Juno News - January 24, 2020Trump vs. Greta, Crying Over Spilt Wine, What Conservatives Care About (feat. Spencer Fernando)
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Summary
Coming up, what do Canada's social conservatives really care about? Spencer Fernando joins me to talk about the state of the Conservative leadership race, and I discuss the worst employee I've ever had. The Andrew Lawton Show starts right now.
Transcript
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This is the Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by True North.
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Coming up, what do Canada's social conservatives really care about?
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Spencer Fernando also joins me to talk about the state of the Canadian conservative leadership race,
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Hey everyone, welcome to another edition of the Andrew Lawton Show here on True North.
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Lots to get to on the program today. Hope you're having a great week.
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I have actually been in the midst of bureaucratic hell this week,
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as I've been working about the navigation of various access to information departments across the federal government,
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and indeed the Ontario provincial government as well.
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This is, to preface this, I have no life. I'm aware I have no life. I'm aware how pathetic this is.
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I have right now, I counted just before the show, 19 active access to information files
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with various departments from Justice Canada to CBC to Wilfrid Laurier University.
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Just all of these. And I won't go through line by line of what they're all about,
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mainly because I can't remember them. I've had to, because this has gotten so out of hand,
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start like a little cataloging system on my computer so I can look through at the dates that I filed,
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the last contact. Like I said, no life. Like this is, some people have hobbies.
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I just file ATIPS and catalog them and, you know, document and color code them in my spare time.
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And it's important because when they pan out, oftentimes there's a story there.
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But to get to that point, you have to question whether it's worth it. And I will say, to Justin
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Trudeau's credit, and, you know, notwithstanding the myriad concerns that I have about how he's
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run his government, one thing he did well is make it cheaper and easier to file access to information
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requests. So it used to be you had to pay $5 to file. And then once you filed it, they could say,
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oh, it's going to take us, you know, a thousand million, bajillion, gazillion hours.
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So you have to pay for our time and that's going to be $17 billion. And now it's just the $5. You
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don't need to pay above the filing fee. And as far as things government can spend money on,
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this is not, in my view, the worst idea because access to information is based on the premise
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that government documents are the public's documents. So I avail myself of this right on
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a regular basis. And I've done stories about access to information requests and documents I've
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unearthed in them. But one of the ones that I'm doing right now, or two ATIPs actually,
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were to Women and Gender Equality Canada. One of them, I wanted to know any time the term TERF
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or trans-exclusionary radical feminism or trans-exclusionary radical feminist, all the
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derivatives were mentioned in emails, documents, records, and they said nothing. They said there was
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no record of that whatsoever. It's never come up. So the department of the federal government that
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deals with women and gender issues has never talked about trans-exclusionary radical feminism.
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Seemed a little bit suspect, but okay, I'm a trusting guy. I'll give them the benefit of the
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doubt. I filed another request that I really can't believe at all. And it was on the definition of
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women or female or woman or womanhood. All of these, again, derivatives of the same idea.
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How does the government department dealing with women's issues define women? And they say no record
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at all. Not just they don't have a definition, but it's never been discussed. No one's ever asked.
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There's no email documents. No documents of any kind dealing with that. And I had a phone call
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actually from one of the bureaucrats in the access information department there. And again, lovely
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woman. She seemed like she was trying to be helpful, but I'm like, okay, on the off chance that
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this is true and these documents don't exist, what on earth is women and gender equality Canada doing all
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day? If they don't have a definition of what woman is in an age where people are raising, I mean,
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raising sizable questions about this, what on earth are they doing all day? And I still
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don't know the answer to that question, by the way. And I had reached out as well to the media
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relations department there. And I said, Hey, what's your department's definition of woman?
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And they said, Oh, we'll get back to you. And then they never did. I followed up no response at
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all. So I find it baffling to me because this whole department used to be part of another department.
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It used to be under heritage. And then the federal government under Trudeau decided, okay,
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let's make it its own thing, its own team. And they've got many, many, many bureaucrats.
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And I now have no idea what they're doing all day. So clearly not dealing with some of the core
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philosophical questions that are relevant to their mandate. This is going to be, I think,
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one of the defining discussions of the leadership race for the Conservative Party of Canada. And that is
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the role of social conservatives in the party, in the movement, in the country, and what social
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conservatives actually believe. And I have to say that two days ago on my first show this week,
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I talked about social conservatism playing a role in the Conservative Party. And I stand by that.
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In the context of that, I won't rehash the whole thing, but you should go and listen to it,
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was Pierre Palliev rebuffing social conservatives, basically. Now, Pierre has kind of amended via a
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source that spoke to the Toronto Star his belief. The Toronto Star article said, Oh, no, no, no,
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he'll let private members in his caucus introduce bills, but he'll make sure they don't pass. So
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basically, the Pierre Palliev position seems to be sabotaging social conservatives if there are any
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in his caucus, which there will be because they make up a decent chunk of the conservative caucus
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right now in Parliament. So I stand by it that social conservatives need to have a voice and need
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to play a role in the party. There also comes with that a responsibility for social conservatives
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to not leave themselves open to the attacks that they know the media are going for. And I have to
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talk this week about Richard Descari, the prospective Conservative Party leadership candidate who was on
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Devin Solomon's CTV show, Question Period, and did not do himself the movement or the party any favors.
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Now, Descari is not a heavyweight. He's not a front runner. He's a guy who was a chief of staff to
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Stephen Harper before Harper was prime minister back in, I think, 2003 and four or 2004 and five,
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around there. And he is from Montreal. He's not in office. He's not in power anywhere. He's never
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held office. He's a guy that seemed to be running solely to say, I'm a social conservative and I'm in
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the race. And I know he's being backed by some of the people that were backing Brad Trost. So he's
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got some backing that is legitimate, but he himself is never going to be and was never going to be
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one of the front runners in this race. Yet now he's become the most notable leadership candidate
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because of this interview that I'm going to play a clip of. Now, there's a clip circulating online
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that was published by CTV, which is an excerpt of a longer interview. I'm going to play something
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that's still an excerpt, but it's a longer clip because I think there's some context that was
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missing. But I'm saying that not to defend Mr. Descari. I'm just saying that let's have an honest
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discussion about what's happened in this interview. Let's play this clip for you.
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I was with Mr. Harper in 2004 when we fought the bill for same-sex marriage. So my point of view is
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that marriage is exclusive to a man and a woman. And traditionally, it used to be for religion,
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from a religion point of view. And people are mixed up. When we talk to real people on the street,
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when we go across the country, we are hearing the same things. We are all mixed up. Our kids are
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mixed up. So I think it's a good opportunity to-
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What does mixed up mean? So what do you mean mixed up? Sorry, you say people are mixed up.
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Yes. That's what it told us. They said that usually a traditional family was a man and a woman
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and children. And now it's everything that the liberals brought. And because of that, I think
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we need to make sure that the term marriage is used for a man and woman.
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Yeah, but sir, sir, with all that, I don't know what you mean by mixed up. You also said
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normal people. Are you saying people in same-sex couples are not normal?
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No, I'm saying that the people that we meet in the street, when we go from door to door,
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when we are in politics, involved in politics, we speak to real people in the sense that they are
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telling us their real story. We're not getting the information through the media.
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But sir, sir, with all due respect, LGBTQ people are real people too. I'm just trying to figure
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I think LGBTQ is a liberal term. I don't talk about people that way. I talk about persons.
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And I think we all need the full respects for being a human being, simply.
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Oh, so, okay. So you don't think that being gay, you don't think, what, do you think that's
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I think it's a choice. And it's how people are behaving. It's one thing. I think government
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has responsibility to encourage the traditional value that we have had for the past year.
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So that's the kind of soak on issues that I would bring as a leader.
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Okay. So let's deal with a couple of things first. When he talks about real people,
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I don't think he's saying that gay people aren't real. I think he's saying that when he's out in
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the real world talking to people who aren't reporters, who aren't the media, these people
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are telling him X. And I also think when he says mixed up, I think, and I hope he's not saying that
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gay people are mixed up. I think he's saying that those people he talks to in the world are saying
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that, oh, you know, just kind of society is a messy and mixed up. But again, I'm giving him the
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benefit of the doubt there that may or may not be deserved. I'm just trying to establish that I think
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the big problem with this interview is not those particular words, but two other things. Number one,
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him saying it's a choice. I'll talk about that in a moment. And also him getting dragged into this
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idea that the conservatives need to have a position on homosexuality and that the conservatives should
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have a position on this. I mean, it was painfully obvious what Evan Solomon was trying to get him to
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do here. And he went along with it. But I'm not blaming Evan Solomon. I mean, Dick Harry is the one
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that has to own what he said and what he thinks and what he feels. And let's have a frank discussion
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about this because Douglas Murray, his latest book, The Madness of Crowds, which is a tremendous read,
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he has a chapter on gay. He does gay, women, race, trans. Those are the chapters. Now, Douglas Murray
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himself is gay. So he has some insight into this that I don't have. And what Murray points out in his
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book here that I think is valuable is that we still don't have a definitive scientific
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understanding or conclusion about what causes homosexuality, he said. But the evidence leans
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more towards it being innate. The what he calls the Lady Gaga born this way approach. But more
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importantly, there's a societal question, which is that knowing all of the challenges that people who
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are gay experience, knowing all of the challenges based on social stigma, pressure, all of these things,
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who would choose that, who would voluntarily wake up and say, you know what, I want to live this life
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that's going to be a little bit harder or a lot harder for me. And I think there's a valuable idea
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that Douglas Murray puts forward there. And I think there's a valuable criticism to Descari making this
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claim that ultimately is something that even social conservatives that I know that he's claiming to
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speak for aren't talking about. I'm not hearing from social conservatives that I know this idea,
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A, that the conservatives should be wading into homosexuality as a political issue, and more
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importantly, that it is in fact a choice. That's not something they say. And that's not something they
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believe or feel, I'd argue, in most cases, not to speak for everyone or anyone but myself and what I've
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heard and what I've heard people talk about. But the reason I bring this up now is because
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social conservatives have a place in Canada, in Canadian politics, in conservative politics,
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and in the conservative party. The issues they care about are abortion, some of the transgender
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ideas that we have now, and again, the major discussions that we have about whether you have to
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unquestioningly accept someone's preferred gender identity, someone's chosen gender identity,
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just because they say so in areas like women's shelters, prisons, schools, all of these things.
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These are significant, significant debates that need to be happening in Canada, and they can only
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happen when credible and viable voices from the social conservative movement stand up and say,
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we're unafraid to take these on. That's not happening from Richard de Carie. That's not what was
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happening in that interview. He was getting up there and was not articulate, by the way, did not do
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himself, as I said, any favors, because he was hardly taking the effort to ensure that what he was saying
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was reflecting what he was meaning. And I'm at the point now where I don't quite know what he meant.
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I don't quite know what he was trying to say. And anyone, anyone who wants to speak for a group,
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whether it's social conservatives, or whether it's someone who wants to lead the conservative party,
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you've got to do a better job at not getting sucked into the media's trap. You know, the media has
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this thing it loves doing at conventions, rallies, protests, events, where they find the craziest,
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most out-to-lunch person they can. They go to them, and they put them on camera, and they become
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the standard bearer of the movement, the rally, the event, the party, whatever. They become the
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standard bearer. And that is now what's happening with Richard de Carie. It doesn't matter that every
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conservative leadership candidate and many conservative MPs who are believed that they may
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run for the leadership jumped and condemned him. The fact of the matter is, now this is going to
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set the benchmark for what has to be discussed. There are two elements here. Number one,
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de Carie only exists because there was a vacuum in the party already, in that no social conservatives
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were saying, yes, I want to run. And now this has changed a little bit. You've got a conservative MP
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from Eastern Ontario, Derek Sloan, who's a first-time MP, but still he's an elected part of the party.
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He's running as a social conservative. You've got Leslyn Lewis, who's a Toronto lawyer, another relative
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unknown though. And now de Carie is somehow the one that everyone has to respond to. He's the guy
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that was never going to get more than, you know, a decimal of a percent of a vote in many cases,
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who's now being held up and reshaping it. I mean, Michelle Rempel, who I get along with very well,
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she had put out this tweet about how she would never serve under the leadership of someone like him.
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Well, no, but he was never going to win. So let's discount, let's discount the people that don't
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belong in this race, the people that haven't put in the work, the people that haven't actually come
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to the race because they have a background and a cachet and a credibility. And let's have the real
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discussions. And I stand by what I said on the show earlier this week, that we cannot exclude
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social conservatives, but there's also a challenge to social conservatives in here to not let other
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people hijack your message, to not let people presume or pretend they speak for you. And to talk
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about the issues that matter, where you can win over people that are undecided, you can win over people
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that are not necessarily socially conservative because you're driving the point of why these issues
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matter. And you're never going to drive the point of why the government should be enforcing a
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traditional view of sexuality, which is what Monsieur de Cary said it needs to do, because liberty should
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be the priority. And I've had this discussion with social conservatives. By the way, I am a social
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conservative. I have a lot more in common with SOCONs than I have with those who hate them. In fact,
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I actually quite deplore the hatred we see towards SOCONs. I was endorsed when I ran for office by
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social conservative groups. So I'm on side on a lot of the issues, especially abortion. But SOCONs have
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to do a better job at communicating. Everyone in politics has to communicate their message clearly,
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consistently, and with conviction. And I don't think there was a particular clarity in that interview
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that we saw on Evan Solomon's show. And you're always going to leave the door open to having your
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message twisted and distorted if you don't come out of the gate and say, no, this is what I think,
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this is why, and this is why it matters. Start telling people why these issues are important and
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start telling people why it matters that we have a platform to talk about these issues. But more
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importantly than even that, make sure these issues are real issues. And that's where I think Monsieur
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Dequerie's interview went off the rails, because he was talking about issues that aren't issues and
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shouldn't be issues in Canadian conservative politics and in the leadership race. There is no
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one who can tell me there's a benefit in legislating sexual orientations or even having a government role
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in setting what a definition for a positive or traditional sexual orientation should be.
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And by the way, you can have a personal moral objection to homosexuality and maintain that position.
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I think the healthiest thing that people can do in Canadian society is accept that, hey,
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my views are my views. They shouldn't be legislated unless something is impeding in the liberty of others
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or the rights of others. And that's the problem is that a gay couple does not infringe anyone else's
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liberty. Abortion infringes the liberty of the unborn. The transgender bathroom issue that you
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could say infringes the rights of others. Homosexuality does not. It's not a matter for
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political leaders. It's not a matter for conservative political leaders to start trying to enforce a
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definition on this. And that's the reality of it. I've got to take a quick break when we come back
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more of The Andrew Lawton Show here on True North. You know, I was speaking a moment ago about the
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importance of clarity in political messaging. No one can ever accuse Donald Trump of not being
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crystal clear about what he thinks. And I've got to give him a big True North Andrew Lawton Show round
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of applause for going into the belly of the beast, the World Economic Forum in Davos and completely
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taking a flamethrower to climate alarmism that runs rampant, especially this year, but generally at
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this event. Take a listen to what he said. But to embrace the possibilities of tomorrow, we must reject
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the perennial prophets of doom and their predictions of the apocalypse. They predicted an overpopulation
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crisis in the 1960s, mass starvation in the 70s, and an end of oil in the 1990s. These alarmists
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always demand the same thing, absolute power to dominate, transform, and control every aspect of
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our lives. We will never let radical socialists destroy our economy, wreck our country, or eradicate
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That's just fantastic. I've listened to that like seven or eight times now. The perennial prophets
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of doom, the alarmists of climate that are always wrong, the people predicting the apocalypse. That
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is fantastic. And this is what I've been waiting for years for a politician to do, to come out and say,
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yeah, you guys just keep getting it wrong. Why should we listen to you now? Because he's right.
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They have kept getting it wrong. And not just the situations he was talking about with overpopulation
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and the end of oil, but the big one as well back in, I think it was the 70s, maybe a little bit of
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the 80s, was global cooling. The idea that we were, you know, moments away from a new ice age,
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and then now it's global warming. And this is why they've changed the rhetoric from global warming to
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climate change, by the way. Because they know that with climate change, you can call anything and
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everything a symptom. Whereas with global warming, when you get cold weather, you can't really say,
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oh, but it's global warming. So now if it's warm outside, that's global warming. If it's cold, that's
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global warming. If there's a fire, that's global warming. If it rains and puts out the fire, that's
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global warming, except now it's climate change. And all of this, I think, is fantastic because no
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conservative politicians in other countries like the UK, Australia, Canada, want to go down the road
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that Trump did, which is to reject the premise outright. They all try to say, well, no, no, no,
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yes, of course climate change is a problem, but I disagree with your taxing way to deal with it.
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Whereas Trump is saying, yeah, you guys are always wrong. Why should we start listening to you now?
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And if you're going to do it, that's the way to do it. You know, I've interviewed Lord Moncton,
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the third Viscount Moncton of Brunchley, who's just been fantastic on this issue. And Chris Essex as well,
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Ross McKittrick, Steve McIntyre, they've all done their part to exposing the alarmism, which is
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exactly what it is, or the perennial doom profiting, as President Trump would say, because all of these
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people are basing their beliefs on, I mean, I'll say debunked concepts, and they're talking about
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politics. You know, Chris Essex, who's a professor at Western University, has said that he won't do any
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debates on climate change anymore, because the moderators of the debates are not scientists,
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and they only want to talk about politics. He said, they're not actually talking about science,
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about scientific theory, about any of these things. So you can't have a real discussion.
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And the people in the audience of these events are not scientists. So you can't just start talking
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about all of these different theories and data points and all of these things. And he said,
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it's just a lost cause. So he writes about it, he explains that way. But there's some truth to that,
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and that you can't have a conversation in good faith with someone that has already determined what
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the outcome of that is going to be, and has not come to that conclusion through science.
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And this, I was doing a debate with someone, not really a debate, it was a radio panel.
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I wasn't representing myself as a scientist, don't worry. And it was a former liberal candidate.
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And she had asked me, thinking it was this gotcha moment, do you believe in climate change?
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And I said, of course the climate's changing. And she didn't really understand what I had just done
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there. What she was actually asking is, do you believe in man-made, catastrophic, anthropogenic
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global warming? What I was saying is, yes, the climate is changing. That's undeniable.
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But even if you accept, and I think there's probably evidence to suggest that industry and humanity
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has caused some of the change that we've seen, certainly because of greenhouse gas emissions.
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But to say that changing climates, which have always changed throughout the course of history,
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even prior to the Industrial Revolution, is the responsibility and the fault of humanity is wrong.
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It's not backed up by science. And further to that point, I think this is a more important aspect
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of this discussion. The solution is not going to come from the Western developed countries that are
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talking about the issue, because they're not the ones, if we are to blame industry, that are responsible
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for what's happened. They've already, because industry itself has changed, they're already leaders on
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this. China, India, elsewhere in the world, they're not. And they're the ones that, if there is a problem
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that's caused by humanity, the solution has to come from there. It's not going to come from the people
00:25:00.860
in Davos. But there's a little bit of schadenfreude in knowing that at this forum, Greta Thunberg had
00:25:08.060
to hear Donald Trump say, you know, forget about these naysayers and these doom prophets, because
00:25:13.960
she's used to politicians fawning all over her. I mean, Prince Charles and her had a little meeting
00:25:19.000
at Davos, and I'm pretty sure that he was probably bowing to her. So she's not used to a politician
00:25:24.240
actually not going along with it. So he's presenting a challenge for Greta Thunberg right now,
00:25:29.940
that she doesn't usually get. Because Trudeau goes there, and Trudeau just like, you know,
00:25:34.000
kind of sits and like shrinks down into the shell of a man when he's meeting with her. And at the
00:25:38.320
end of it, she's like, ah, you know, he's not doing enough. I told him that. So everyone else is
00:25:43.360
trying to cater to her. And I'm not one of these people that hates Greta. I think she's a victim and
00:25:49.760
a casualty of the adult stage parents around her. But I do think it's amusing that she's not used to a
00:25:56.660
politician doing this, just as people that liked what he said aren't used to him doing it either.
00:26:01.160
So it's another example of Donald Trump breaking the mold in some respects to the political discussion.
00:26:08.520
I've got to talk about this story here. The worst employee in the history of employees, I think.
00:26:14.900
A British Columbia man who accidentally poured, according to a CTV headline,
00:26:19.020
16,680 liters of wine down the drain. Now, this breaks my heart in many ways as a wine lover myself.
00:26:35.940
He was an employee of the Mission Hill Winery in British Columbia.
00:26:39.560
And according to a labor arbitrator, he had worked there for a decade as a cellarman
00:26:44.460
whose job was to blend wines and transfer them between tanks.
00:26:49.180
Now, part of this process, the article says, required him to run a test to make sure the lines
00:26:54.340
were properly connected between the tanks. He had to check the lines every 15 minutes.
00:26:59.500
Apparently, on November 19, 2018, one of the valves was left open during a transfer.
00:27:05.860
And as a result, 5,680 liters of Sauvignon Blanc spilled on the floor and down a drain.
00:27:12.660
The estimated value of the wine, $162,500. Now, this legitimately breaks my heart.
00:27:20.920
The decision says he checked the tank 20 minutes after starting the transfer.
00:27:24.520
That's when he realized the wine was spilling. He says,
00:27:26.840
I was freaking out. I could not believe I forgot to change over the valve.
00:27:33.220
So he was fired a month later, terminated with cause.
00:27:36.680
And the termination said, negligence in cellar duties, culminating with him pumping 6,000 liters
00:27:46.520
Now, you may be asking, I thought the headline said 16,660.
00:27:53.900
Well, I'm glad you asked, person who doesn't exist right now.
00:27:56.220
As I record this, apparently 18 months earlier, he made the same mistake and flushed 11,000 liters of wine
00:28:04.600
down the drain and apologized to management, promised to be more careful.
00:28:10.200
And the arbitrator said he agreed he had failed to live up to expectations in that regard.
00:28:16.160
I will say the absolute best line in the story is the one at the bottom.
00:28:20.500
The decision states that in the winery's 50-year history, Mission Hill has only had two cellar
00:28:26.140
operation incidents that resulted in a total loss of wine down the drain.
00:28:33.260
So he's like the guy that when he goes on vacation, the it's been blank days since our last incident
00:28:39.300
And then once he comes back, it goes down to zero.
00:28:41.860
Anytime there's been a problem, he's been there.
00:28:48.180
I don't care if you damage a barn that you're building.
00:28:52.620
I don't let wine be a casualty of your negligence.
00:28:59.580
We'll be back in just a couple of moments with Spencer Fernando here on the Andrew Lawton Show.
00:29:11.280
So we talked at the beginning of the show about Monsieur Richard de Carie's comments,
00:29:16.620
which are certainly galvanizing the discussions right now about the conservative leadership race.
00:29:22.120
But I will say the last 48 hours has been quite substantial as far as some of the moves in the race.
00:29:27.780
We've got Jean Charest out of the race since the last episode.
00:29:37.060
And even though reports said she was out, there were also reports saying she might still be thinking about it.
00:29:42.040
But Rick Peterson, who ran in 2017 and got 0.67% of the vote, has decided he's running again.
00:29:48.780
So that could be a bit of a game changer as well.
00:29:53.400
Derek Sloan, the conservative MP I mentioned, is running.
00:29:57.340
And Leslyn Lewis, who's a lawyer in Toronto, is running.
00:30:00.660
So none of these are as huge, though Charest's departure, which Stephen Harper we know was gunning for,
00:30:08.120
and Ronna Ambrose formally signaling she was out, I think do certainly set a tone for the race
00:30:14.800
and for which other candidates are going to get in.
00:30:17.440
I heard that Rick Peterson, who's quite close to Ronna Ambrose, wasn't going to run unless he knew for sure that she was out.
00:30:23.380
So there may be some other people that now that she's out for sure will say,
00:30:31.080
But I do want to talk about this and some of the other things facing Canadian politics.
00:30:34.880
And who better for that than Spencer Fernando, the commentator, blogger, writer,
00:30:40.040
and as his Twitter profile says, the best and most modest writer in Canada.
00:30:44.960
Spencer, I know we've talked online a couple times, but it's good to talk to you directly.
00:30:50.820
So let's talk about, I mean, this last 48 hours in the leadership race I just mentioned,
00:30:56.420
we've had Ronna Ambrose confirmed she's out, Jean Charest out, Richard Desquerie,
00:31:01.520
who I talked about earlier in the show, redefining, I think, what a lot of social conservatives in
00:31:06.520
Canada actually care about, not what he was talking about, and certainly bringing some skepticism
00:31:14.600
I mean, right now, is this shaping up about how you expected it to when Andrew Scheer stepped down?
00:31:21.540
Yeah, I mean, it's looking like there's going to be an establishment candidate, Peter McKay,
00:31:28.540
versus somewhat of a more, I guess you could say, conservative base candidate in Pierre Polyev.
00:31:34.720
But they're both, I mean, they've both been conservative MPs, both part of the Harper cabinet.
00:31:38.660
So I don't think it's going to be especially divisive at this point.
00:31:41.680
One of the things that I found interesting, when we had the 2017 race, there were at one point,
00:31:49.000
I think, 14 candidates running, and no one really got out of the race. And this time,
00:31:54.180
the committee of people on leadership duty decided, okay, let's triple the entry fee,
00:32:00.160
or double it rather, and we'll basically increase the number of signatures required. And hopefully,
00:32:05.500
that will cause fewer people to be in. It doesn't seem to be working out that way. I mean, I know we
00:32:09.620
don't have the deadlines yet. But there are still a lot of people that have never held office before
00:32:14.760
that seem to be running and organizing campaigns.
00:32:18.220
Yeah, because I think it's staggered in terms of the goals. I mean, there's the top line goal
00:32:24.060
of signatures and money you need to stay in the race, but you can get in for a while and be in
00:32:29.300
for a while with some lower tier goals. So I think there's really an incentive for some people to say,
00:32:34.600
hey, you know, I'll try it out, see if I get some traction. If I don't, then they just quit.
00:32:38.420
But if they do, then maybe they get more attention than they would have otherwise. So
00:32:41.980
I think in the early period, we'll see some people running, but if they can't meet the goals,
00:32:46.000
they'll be dropping out. So let's talk about the Ronna Ambrose factor here, because this is the
00:32:51.000
one that I'm convinced would not have done as well as people like to think if she were in the race.
00:32:56.660
That's not an indictment of her. I just think that a lot of her popularity comes from the fact that
00:33:01.040
everyone knows she's not running. And I think that she was probably thinking about it actively,
00:33:05.380
finally came out this week and said definitively, no, I'm not running. And of course, on cue,
00:33:10.560
you've got people saying, oh, I wish Ronna were running. Why can't she be running?
00:33:13.760
But where do you think that, like, where do you think it is that that support for her is coming
00:33:18.920
from? Because I think a lot of the reason that she was so popular when she was the interim leader
00:33:23.660
is because she wasn't threatening anyone's ambitions for the longer term leadership.
00:33:29.800
Yeah, well, I think part of it, I know there was a Brad Wall seemed to be pretty supportive.
00:33:35.920
Some had said Harper was supportive. Jason Kenney as well. Yeah. So, you know, they definitely had some
00:33:42.540
establishment and not, not this so-called, you know, political establishment in the way that people
00:33:48.000
consider all just popular with the media. I mean, Brad Wall, Jason Kenney, pretty popular with the
00:33:53.160
conservative base as well. So she had support there. I think she's seen as someone who was
00:33:57.280
from the West and also electable. So she could hopefully win over much of the Western base of
00:34:02.560
the party and then still get elected in some of the areas that conservatives need.
00:34:06.020
But apparently she's pretty happy in the private sector and didn't want to get back in. Politics
00:34:11.840
can be a tough business. So I guess she decided to stay out for now.
00:34:15.700
So I guess on that note, electability, this is a word that I think is important. You obviously have
00:34:21.100
to have a conservative leadership candidate who conceivably could be elected as a conservative
00:34:26.000
leader. But how much do you think that should weigh into people deciding who to vote for? Because
00:34:32.660
in some sense, I get the drive that people have towards something of an ideological purity test
00:34:38.460
as well. Yeah, well, I think the more important thing to look at is communication skills, because
00:34:44.040
you can have opinions that may not be popular with everybody in the country. But if you're a good
00:34:48.620
communicator, then you can persuade people. That's something that often gets left out of politics.
00:34:52.980
People seem to want to just do a focus group, see what's popular, and then just present that to
00:34:57.380
people. Sometimes you need to persuade people as well. And I think that's the strength Pierre
00:35:01.220
Polyev has. He's definitely improved as a communicator. If you see him in question period,
00:35:05.300
he's quick on his feet. He'll be good in a debate. And so I think it's not necessarily how electable
00:35:11.460
someone seems right now, but how good their communication skills are. If they can communicate
00:35:16.140
well, then they can push. I mean, the conservatives are going to get whoever their candidate is.
00:35:21.360
The establishment is going to attack them and demonize them, right? So you have to have good
00:35:25.520
communication skills to fight back against that. And I think so far, Pierre Polyev has shown
00:35:30.540
he's the best communicator. Yeah, you raise a valid point. I've made this comment in other
00:35:35.500
fora before that the media's favorite conservative is the one that's not running and the media's least
00:35:41.320
favorite conservative is the one that's closest to winning. And I think that Pierre Polyev and
00:35:46.520
Ronna Ambrose and Lisa Raid and all of these people who at one point have been the media's preferred
00:35:52.460
ones, once they were to get to that point where they were the leader, everything would change and
00:35:56.940
they'd be turned on them. I think, where was it that we saw that? Certainly in Ontario,
00:36:01.900
Christine Elliott, who was running for the PC party leadership, was the one the media loved,
00:36:06.500
but had she won, you know, they would have turned on her. So I do think there needs to be a sense of
00:36:12.900
understanding that that is how it's going to go. And, you know, I've said before, and I think you've
00:36:18.600
said as well in other capacities that, you know, conservatives have to start pushing back on a lot of this
00:36:23.460
and not just accepting the premise that the media tends to put forth.
00:36:30.320
Yeah, well, I mean, I've already seen a few photos. It's Peter McKay wearing a shirt, which has
00:36:34.700
a Canadian flag in one half, and then it looks like a gun on the other. And I think he was supporting
00:36:40.000
either an organization or might have been a military cause. But people, some on the left already saying,
00:36:46.240
oh, he's a he's crazy extremist. I mean, so Peter McKay, the right wing extremist.
00:36:52.800
So but that's what they're going to say. They're going to say that about anybody, right? So you have
00:36:56.240
to be able to fight back against that. The other thing I think something that disappointed me a bit
00:37:00.300
from the campaign 2019 campaign was I think the conservative missed an opportunity to really
00:37:06.300
appeal to a lot of like what you're doing, right with new media sources that are more open to
00:37:11.300
listening to the conservatives and less biased really against the conservatives. You know,
00:37:15.180
they would complain about, oh, the media is not treating us well, and the media didn't treat
00:37:18.940
them well. But why not just invite a whole bunch of people to all the briefings, you know, when they
00:37:23.200
go to the House of Commons, and they're doing there in the Ottawa Press Gallery, why not invite all the
00:37:28.100
alternative media in the country, you don't have to shut out the established media, but just,
00:37:32.200
you know, you in some ways drown it out with a bunch of different voices. So I think it'll be
00:37:36.060
interesting to see if any of the leadership candidates are willing to do that more
00:37:40.060
open to alternative sources. That's a huge problem, though, Spencer, because when I did a
00:37:45.000
daily talk radio show on conventional radio, the one thing that I saw is that during leadership
00:37:50.820
campaigns, the conservative politicians would just absolutely flock to anywhere there's a
00:37:57.600
conservative audience. So that's talk radio, new media as well. And then once there's a general
00:38:01.840
election, it's like pulling teeth to get an interview. And, you know, I'm not trying to
00:38:05.900
overstate my own influence or my own audience. But it's interesting that in leadership races,
00:38:11.620
and I'm assuming we'll see this in the next couple of months as well, conservatives are saying they're
00:38:16.120
scrambling just to get the message out. And then once Andrew Scheer was the leader, it was very
00:38:20.100
difficult to sit down. And I'm like, hang on, you've still got to talk to Canadians here, you've still
00:38:23.840
got to win votes. And that is a huge problem, because you've got to win over all Canadians, or at
00:38:29.340
least Canadians that come not just from the conservative base. But you've also got to give the base a
00:38:35.160
reason to show up and the base a reason to get excited and get involved. And you are right about
00:38:39.940
that. A lot of that is going to have to come from breaking away from that traditional media stranglehold
00:38:47.160
on communication and not to make everything a comparison to Trump. But that's what Trump has
00:38:52.260
effectively done is bypassed the reliance on the media that's typically been there for a politician to
00:38:58.340
get their message out. Yeah, it's really interesting, because I mean, if you look at some of the tweets
00:39:03.460
you did in the campaign, especially when the liberals were trying to kick you out of events,
00:39:07.080
I mean, you were getting 1000s of retweets, and then people tweeting about you were getting 1000s
00:39:10.860
of retweets. So you were getting a ton of attention. So I don't know why the conservative party didn't
00:39:14.760
really pay more attention to that. And, you know, overall, if the conservatives are so worried about
00:39:19.420
media bias, which obviously is a problem, well, the key to getting rid of that or to push it back
00:39:24.620
against it is to help facilitate the rise of alternative media, right? So if there's a whole separate media
00:39:29.520
that's more open to the conservatives, and less biased, then that kind of negates a bit of the
00:39:34.360
effect of the biased establishment press. So, again, I, you know, I was surprised they didn't
00:39:40.020
do that more in the campaign. I would think probably Pierre Polyev, he seems pretty, he's pretty good on
00:39:45.720
Twitter, I think he probably sees what's going on. So we'll see if he gets it, and maybe Aaron O'Toole,
00:39:51.000
and Peter McKay will get it as well. But yeah, if they don't, if they just try to, oh, we'll just win over CBC,
00:39:57.140
will win over CPB, will win over Global, they're just going to get the same result next time.
00:40:01.820
So on that note, what do you think need to be the big priorities, not just on style,
00:40:06.900
which we've been talking about, but even policies? What would you love to see a conservative leader
00:40:11.320
come in and do, or a conservative leadership candidate, in this case, come out and promise?
00:40:17.560
Yeah, well, one thing I think is immigration, and they're obviously going to be worried to talk
00:40:21.980
about it very careful. But there's a very fascinating disconnect between the way you see
00:40:27.100
every poll when they ask Canadians about immigration, and then the way the political class
00:40:31.280
and the media talks about it. Canada, I think, brought in about 400, had net migration of about
00:40:37.220
420,000 people last year, the US had about 570,000 people net into the country. So pretty similar to
00:40:45.080
Canada, except they're nine times bigger than us. Every poll shows Canadians are not really happy with
00:40:50.380
the massive immigration increases we're seeing. They want a lower level. And the conservatives,
00:40:56.380
you know, they're kind of wishy-washy, not wanting to talk about it. But if you look on social media,
00:41:01.200
and you look at comments on websites, and what people are saying, there's clearly within, I think,
00:41:05.800
the core conservative base, a desire to talk about it. And it's a rare issue where, you know,
00:41:11.500
what the conservative base really wants is also exactly what you see a lot of Canadians saying. But
00:41:15.740
what makes it such a kind of a rare thing is the conservatives don't even want to talk about it.
00:41:20.380
So I think that's going to be key to success in the long term for any conservative leadership
00:41:24.720
candidates. They have to be careful how they talk about it, obviously. But again, that's
00:41:29.360
where what we talked about before, facilitating the rise of alternative media, you know, the
00:41:34.820
establishment media will any conservative who even says immigration will just quickly right away.
00:41:41.380
But, you know, people like yourself and myself are more willing to actually listen to that
00:41:45.380
conversation and to share it in a reasonable way without panicking about it. So I think that's
00:41:50.520
going to be interesting to see how it's addressed. Immigration is one of the most consequential things
00:41:54.940
for our country. And if we keep bringing in more and more people, and more Canadians are against it,
00:42:00.560
then at some point, someone in politics is going to start addressing those concerns.
00:42:05.260
Yeah, and I think you're right about that disconnect. One example that comes to mind is,
00:42:09.720
I guess it was a year and a bit ago, when the conservatives had their big policy convention,
00:42:14.780
and the topic of ending birthright citizenship came up. The media just went into an absolute
00:42:20.020
tizzy about it. And even the conservative communication machine distanced itself from this
00:42:25.460
policy that was put forward. And then I think it was about a month ago, or a month and a half ago,
00:42:31.100
CBC ran this big investigative feature about the birthright tourism scam in Canada,
00:42:36.140
and the problem with all of these people that come here just for this. And then all of a sudden,
00:42:40.360
in a second, it became palatable to talk about, even though last year, these were the same people
00:42:46.660
saying, you're not allowed to do this. So it shows that there is an appetite for this, but you need
00:42:51.360
someone that's prepared to risk that criticism imminently to get through on a message that will
00:42:58.220
Yeah, I mean, again, it's like the party's still almost waiting for permission from CBC or the media
00:43:05.900
to talk about certain issues. And I can understand they're kind of afraid. But again, that's why you
00:43:10.420
facilitate alternative media, gives you more of a chance to talk about those things. You know,
00:43:14.700
interesting what you said about the disconnect. It's funny, because if you look at the media,
00:43:19.480
you see almost no discussion of the conservative view on immigration. And then you see, you know,
00:43:23.820
same sex marriage brought up all the time. But if you look at what the party base actually did,
00:43:28.040
I mean, a few conventions ago, policy convention, they voted, I think, two thirds voted to end the
00:43:34.740
party's past opposition to same sex marriage. So for I'd say most members of the party that issues in
00:43:40.700
the past, not really an issue they talk much about, but they want to talk about immigration. And then
00:43:45.160
you see the party and the media not talk about that at all. So I think whoever can figure out how to
00:43:50.580
really, you know, reach people on those issues and really get past that disconnect, I think we'll have
00:43:55.460
a lot of success. And, you know, it remains to be seen whether any of them will do that.
00:44:00.400
Yeah, and I was talking about that earlier in the show with the Richard de Carey stuff, it's that
00:44:04.860
even social conservatives are not talking about those issues anymore. And in some cases, that maybe
00:44:10.520
they've just made a calculation and realized that's not the best issue. But I think more often,
00:44:14.960
it's that they just don't care about that anymore. There are bigger fish to fry. And I think even
00:44:19.300
social conservatives have realized that it's more advantageous to focus on the issues that ultimately
00:44:25.200
matter to Canadians, and ultimately have a really a fundamental question at stake about about rights
00:44:33.200
and humanity and all of that stuff. And I think that for the media, their vision of what five
00:44:40.900
conservatives in a room are talking about, is basically evidence that they've never been in that
00:44:46.740
room when conservatives are talking. I mean, more often than not, if you and me and people we know
00:44:51.420
were to get together, we'd probably be complaining about supply management, we'd be complaining
00:44:55.060
about things like that. And gay marriage wouldn't come up yet. That's where they go.
00:45:00.300
Yeah, well, it's interesting when Pierre Polyev, I think a few days ago said that he supported
00:45:04.880
same sex marriage. I did a quick article just on what he said. And most of the comments were people
00:45:10.260
saying, you know, I don't even care about this issue anymore. I want to hear them talk about
00:45:14.080
immigration or the United Nations or the military or the economy. So there's really, I think, and as
00:45:20.320
you say, the media really has no idea what conservatives are talking about. You know, they
00:45:23.520
assume, oh, this must be a big issue. There must be tons of support for for these candidates talking
00:45:29.300
about it. Most people, they don't really care. They don't want to hear about it anymore. And they want
00:45:35.640
Yeah. So do you think immigration is that issue? Because immigration still has that polarization in
00:45:40.880
the ability to trigger that media backlash. But at the same time, I think it is, as you mentioned,
00:45:45.920
a pretty significant challenge for Canada. And even though I think discussion has probably slowed
00:45:50.920
down a little bit, we don't have as much of an issue at Roxham Road as we did a year ago.
00:45:56.160
There still are great challenges that we're facing, and also the repercussions of the last year and a
00:46:04.700
Yeah, well, the irony is that if Canada wants to maintain support for immigration, then it has to be at
00:46:08.900
a level that most Canadians will support, right?
00:46:11.680
I think the lesson in a democracy is you can, I mean, the elites in the establishment,
00:46:16.660
they can stop an issue from being talked about or discussed for a long time, but not forever.
00:46:21.240
Sooner or later, in a country where people are relatively free to vote for who they want to,
00:46:25.180
relatively free to express themselves, it's going to be expressed in one way or another.
00:46:29.980
So, you know, we'll see if anyone in the party gets that. The economy is obviously always going to be a key issue
00:46:36.400
But you mentioned True Norths and my struggles attempting to cover the campaign in October.
00:46:41.580
I have to say thank you for all your support through that period. It was very much appreciated
00:46:45.680
at a time when it was feeling like the walls were coming in. So thanks for that, Spencer.
00:46:50.780
Yeah, well, thank you for all you were doing there. That was, looked pretty tough out there,
00:46:55.500
Yeah, I'm glad it wasn't like the 12-week-long campaign of 2011 or 2015, I think it was.
00:47:01.460
I'll say that. But in any case, thanks very much for all you're doing, Spencer Fernando.
00:47:05.340
You can get his stuff, spencerfernando.com or spencerfernando on Twitter.
00:47:09.540
And as well, thanks for joining me today. It's good to talk to you directly.
00:47:14.220
Spencer Fernando, his stuff is great. As I mentioned, I've corresponded with him before,
00:47:18.020
but we've never actually spoken. So it was like a blind date. We just get thrust in the same room
00:47:22.300
together digitally. And I am very pleased with that conversation. Some good insights there.
00:47:27.340
And that does it for us for this show and this week. Hope you have a great weekend, folks. We'll
00:47:33.280
be back next week with more of the Andrew Lawton Show here on True North. I do have to put in a
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pitch, though, before we go, if you can support what we're doing by joining the Andrew Lawton Show
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Club or the Producer Circle with a monthly contribution, it would go a long way to keeping
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the lights on and letting this show continue to go and have the discussions, especially through the
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leadership race that we're going to have. You can do that at andrewlawtonshow.com.
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That's it for me. Thank you all. Thank you. God bless and good day, Canada.
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