derives from the media that if conservatives just run on fiscal issues, if they ditch the divisive social issues, if they don't go into the Trump style culture wars, if they just focus on their strength, which is fiscal issues, then they'll be accepted and then they'll be won over and Canadians will accept them.
02:12:58.800Canadians aren't willing to accept sort of right-wing values. And I think that this election
02:13:02.980is a test of that theory, because we've heard it so much. We heard it a lot after Andrew Scheer
02:13:08.560was unsuccessful in removing Prime Minister Trudeau. And I think that Erin O'Toole is
02:13:15.960basically just doing this experiment, and it'll be interesting to see how it plays out. Is that
02:13:20.240theory true? That if the Conservatives just simply run on the sort of free market, libertarian
02:13:25.560economic ideas and don't touch the social stuff if they'll be able to win over Canadians. And I'm
02:13:30.680truly interested to see how this turns out because I think O'Toole, like I said before, is doing a
02:13:35.400pretty decent job of just being disciplined and sticking to that message. Yeah, the old James
02:13:40.160Carville line, it's the economy stupid. And I guess my theory would be, and we can certainly
02:13:45.460discuss this when we look back from election night, my theory is that there are a lot of
02:13:49.560questions that Canadian voters have answers to that aren't going to be answered by a very narrow
02:13:54.420platform dealing just with the economy, especially when you talk to new Canadians who have a number
02:13:59.160of issues that they would not, not issues, but a number of questions, a number of things about
02:14:04.140which they care that go beyond, you know, this tax rate and this tax credit. And certainly that's
02:14:09.560something we'll see unfold. And kind of a related question, because I think the fracturing of the
02:14:14.280Conservative Party into these different groups and parties is I think part of this idea of the
02:14:20.760big tent eroding slightly. Derek in Toronto says, do smaller parties like the PPC and the Maverick
02:14:26.980Party have a chance to pick up a few seats this election? I'm not going to answer that directly,
02:14:31.940Derek, because we did have some of that discussion with Hamish Marshall, and it's come up earlier.
02:14:36.340But I am going to say that I think they have a place in the discussion. I think they have a place
02:14:40.620in the conservative movement, because anytime someone leaves an established party that's been
02:14:46.080around effectively since Confederation, albeit through iterations, it's because there's something
02:14:50.760in that party that they feel is not speaking to their needs. And you can say, oh, it's petty or
02:14:56.160it's based on narcissism and all of these things that people say about the Mavericks and the PPC
02:15:01.840and all of that. But these are still real issues that a conservative party needs to address. And
02:15:06.880I know that when that initial split happened between the CPC and the PPC back just before
02:15:13.700the 2019 election, a lot of the people who had been involved in the Reform PC merger,
02:15:20.080the Alliance PC merger, were the most annoyed because they saw how difficult it was to unite
02:15:25.080the right at that time. So I think there are concerns that need to be heard, but I'll throw
02:15:29.900it to you both back in the studio. I'll just say I don't think that the big issue is whether or not
02:15:35.220these parties will be able to win seats. I think the bigger issue is how many seats will spoil for
02:15:40.180the Conservatives, because that's far more likely that PPCs will pick up 1,500 votes and that'll be
02:15:45.360the difference between a Conservative and a Liberal. And it does sort of teach Conservative
02:15:49.780leaders a lesson about this is what happens when you neglect the base, when you ignore the base,
02:15:55.040when you push out. Someone like Maxime Bernier, who, let's all remember, he got 49% of the vote
02:16:01.240in the leadership election to replace Stephen Harper as leader. He was very, very close to
02:16:07.320winning. And if it was a differently organized system, he probably would have been leader of
02:16:11.100that party and done things very differently. So there are consequences to pushing out popular
02:16:15.240candidates that articulate a different style of conservatism. And like I said before, you know,
02:16:20.500that the beauty of conservatism is that there are these different planks, and there's different
02:16:25.420ways of looking at the world through conservative lens, and they keep it all together. I mean,
02:16:30.200we're talking about small parties that aren't really going to win a lot of seats. Look at the
02:16:34.580left. Look at how split and divided the left is. And imagine if they were as united as the
02:16:39.860Democrats are in the US. I mean, they would win probably every election and there would have to
02:16:45.040be a major reshuffle in the way that Canadian politics were done if the NDP, Green and Liberals
02:16:50.720were all combined. So there's much more vote splitting that happens on the left than on the
02:16:55.220right. But I think it's certainly interesting to watch and it will be a factor in this election.
02:17:00.320I think, you know, take a look at Doug Ford in Ontario.
02:17:05.360He's a populist leader, even more so his brother as mayor of Toronto.
02:17:09.900And I think the split is partly because the loss of connection with the grassroots
02:17:16.820and with the people who matter, who vote,
02:17:20.920and are very much affected by what's happened with the pandemic or the economy.
02:17:25.240I think there is a danger in focusing just on the economy and numbers, because really, a budget speaks to where you're going to spend your money.
02:17:36.580Where are you going to, and the questions are going to come up.
02:17:40.080Are you going to spend money on bringing more refugees to Canada?
02:17:44.220What do you think of the refugee policy, for example?
02:17:47.340I mean, all these things are spilling over, spill over into policy issues.
02:17:53.520The budget merely determines what your priorities are.
02:17:58.720But getting back to the splintering of the parties,
02:18:03.020I think CPC has to be very aware, and I agree with you about splitting the vote.
02:18:09.740But they have to be very aware that they can't lose touch with the base, with the grassroots.
02:18:18.200Absolutely, and when they do, there are consequences.
02:18:20.800And it's really interesting to see how that plays out, because I think you're right, when it comes to fiscal issues, you know, it doesn't really tell us about your character, doesn't really tell us about your values, about what your priorities are. And, you know, we got to get to know you a little bit more as a leader of the Conservative Party in order to sort of entrust you. And I think that's a better strategy in terms of growing the party base.
02:18:45.080But again, I think that O'Toole, you know, we'll see how the strategy plays out.
02:18:49.860And I think that he does have a vision, he has a strategy, and I certainly give him credit for that.
02:18:55.780Well, folks, thank you so much for tuning into this broadcast.
02:18:59.160I know it hasn't been perfect, it hasn't been seamless, but, you know, this is our first time doing something like this in a studio.
02:19:06.000And given how we just found out that there was an election today, we didn't have a lot of time to put it all together.
02:19:11.920But I really want to give my thanks to the people who are here behind the scenes.
02:19:17.340So I'm going to give a little shout out to Phil, our executive producer, Harrison, our intern, who's doing a great job, and Chris, who's our in-studio technical expert here.
02:19:26.540You guys have been tremendous, and I truly thank you for sticking through with us and doing a great job.