Juno News - Trump vs. Greta, Crying Over Spilt Wine, What Conservatives Care About (feat. Spencer Fernando)

00:00:00.000 Welcome to Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show.

00:00:06.660 This is the Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by True North.

00:00:12.720 Coming up, what do Canada's social conservatives really care about?

00:00:17.080 Spencer Fernando also joins me to talk about the state of the Canadian conservative leadership race,

00:00:21.820 and I talk about the worst employee ever.

00:00:24.400 The Andrew Lawton Show starts right now.

00:00:32.920 Hey everyone, welcome to another edition of the Andrew Lawton Show here on True North.

00:00:38.340 Lots to get to on the program today. Hope you're having a great week.

00:00:42.380 I have actually been in the midst of bureaucratic hell this week,

00:00:46.660 as I've been working about the navigation of various access to information departments across the federal government,

00:00:53.540 and indeed the Ontario provincial government as well.

00:00:57.000 This is, to preface this, I have no life. I'm aware I have no life. I'm aware how pathetic this is.

00:01:02.800 I have right now, I counted just before the show, 19 active access to information files 0.81

00:01:09.180 with various departments from Justice Canada to CBC to Wilfrid Laurier University.

00:01:15.440 Just all of these. And I won't go through line by line of what they're all about,

00:01:19.080 mainly because I can't remember them. I've had to, because this has gotten so out of hand,

00:01:24.460 start like a little cataloging system on my computer so I can look through at the dates that I filed,

00:01:29.440 the last contact. Like I said, no life. Like this is, some people have hobbies.

00:01:33.760 I just file ATIPS and catalog them and, you know, document and color code them in my spare time.

00:01:40.080 And it's important because when they pan out, oftentimes there's a story there.

00:01:43.420 But to get to that point, you have to question whether it's worth it. And I will say, to Justin

00:01:50.220 Trudeau's credit, and, you know, notwithstanding the myriad concerns that I have about how he's

00:01:55.000 run his government, one thing he did well is make it cheaper and easier to file access to information

00:02:01.560 requests. So it used to be you had to pay $5 to file. And then once you filed it, they could say,

00:02:07.320 oh, it's going to take us, you know, a thousand million, bajillion, gazillion hours.

00:02:10.680 So you have to pay for our time and that's going to be $17 billion. And now it's just the $5. You

00:02:18.360 don't need to pay above the filing fee. And as far as things government can spend money on,

00:02:23.340 this is not, in my view, the worst idea because access to information is based on the premise

00:02:28.620 that government documents are the public's documents. So I avail myself of this right on

00:02:34.840 a regular basis. And I've done stories about access to information requests and documents I've

00:02:39.780 unearthed in them. But one of the ones that I'm doing right now, or two ATIPs actually,

00:02:45.560 were to Women and Gender Equality Canada. One of them, I wanted to know any time the term TERF

00:02:51.820 or trans-exclusionary radical feminism or trans-exclusionary radical feminist, all the

00:02:56.700 derivatives were mentioned in emails, documents, records, and they said nothing. They said there was

00:03:03.340 no record of that whatsoever. It's never come up. So the department of the federal government that

00:03:08.620 deals with women and gender issues has never talked about trans-exclusionary radical feminism. 0.67

00:03:14.880 Seemed a little bit suspect, but okay, I'm a trusting guy. I'll give them the benefit of the

00:03:19.160 doubt. I filed another request that I really can't believe at all. And it was on the definition of

00:03:26.420 women or female or woman or womanhood. All of these, again, derivatives of the same idea.

00:03:33.220 How does the government department dealing with women's issues define women? And they say no record 1.00

00:03:39.940 at all. Not just they don't have a definition, but it's never been discussed. No one's ever asked.

00:03:44.080 There's no email documents. No documents of any kind dealing with that. And I had a phone call

00:03:51.600 actually from one of the bureaucrats in the access information department there. And again, lovely

00:03:56.180 woman. She seemed like she was trying to be helpful, but I'm like, okay, on the off chance that

00:04:01.600 this is true and these documents don't exist, what on earth is women and gender equality Canada doing all 0.83

00:04:08.220 day? If they don't have a definition of what woman is in an age where people are raising, I mean, 1.00

00:04:16.300 raising sizable questions about this, what on earth are they doing all day? And I still

00:04:21.540 don't know the answer to that question, by the way. And I had reached out as well to the media

00:04:25.380 relations department there. And I said, Hey, what's your department's definition of woman?

00:04:29.040 And they said, Oh, we'll get back to you. And then they never did. I followed up no response at

00:04:33.740 all. So I find it baffling to me because this whole department used to be part of another department.

00:04:41.240 It used to be under heritage. And then the federal government under Trudeau decided, okay,

00:04:45.060 let's make it its own thing, its own team. And they've got many, many, many bureaucrats. 0.79

00:04:50.400 And I now have no idea what they're doing all day. So clearly not dealing with some of the core

00:04:55.800 philosophical questions that are relevant to their mandate. This is going to be, I think,

00:05:02.540 one of the defining discussions of the leadership race for the Conservative Party of Canada. And that is

00:05:08.260 the role of social conservatives in the party, in the movement, in the country, and what social

00:05:14.960 conservatives actually believe. And I have to say that two days ago on my first show this week,

00:05:20.400 I talked about social conservatism playing a role in the Conservative Party. And I stand by that.

00:05:28.420 In the context of that, I won't rehash the whole thing, but you should go and listen to it,

00:05:32.000 was Pierre Palliev rebuffing social conservatives, basically. Now, Pierre has kind of amended via a

00:05:39.340 source that spoke to the Toronto Star his belief. The Toronto Star article said, Oh, no, no, no,

00:05:44.080 he'll let private members in his caucus introduce bills, but he'll make sure they don't pass. So

00:05:50.040 basically, the Pierre Palliev position seems to be sabotaging social conservatives if there are any

00:05:55.480 in his caucus, which there will be because they make up a decent chunk of the conservative caucus

00:06:00.420 right now in Parliament. So I stand by it that social conservatives need to have a voice and need

00:06:06.960 to play a role in the party. There also comes with that a responsibility for social conservatives

00:06:12.660 to not leave themselves open to the attacks that they know the media are going for. And I have to

00:06:19.160 talk this week about Richard Descari, the prospective Conservative Party leadership candidate who was on

00:06:25.880 Devin Solomon's CTV show, Question Period, and did not do himself the movement or the party any favors.

00:06:34.520 Now, Descari is not a heavyweight. He's not a front runner. He's a guy who was a chief of staff to

00:06:40.280 Stephen Harper before Harper was prime minister back in, I think, 2003 and four or 2004 and five,

00:06:46.120 around there. And he is from Montreal. He's not in office. He's not in power anywhere. He's never

00:06:52.360 held office. He's a guy that seemed to be running solely to say, I'm a social conservative and I'm in

00:06:58.820 the race. And I know he's being backed by some of the people that were backing Brad Trost. So he's

00:07:04.280 got some backing that is legitimate, but he himself is never going to be and was never going to be

00:07:09.820 one of the front runners in this race. Yet now he's become the most notable leadership candidate

00:07:16.140 because of this interview that I'm going to play a clip of. Now, there's a clip circulating online

00:07:22.240 that was published by CTV, which is an excerpt of a longer interview. I'm going to play something

00:07:27.720 that's still an excerpt, but it's a longer clip because I think there's some context that was

00:07:32.960 missing. But I'm saying that not to defend Mr. Descari. I'm just saying that let's have an honest

00:07:39.940 discussion about what's happened in this interview. Let's play this clip for you.

00:07:45.020 What about same-sex marriage?

00:07:48.360 I was with Mr. Harper in 2004 when we fought the bill for same-sex marriage. So my point of view is

00:07:56.200 that marriage is exclusive to a man and a woman. And traditionally, it used to be for religion,

00:08:02.340 from a religion point of view. And people are mixed up. When we talk to real people on the street,

00:08:08.420 when we go across the country, we are hearing the same things. We are all mixed up. Our kids are

00:08:14.000 mixed up. So I think it's a good opportunity to-

00:08:16.340 What does mixed up mean? So what do you mean mixed up? Sorry, you say people are mixed up.

00:08:22.340 Yes. That's what it told us. They said that usually a traditional family was a man and a woman

00:08:31.120 and children. And now it's everything that the liberals brought. And because of that, I think

00:08:36.880 we need to make sure that the term marriage is used for a man and woman. 0.98

00:08:43.220 Yeah, but sir, sir, with all that, I don't know what you mean by mixed up. You also said

00:08:46.600 normal people. Are you saying people in same-sex couples are not normal?

00:08:51.400 No, I'm saying that the people that we meet in the street, when we go from door to door,

00:08:57.040 when we are in politics, involved in politics, we speak to real people in the sense that they are

00:09:02.540 telling us their real story. We're not getting the information through the media.

00:09:07.060 But sir, sir, with all due respect, LGBTQ people are real people too. I'm just trying to figure

00:09:12.200 out your terms. Are they not real people?

00:09:14.820 I think LGBTQ is a liberal term. I don't talk about people that way. I talk about persons.

00:09:23.700 And I think we all need the full respects for being a human being, simply.

00:09:30.240 Oh, so, okay. So you don't think that being gay, you don't think, what, do you think that's

00:09:36.820 a choice? Or do you think it's biological?

00:09:40.100 I think it's a choice. And it's how people are behaving. It's one thing. I think government

00:09:45.960 has responsibility to encourage the traditional value that we have had for the past year.

00:09:53.700 So that's the kind of soak on issues that I would bring as a leader.

00:09:58.860 Okay. So let's deal with a couple of things first. When he talks about real people,

00:10:05.600 I don't think he's saying that gay people aren't real. I think he's saying that when he's out in

00:10:10.500 the real world talking to people who aren't reporters, who aren't the media, these people

00:10:14.500 are telling him X. And I also think when he says mixed up, I think, and I hope he's not saying that

00:10:21.680 gay people are mixed up. I think he's saying that those people he talks to in the world are saying

00:10:26.900 that, oh, you know, just kind of society is a messy and mixed up. But again, I'm giving him the

00:10:32.140 benefit of the doubt there that may or may not be deserved. I'm just trying to establish that I think

00:10:37.740 the big problem with this interview is not those particular words, but two other things. Number one,

00:10:45.140 him saying it's a choice. I'll talk about that in a moment. And also him getting dragged into this

00:10:52.040 idea that the conservatives need to have a position on homosexuality and that the conservatives should

00:11:00.300 have a position on this. I mean, it was painfully obvious what Evan Solomon was trying to get him to

00:11:07.360 do here. And he went along with it. But I'm not blaming Evan Solomon. I mean, Dick Harry is the one

00:11:12.800 that has to own what he said and what he thinks and what he feels. And let's have a frank discussion

00:11:18.440 about this because Douglas Murray, his latest book, The Madness of Crowds, which is a tremendous read,

00:11:24.440 he has a chapter on gay. He does gay, women, race, trans. Those are the chapters. Now, Douglas Murray

00:11:30.800 himself is gay. So he has some insight into this that I don't have. And what Murray points out in his

00:11:36.440 book here that I think is valuable is that we still don't have a definitive scientific

00:11:41.860 understanding or conclusion about what causes homosexuality, he said. But the evidence leans

00:11:49.380 more towards it being innate. The what he calls the Lady Gaga born this way approach. But more

00:11:55.260 importantly, there's a societal question, which is that knowing all of the challenges that people who

00:12:00.660 are gay experience, knowing all of the challenges based on social stigma, pressure, all of these things,

00:12:06.360 who would choose that, who would voluntarily wake up and say, you know what, I want to live this life

00:12:12.440 that's going to be a little bit harder or a lot harder for me. And I think there's a valuable idea

00:12:18.280 that Douglas Murray puts forward there. And I think there's a valuable criticism to Descari making this

00:12:26.100 claim that ultimately is something that even social conservatives that I know that he's claiming to

00:12:32.120 speak for aren't talking about. I'm not hearing from social conservatives that I know this idea,

00:12:37.640 A, that the conservatives should be wading into homosexuality as a political issue, and more

00:12:42.520 importantly, that it is in fact a choice. That's not something they say. And that's not something they

00:12:48.760 believe or feel, I'd argue, in most cases, not to speak for everyone or anyone but myself and what I've

00:12:55.400 heard and what I've heard people talk about. But the reason I bring this up now is because

00:13:00.200 social conservatives have a place in Canada, in Canadian politics, in conservative politics,

00:13:06.480 and in the conservative party. The issues they care about are abortion, some of the transgender 1.00

00:13:13.800 ideas that we have now, and again, the major discussions that we have about whether you have to

00:13:20.360 unquestioningly accept someone's preferred gender identity, someone's chosen gender identity,

00:13:27.000 just because they say so in areas like women's shelters, prisons, schools, all of these things.

00:13:33.200 These are significant, significant debates that need to be happening in Canada, and they can only

00:13:38.900 happen when credible and viable voices from the social conservative movement stand up and say,

00:13:44.860 we're unafraid to take these on. That's not happening from Richard de Carie. That's not what was

00:13:51.580 happening in that interview. He was getting up there and was not articulate, by the way, did not do

00:13:56.640 himself, as I said, any favors, because he was hardly taking the effort to ensure that what he was saying

00:14:03.620 was reflecting what he was meaning. And I'm at the point now where I don't quite know what he meant.

00:14:08.980 I don't quite know what he was trying to say. And anyone, anyone who wants to speak for a group,

00:14:16.080 whether it's social conservatives, or whether it's someone who wants to lead the conservative party,

00:14:20.580 you've got to do a better job at not getting sucked into the media's trap. You know, the media has

00:14:27.260 this thing it loves doing at conventions, rallies, protests, events, where they find the craziest,

00:14:33.660 most out-to-lunch person they can. They go to them, and they put them on camera, and they become

00:14:39.420 the standard bearer of the movement, the rally, the event, the party, whatever. They become the

00:14:44.220 standard bearer. And that is now what's happening with Richard de Carie. It doesn't matter that every

00:14:51.580 conservative leadership candidate and many conservative MPs who are believed that they may

00:14:57.480 run for the leadership jumped and condemned him. The fact of the matter is, now this is going to

00:15:03.640 set the benchmark for what has to be discussed. There are two elements here. Number one,

00:15:10.240 de Carie only exists because there was a vacuum in the party already, in that no social conservatives

00:15:16.200 were saying, yes, I want to run. And now this has changed a little bit. You've got a conservative MP

00:15:21.340 from Eastern Ontario, Derek Sloan, who's a first-time MP, but still he's an elected part of the party.

00:15:27.120 He's running as a social conservative. You've got Leslyn Lewis, who's a Toronto lawyer, another relative

00:15:33.020 unknown though. And now de Carie is somehow the one that everyone has to respond to. He's the guy

00:15:39.620 that was never going to get more than, you know, a decimal of a percent of a vote in many cases,

00:15:44.260 who's now being held up and reshaping it. I mean, Michelle Rempel, who I get along with very well,

00:15:50.220 she had put out this tweet about how she would never serve under the leadership of someone like him.

00:15:54.420 Well, no, but he was never going to win. So let's discount, let's discount the people that don't

00:16:04.040 belong in this race, the people that haven't put in the work, the people that haven't actually come 1.00

00:16:09.360 to the race because they have a background and a cachet and a credibility. And let's have the real

00:16:16.080 discussions. And I stand by what I said on the show earlier this week, that we cannot exclude

00:16:21.060 social conservatives, but there's also a challenge to social conservatives in here to not let other

00:16:26.800 people hijack your message, to not let people presume or pretend they speak for you. And to talk

00:16:33.840 about the issues that matter, where you can win over people that are undecided, you can win over people

00:16:39.840 that are not necessarily socially conservative because you're driving the point of why these issues

00:16:45.660 matter. And you're never going to drive the point of why the government should be enforcing a

00:16:52.880 traditional view of sexuality, which is what Monsieur de Cary said it needs to do, because liberty should

00:16:59.140 be the priority. And I've had this discussion with social conservatives. By the way, I am a social

00:17:05.120 conservative. I have a lot more in common with SOCONs than I have with those who hate them. In fact,

00:17:11.400 I actually quite deplore the hatred we see towards SOCONs. I was endorsed when I ran for office by

00:17:17.600 social conservative groups. So I'm on side on a lot of the issues, especially abortion. But SOCONs have

00:17:24.820 to do a better job at communicating. Everyone in politics has to communicate their message clearly,

00:17:31.680 consistently, and with conviction. And I don't think there was a particular clarity in that interview

00:17:37.640 that we saw on Evan Solomon's show. And you're always going to leave the door open to having your

00:17:44.340 message twisted and distorted if you don't come out of the gate and say, no, this is what I think,

00:17:49.260 this is why, and this is why it matters. Start telling people why these issues are important and

00:17:55.700 start telling people why it matters that we have a platform to talk about these issues. But more

00:18:02.900 importantly than even that, make sure these issues are real issues. And that's where I think Monsieur

00:18:09.880 Dequerie's interview went off the rails, because he was talking about issues that aren't issues and

00:18:14.420 shouldn't be issues in Canadian conservative politics and in the leadership race. There is no

00:18:21.580 one who can tell me there's a benefit in legislating sexual orientations or even having a government role

00:18:29.860 in setting what a definition for a positive or traditional sexual orientation should be.

00:18:36.340 And by the way, you can have a personal moral objection to homosexuality and maintain that position.

00:18:42.580 I think the healthiest thing that people can do in Canadian society is accept that, hey,

00:18:47.160 my views are my views. They shouldn't be legislated unless something is impeding in the liberty of others

00:18:55.200 or the rights of others. And that's the problem is that a gay couple does not infringe anyone else's

00:19:01.180 liberty. Abortion infringes the liberty of the unborn. The transgender bathroom issue that you 1.00

00:19:07.300 could say infringes the rights of others. Homosexuality does not. It's not a matter for

00:19:11.860 political leaders. It's not a matter for conservative political leaders to start trying to enforce a

00:19:16.520 definition on this. And that's the reality of it. I've got to take a quick break when we come back

00:19:22.180 more of The Andrew Lawton Show here on True North. You know, I was speaking a moment ago about the

00:19:36.280 importance of clarity in political messaging. No one can ever accuse Donald Trump of not being

00:19:41.940 crystal clear about what he thinks. And I've got to give him a big True North Andrew Lawton Show round

00:19:47.460 of applause for going into the belly of the beast, the World Economic Forum in Davos and completely

00:19:53.920 taking a flamethrower to climate alarmism that runs rampant, especially this year, but generally at

00:20:00.600 this event. Take a listen to what he said. But to embrace the possibilities of tomorrow, we must reject

00:20:06.740 the perennial prophets of doom and their predictions of the apocalypse. They predicted an overpopulation

00:20:14.460 crisis in the 1960s, mass starvation in the 70s, and an end of oil in the 1990s. These alarmists

00:20:24.120 always demand the same thing, absolute power to dominate, transform, and control every aspect of

00:20:29.740 our lives. We will never let radical socialists destroy our economy, wreck our country, or eradicate

00:20:37.300 our liberty.

00:20:38.540 That's just fantastic. I've listened to that like seven or eight times now. The perennial prophets

00:20:43.920 of doom, the alarmists of climate that are always wrong, the people predicting the apocalypse. That

00:20:50.360 is fantastic. And this is what I've been waiting for years for a politician to do, to come out and say,

00:20:56.420 yeah, you guys just keep getting it wrong. Why should we listen to you now? Because he's right.

00:21:00.360 They have kept getting it wrong. And not just the situations he was talking about with overpopulation

00:21:06.600 and the end of oil, but the big one as well back in, I think it was the 70s, maybe a little bit of

00:21:11.760 the 80s, was global cooling. The idea that we were, you know, moments away from a new ice age,

00:21:17.980 and then now it's global warming. And this is why they've changed the rhetoric from global warming to

00:21:24.060 climate change, by the way. Because they know that with climate change, you can call anything and

00:21:28.540 everything a symptom. Whereas with global warming, when you get cold weather, you can't really say,

00:21:33.660 oh, but it's global warming. So now if it's warm outside, that's global warming. If it's cold, that's

00:21:38.520 global warming. If there's a fire, that's global warming. If it rains and puts out the fire, that's

00:21:43.040 global warming, except now it's climate change. And all of this, I think, is fantastic because no

00:21:48.980 conservative politicians in other countries like the UK, Australia, Canada, want to go down the road

00:21:57.180 that Trump did, which is to reject the premise outright. They all try to say, well, no, no, no,

00:22:01.840 yes, of course climate change is a problem, but I disagree with your taxing way to deal with it.

00:22:07.960 Whereas Trump is saying, yeah, you guys are always wrong. Why should we start listening to you now?

00:22:12.420 And if you're going to do it, that's the way to do it. You know, I've interviewed Lord Moncton,

00:22:17.920 the third Viscount Moncton of Brunchley, who's just been fantastic on this issue. And Chris Essex as well,

00:22:23.980 Ross McKittrick, Steve McIntyre, they've all done their part to exposing the alarmism, which is

00:22:31.460 exactly what it is, or the perennial doom profiting, as President Trump would say, because all of these

00:22:37.700 people are basing their beliefs on, I mean, I'll say debunked concepts, and they're talking about

00:22:45.340 politics. You know, Chris Essex, who's a professor at Western University, has said that he won't do any

00:22:51.600 debates on climate change anymore, because the moderators of the debates are not scientists,

00:22:56.720 and they only want to talk about politics. He said, they're not actually talking about science,

00:23:01.400 about scientific theory, about any of these things. So you can't have a real discussion.

00:23:05.900 And the people in the audience of these events are not scientists. So you can't just start talking

00:23:10.220 about all of these different theories and data points and all of these things. And he said,

00:23:14.840 it's just a lost cause. So he writes about it, he explains that way. But there's some truth to that,

00:23:21.120 and that you can't have a conversation in good faith with someone that has already determined what

00:23:26.740 the outcome of that is going to be, and has not come to that conclusion through science.

00:23:32.460 And this, I was doing a debate with someone, not really a debate, it was a radio panel.

00:23:38.040 I wasn't representing myself as a scientist, don't worry. And it was a former liberal candidate.

00:23:42.740 And she had asked me, thinking it was this gotcha moment, do you believe in climate change?

00:23:47.800 And I said, of course the climate's changing. And she didn't really understand what I had just done

00:23:53.600 there. What she was actually asking is, do you believe in man-made, catastrophic, anthropogenic

00:23:58.860 global warming? What I was saying is, yes, the climate is changing. That's undeniable.

00:24:03.520 But even if you accept, and I think there's probably evidence to suggest that industry and humanity

00:24:08.540 has caused some of the change that we've seen, certainly because of greenhouse gas emissions.

00:24:14.680 But to say that changing climates, which have always changed throughout the course of history,

00:24:20.400 even prior to the Industrial Revolution, is the responsibility and the fault of humanity is wrong.

00:24:27.140 It's not backed up by science. And further to that point, I think this is a more important aspect

00:24:32.840 of this discussion. The solution is not going to come from the Western developed countries that are

00:24:38.440 talking about the issue, because they're not the ones, if we are to blame industry, that are responsible

00:24:43.400 for what's happened. They've already, because industry itself has changed, they're already leaders on

00:24:49.860 this. China, India, elsewhere in the world, they're not. And they're the ones that, if there is a problem

00:24:56.320 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 0.99

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 0.96

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.

00:26:28.860 16,680 liters of wine down the drain at work.

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.

00:27:31.240 And he felt horrible about the whole thing.

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

00:27:42.900 of a state Sauvignon Blanc down the drain.

00:27:46.520 Now, you may be asking, I thought the headline said 16,660.

00:27:50.480 Where does that other 10,680 liters come from?

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.

00:28:30.460 Both were the result of Mr. Crozier's actions.

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

00:28:38.200 thing goes up.

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.

00:28:43.900 So pick a new line of work.

00:28:45.580 Go after anything else.

00:28:46.580 I don't care if you knock over crystal wear.

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.

00:28:57.520 That's a PSA from the Andrew Lawton Show.

00:28:59.580 We'll be back in just a couple of moments with Spencer Fernando here on the Andrew Lawton Show.

00:29:06.420 You're tuned in to 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. 0.65

00:29:31.760 Ronna Ambrose formally announcing she's out.

00:29:34.580 Now, she was previously on the fence.

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.

00:29:51.840 And who else do we have this week?

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,

00:30:27.040 all right, maybe I'm in now.

00:30:29.180 We'll see how that unfolds.

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.

00:30:48.740 Thanks for coming on today.

00:30:50.360 Yeah, no problem.

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

00:31:12.620 to the conservative leadership race.

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. 0.99

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 0.74

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. 0.99

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 0.81

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 0.99

00:34:11.840 can be a tough business. So I guess she decided to stay out for now. 0.86

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 1.00

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

00:42:57.040 resonate with Canadians.

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. 1.00

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

00:45:33.960 to move on to other issues.

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

00:46:01.740 half of Canadian immigration policy.

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?

00:46:11.240 Yeah.

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

00:46:34.620 for the Conservatives as well.

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,

00:46:53.920 but, you know, you kept fighting.

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.

00:47:12.900 Yeah, it's great talking to you.

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

00:47:38.440 pitch, though, before we go, if you can support what we're doing by joining the Andrew Lawton Show

00:47:43.120 Club or the Producer Circle with a monthly contribution, it would go a long way to keeping

00:47:47.780 the lights on and letting this show continue to go and have the discussions, especially through the

00:47:53.320 leadership race that we're going to have. You can do that at andrewlawtonshow.com.

00:47:57.820 That's it for me. Thank you all. Thank you. God bless and good day, Canada.

00:48:01.820 Thanks for listening to the Andrew Lawton Show. Support the program by donating to True North

00:48:05.900 at www.tnc.news.

Juno News - January 24, 2020

Trump vs. Greta, Crying Over Spilt Wine, What Conservatives Care About (feat. Spencer Fernando)

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