Juno News - What's happening to Canadian cities？

00:00:00.000 welcome to canada's most irreverent talk show this is the andrew lawton show brought to you by true

00:00:14.140 hello and welcome to you all canada's most irreverent talk show the andrew lawton show

00:00:22.500 here on true north coming to you live from the west in ottawa the exhibit hall for the canada

00:00:28.740 strong and free networks annual conference the flagship conference for the conservative movement

00:00:33.760 we have as we were talking about yesterday lots of people from all across the country and in fact

00:00:38.420 all around the world that have descended on this otherwise blasé and bland city but we've been

00:00:44.040 pepping it up a little bit in the course of the last couple of days we're on day two of the

00:00:48.180 conference things have really gotten going now and i will say i thoroughly enjoyed last night

00:00:52.780 the panel discussion was a discussion with tony abbott the former prime minister of australia

00:00:58.380 who will be on this show tomorrow

00:00:59.600 and Boris Johnson, the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

00:01:02.860 who did not respond to our invitations to come on the show

00:01:05.980 and they were in great dialogue moderated by John O'Sullivan

00:01:09.340 who will be joining us in just about 25 minutes or so

00:01:12.800 the former advisor to Lady Thatcher in the UK

00:01:15.820 also the author of a number of books

00:01:17.600 but one I particularly love called The President, The Pope and The Prime Minister

00:01:21.360 about three very courageous and principled figures

00:01:24.260 who work together to vanquish communism

00:01:26.540 So we'll talk about that with John O'Sullivan a little later on in the show.

00:01:30.960 One of the many debates that I think is raging in the conservative movement right now,

00:01:35.640 and even at this conference, has been what's happening to Canadian cities.

00:01:39.220 It's great to talk about crime in the abstract and talk about criminal law

00:01:43.020 and all of these things that are in the federal domain,

00:01:45.220 but much of these challenges begin at home and I think have reared their heads

00:01:48.900 in very ugly ways at the local level.

00:01:51.280 It used to be we could look at Vancouver and say,

00:01:53.240 oh yeah tent cities permissive drug laws that's the the place and it's only there but within the

00:01:58.900 span of i'd say a decade we've seen this problem balloon to communities across this country

00:02:03.560 small towns large cities they all seem to have their own share of these increasing homelessness

00:02:08.460 and addiction problems and what goes along with that but crime issues well one guy who tried to

00:02:14.040 clean up the biggest city in canada toronto was anthony fury who you may have heard of he was a

00:02:19.840 vice president at True North until he decided to set his sights on municipal office. And we'll

00:02:24.420 talk about whether he perhaps plans to try that again. But Anthony Fury is with us. It's great

00:02:29.220 to have you back on True North, Anthony. Thank you. It's good to be here. I haven't seen you in

00:02:33.080 a while. How are you? I'm doing well. How are you? I'm doing great. We did this at a CSFN a couple of

00:02:38.220 years back. And you, of course, have gone on to politics. I'm still here with the microphone and

00:02:42.940 the camera. But you set out to do something very ambitious. You had never been elected before. You

00:02:48.140 did for a first-time candidate I think tremendously well. Let me ask you first and foremost why you

00:02:54.060 did that because you've had a platform in the Toronto Sun and at True North to talk about

00:02:58.600 these issues. Why did you want to go at it from that political direction? Because the issues that

00:03:04.020 I had been vocalizing for months leading up were issues that I knew people wanted to see addressed

00:03:09.860 and you know I'd spent so much airtime on air on radio and out about my columns saying we got to

00:03:16.540 deal with these problems and here is the opportunity to bring about these solutions so it was a real

00:03:20.180 from the heart uh we got to turn this city around i'm really concerned about this community guy and

00:03:24.800 i have three small kids at home you know we write our columns on federal politics and so forth um but

00:03:29.280 people may not realize wait this is a guy in a city who's deeply passionate about these issues

00:03:32.860 in my daily life what my neighbors had been telling me my wife and i would go and walk around

00:03:36.260 uh the neighborhood and we just hear from neighbors who were feeling so downtrodden about

00:03:40.140 the state of the city on on a number of these points you know andrew people talking about i

00:03:43.980 want to leave Toronto and I'll leave this city. Oh, this isn't what it used to be. And it was

00:03:47.500 heartbreaking to me because I grew up in Toronto. I'm a Toronto kid, great teen years, university

00:03:52.060 years, roaming about the city. And it's not the same. And I looked at the options out there and

00:03:56.280 I said, someone's got to step forward. And I felt it was me. And I had the time of life. It was an

00:04:01.040 amazing experience. And I loved every minute of it, advocating for those policies that we need

00:04:06.140 for cities. There are these stereotypes that exist of cities. Like I remember the first time I went

00:04:10.440 to San Francisco, which was 2018, everyone had given me this like horrendously, you know, almost

00:04:16.160 cartoonish image of what San Francisco was. And then I was there. Minatory oat milk lattes.

00:04:21.080 Well, yeah, but I meant on terms of the street situation and literally outside my hotel, I've

00:04:26.760 arrived there. There's a homeless person's, you know, feces on the sidewalk in front of me. Sorry

00:04:30.620 for those of you in the lunch hour. But Toronto has become like this in a lot of ways. Like I

00:04:35.120 spoke to someone last week who, you know, drives around normally, but they took their child on a

00:04:39.440 streetcar for the first time in however long and literally this one time their

00:04:42.860 first foray into public transit a homeless guy is waving around a night

00:04:46.640 like waving around a night and and these are stories that have become not

00:04:51.080 isolated incidents these are stories that have become the norm people that

00:04:55.040 are terrified of taking public transit in Toronto people that are terrified of

00:04:58.580 being out I mean when did this become a problem and can you diagnose the why so

00:05:05.060 So back in around the 1980s, great North American cities in the U.S. and Canada faced great decline, the American cities more so.

00:05:13.460 These periods are cyclical. That's coming back rather tragically.

00:05:17.000 And we're seeing this in a lot of American cities. We're seeing in Vancouver, we're seeing in Toronto, in Ottawa and other Canadian cities to some respects.

00:05:24.080 And we need to bring in those common sense policies that go back to basics, prioritize the core services people need and prioritize the public safety issues.

00:05:32.880 things that we saw in New York decades ago that saw it turned around and we're getting to that

00:05:36.520 point and my my my warning during the last mayor's race was we need to stop the decline and we need

00:05:41.680 to act now to stop it from worsening I didn't want to see it getting worse unfortunately those

00:05:46.520 indicators have worsened people are looking though for some uplifting solutions people feel really

00:05:52.420 downbeat entry right now as you said they're just feel they're not feeling it anymore and isn't that

00:05:56.140 so tragic and I think that the pendulum has shifted such that center-right solutions are

00:06:02.140 the ones that people people want even if they don't know it's that label but they want to go

00:06:08.100 in that direction to turn their cities around and here's a we have a great opportunity and a great

00:06:12.720 period of momentum to make that happen in cities all across uh canada and i think uh people in in

00:06:19.280 the conservative movement should be excited about the winds of change on the federal level but should

00:06:24.160 also see that there are great opportunities at the municipal level where people's daily lives are most

00:06:28.960 touched. And I'm an optimist on all of that, that we're going to bring about that change,

00:06:32.940 because we've got to. Because, you know, if Toronto fails, if Vancouver fails, Calgary fails,

00:06:36.320 Canada fails. Well, and on that note, I think it's an important point here, because municipal

00:06:40.260 politics, at least in Ontario, is not tainted by partisanship generally. And that's not to say

00:06:44.940 there aren't candidates that are known to be Liberals or New Democrats or whatever. But

00:06:48.180 so there are people that would vote for what you and I would call a small C conservative position

00:06:54.020 on crime that would never identify as conservative and might actually be put off from voting with

00:06:59.060 that if they knew it was a quote-unquote conservative policy. I had a discussion with

00:07:02.580 someone the other day, very anti-conservative, doesn't like Pierre Polyev, doesn't like Danielle

00:07:06.780 Smith. We were talking about it in an Alberta context. But my goodness, when you heard what

00:07:11.000 they wanted to have happen on their streets, I'm like, you're rhyming off what would be a

00:07:14.880 conservative platform on this issue. So it's not a partisan problem, I think, which is probably a

00:07:20.560 bit encouraging for people in the municipal space absolutely you've nailed it and that's why i say

00:07:24.640 people want center-right solutions but that doesn't necessarily mean uh they're going to be

00:07:29.100 ticking off conservative on ballot box although we are seeing there's a lot of young people and

00:07:32.360 demographics who were previously liberal who will be voting for pier pauliev absolutely but the

00:07:36.500 opportunity on the municipal level is you're standing up for a vision so you can have because

00:07:40.920 there's not a party system there can be a transaction for that election where you acknowledge

00:07:44.800 well guys you're seeing that we need these center-right policies so come on board for this

00:07:49.240 time and let's forge a coalition of everybody other than the radical leftists so explain to me

00:07:55.200 that aspect because i think most people would look at toronto and say this is a left-wing city the

00:07:59.140 election of olivia chow i think kind of endorses that position i i will say no but we'll talk about

00:08:04.480 that in the moment yeah and i guess i mean not to make this about israel we can talk about it if

00:08:08.780 you'd like i do think that the israel issues and the anti-semitism have sort of exposed a lot of

00:08:13.820 the problems with when you give the far left free reign on things but I'll ask you about whether

00:08:19.660 people are getting more engaged on this issue that are not even political because we certainly see at

00:08:24.620 the federal level people that are not political that are coming into the system municipal has

00:08:29.440 always been the most difficult area to get voter turnout so how's that unfolding 100% I actually

00:08:35.560 have met with a number of business owners community members recently all across the city of Toronto

00:08:40.740 who say that they've never been in politics before.

00:08:43.680 Maybe they vote, sometimes they don't vote,

00:08:45.360 but they're just so concerned about what they're seeing

00:08:47.500 that they feel they now need to get in the game.

00:08:49.720 And that's really heartening.

00:08:50.680 And maybe it's someone who says,

00:08:51.780 oh, I was on the sidelines and I thought I was a liberal.

00:08:54.120 I say, it doesn't matter who you voted for in the past,

00:08:56.340 where you're going.

00:08:56.960 You bring that big coalition together.

00:08:59.000 And when there are moments when people feel

00:09:01.440 that their lives are really negatively effective,

00:09:03.560 that's when they want to get involved in politics.

00:09:05.220 It's like the old saying,

00:09:06.600 oh, is a low turnout rate that big of a deal?

00:09:08.760 Sometimes it just means people are totally happy

00:09:10.340 and satisfied fine but i think now we're seeing all across canada people are not happy and more

00:09:16.020 people are getting in the game than ever before and that's a good thing well one of the challenges

00:09:19.780 too and you mentioned earlier people leaving toronto is that there are people of means that

00:09:23.420 can just say you know what we're gonna i work from home i can just you know go out to some you know

00:09:27.400 five bedroom place in king city and who's left it's the people that are the most affected by

00:09:32.960 these problems the people that rely on public transit that don't have that sort of mobility or

00:09:36.500 that sort of income and it makes the problems worse but it lets the elite people just sort of

00:09:41.320 say it's not my problem anymore and the elite people take the money out which erodes the tax

00:09:45.260 base and to be fair i'm not faulting people that want to make a decision for their family to move

00:09:48.660 out of the city i'm just saying they're moving out of the city the province they're going to florida

00:09:51.600 they're going there's an exodus from ontario to alberta yeah it creates and furthers a problem

00:09:55.580 when they do that no it absolutely does which is why we need to have a strong economy in our city

00:10:01.180 one thing i found remarkable andrew during the last mares race you know provincial and federal

00:10:05.120 campaigns, they're always talking about growing the economy, growing the economy, as they should.

00:10:08.200 They're talking about it nonstop. And I realized at a certain moment during the debates and the

00:10:11.520 events we were doing, I thought, there aren't too many, there were really no candidates talking

00:10:15.160 about growing the local economy. It's almost as if they don't acknowledge it's a thing.

00:10:19.700 They only want it in the abstract, like grand national level.

00:10:23.180 They just didn't even really acknowledge there's such a thing as a vibrant local economy. And

00:10:26.720 there needs to be, because all these social services that we talk about needing to get

00:10:30.260 people off of drugs, not further enabling the addiction, but get them off of drugs,

00:10:33.860 help all these people on the street who are also causing the violence.

00:10:36.640 So you help them. It's good for them.

00:10:38.100 It's good for the rest of us, our families.

00:10:40.000 To have those resources to do it, you need a strong tax base.

00:10:43.640 You're going to keep the taxes low, but you need that tax base.

00:10:46.020 And if all these businesses and business leaders are saying,

00:10:48.740 you know what, I'm not feeling anymore. I'm getting out of town.

00:10:51.040 Nothing's left anymore. Nothing's left.

00:10:53.200 And you can't look after the most vulnerable.

00:10:55.740 I mean, you can't share the wealth unless you first grow the wealth.

00:10:58.500 So I almost, and I was talking about this earlier today

00:11:01.240 with New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs,

00:11:03.000 in that Vancouver has done a great service to people like you in cities that aren't Vancouver

00:11:08.140 and that they've showed what happens if you do everything that the activists want

00:11:12.560 and the failure of that.

00:11:14.660 And I'm wondering if in Toronto, which probably would have had people

00:11:18.240 that were more sympathetic to what Vancouver's been advocating

00:11:20.400 if you were to ask them a decade ago or even five years ago,

00:11:23.420 if seeing Vancouver and what's happened in that city actually helps this argument in Toronto

00:11:27.800 when you're saying, just look over there. Do you want to be like that?

00:11:30.280 You know, it's rather tragic that Aaron Gunn can make a documentary called Vancouver is Dying and no one really objects to the headline.

00:11:36.180 Yeah, fair assessment. I mean, isn't that tragic? And we're seeing that more with our cities.

00:11:41.140 I'm really concerned that there's a lot of activism from the far left that just wants to downplay and ignore basic reality.

00:11:48.820 But the good news is, well, the unfortunate news, because it's necessary, Instagram and other online forums, they're pushing that out there.

00:11:55.720 And people are seeing these horrendous scenes on the streets of Vancouver.

00:11:59.000 you do not want your city going in that direction what got your city in that direction those policies

00:12:04.520 now in the u.s uh andrew we have a number of democrat politicians who are already pivoting

00:12:10.260 they're they're smart politicians so they know like in san francisco and so forth that mayor

00:12:14.380 she is pivoting she was a left-wing mayor and now she's suddenly kind of not as re-election

00:12:18.440 comes the democrats have found this uh you know newfound tough on crime but however however we

00:12:23.840 get the good results for our families that we need so we are seeing those changes and they're

00:12:28.300 they're going to happen. And I'm committed to still bringing those changes about in the city

00:12:31.500 of Toronto. It's the old Milton Friedman line I've talked about on the show in the past where,

00:12:35.580 you know, it's not about getting the right politicians elected. It's about making it so

00:12:38.540 that the wrong politicians do the right thing. And then, I mean, in your case, we wanted the

00:12:42.320 right politician elected. But here, even these terrible politicians are realizing this inescapable

00:12:46.700 reality. And I think voters should just not let themselves be deluded into thinking that

00:12:50.940 these problems weren't caused or exacerbated by these people. Absolutely. I mean, nothing would

00:12:55.120 make me happier than we vote in some left-wing politician and they're actually not all that bad

00:12:59.220 and you go oh great then yeah we don't have to feel that we need to run for office to replace

00:13:02.480 them or not and go and let them let them do their thing unfortunately andrew that's not the direction

00:13:07.420 unfortunately our cities continue to decline and conservatives and center-right people and people

00:13:12.860 in the big blue tent movement need to get in the game at the municipal level as well that's where

00:13:18.720 the action is at that is where our daily lives are most effective no i it's always been said by

00:13:22.900 people smarter than me that the way you affect change is running for council running for school

00:13:26.540 board i mean these are the most imminent and immediate ways to do it i know you've taken on

00:13:31.080 a new role with the frank stronic initiative on economic an economic charter and we spoke about

00:13:35.440 that in a great interview with frank stronic some months back but are you taking another kick of the

00:13:39.600 can i think that's highly likely andrew okay all right well we'll keep an eye out for that anthony

00:13:44.920 fury former true north vp of editorial former uh true uh toronto mayoral candidate great to see

00:13:49.820 again thanks very much all right see it's always good to uh to catch up with an old colleague of

00:13:54.920 mine but uh thanks again to anthony for coming on the show and i think we'll have more coverage on

00:14:00.700 this idea of what's happening to canadian cities what's happening i know i shouldn't even just say

00:14:05.380 cities it's canadian cities towns communities villages hamlets all of them to some extent are

00:14:11.060 dealing with this and i think if you were to talk to most people and ask them what their number one

00:14:16.700 issue is. They're going to say cost of living, affordability. Crime will not be far behind that.

00:14:21.560 In fact, in some cases, in some communities, crime might be the top of the list. And what's

00:14:27.300 fascinating is that when the federal government decides to talk about crime and justice issues,

00:14:31.980 it's always looking in the worst direction possible. If I may be so bold as to say,

00:14:37.700 or perhaps irreverent to say, the dumbest direction possible. This is what we've seen

00:14:41.760 time and time again on firearms you have gun crime people being gunned down in the city streets of

00:14:46.920 toronto and the government says oh you know maybe grandpa joe shouldn't be able to have

00:14:51.080 that hunting rifle anymore so it was in that vein that i caught up earlier today with tracy wilson

00:14:56.280 from the canadian coalition for firearm rights and it's always wonderful to catch up with from

00:15:04.620 the canadian coalition for firearm rights the wonderful tracy wilson tracy good to talk to you

00:15:09.620 thanks for being with us. Hey, Andrew. Thanks for the opportunity. I'm having a great time here.

00:15:13.480 So there are, you know, millions of gun owners in Canada. I think most of them tend to be maybe

00:15:17.760 not partisan capital C conservatives, but at the very least, they are people that have great

00:15:22.840 reasons to be frustrated with the federal liberals. But there are millions and millions

00:15:27.300 of conservatives in Canada who are not necessarily gun owners. And I wanted to talk to you about that

00:15:32.680 group because first off, is it generally speaking something that you can take for granted that

00:15:37.760 people on the right in the country when you talk about gun rights are on your side

00:15:41.220 well no actually you can't and for that matter i think gun owners first of all

00:15:45.940 have been forced to become conservative supporters you've got a lot of left-leaning gun owners

00:15:51.140 who may have supported other parties before but the liberals have have kind of backed them into

00:15:56.420 a corner at the same time you've got conservatives i've been in many twitter spaces and and other

00:16:02.220 venues where you have conversations and you hear conservatives even talking about you know maybe

00:16:07.400 throwing gun owners under the bus maybe that policy is too complex or too politically risky

00:16:13.500 you know maybe we don't need gun owners and it's it's discouraging because what it shows is that

00:16:19.700 the liberals have done a really good job in their messaging of trying to create a parallel between

00:16:24.720 legal rcmp vetted canadian gun owners and criminals where one does not exist one of the big issues

00:16:31.780 that i think will be front and center for canadians in the upcoming election is crime this is an issue

00:16:36.400 It's ravaging Canadian cities, not just drug and addiction,

00:16:39.700 but all the property crime that goes along with it.

00:16:42.140 The Liberals have tried to make it out as though their efforts

00:16:45.160 to seize guns from law-abiding gun owners are going after criminals.

00:16:50.160 And it's not even going after gun criminals, let alone crime in general.

00:16:53.680 But how do you have that discussion on this issue

00:16:56.280 when there is so much, to be frank, misinformation about that link

00:16:59.620 between lawful regulated gun ownership and crime on Canadian city streets?

00:17:04.060 Well, I think that what we've got here is we've got nine years of data on the liberal policy on public safety.

00:17:12.640 And unfortunately, it's been a tragic and bloody failure.

00:17:15.700 So we see violent crime rates rising.

00:17:18.920 At the same time, you know, you've got a government that's been focused solely on targeting licensed RCMP vetted gun owners.

00:17:26.340 And also, simultaneously, passing legislation that softens or lessens the crimes, the sentences for some very serious gun crimes, like C5 and C75.

00:17:39.460 This is a serious problem because when you have a government that is really tough on gun owners, but really soft on crime, you know, I'm not trying to wear a tinfoil hat here.

00:17:50.180 But it's almost like it's an intentional thing.

00:17:54.440 Like, they're going to use that increase in crime to continue with their ideological agenda against gun owners.

00:18:00.560 The challenge is that politics are always going to be downstream of culture and downstream of society.

00:18:06.060 When politicians talk about an issue, they're really trying to capitalize on existing perceptions and existing misconceptions.

00:18:12.860 And I think on the gun issue, Canadians that don't understand guns, don't know about guns,

00:18:16.700 it's very easy to prey on those people and say, we're going to take assault weapons off the street and stuff like that.

00:18:22.440 So how do you win the argument?

00:18:24.620 Because I know education has become a big part of what the CCFR does,

00:18:27.520 but you also run up against resistance from journalists

00:18:29.960 that don't understand these issues or are biased against you.

00:18:33.140 And when you're trying to get your message out,

00:18:34.780 it's just not getting out to people that need to see it.

00:18:37.920 Yeah, I think as a gun owner, I'm a middle-aged grandma from the suburbs,

00:18:43.020 but I've been a gun owner for almost 30 years.

00:18:45.440 And I think we've made a fatal mistake.

00:18:47.580 The CCFR is pretty young.

00:18:48.820 You know, we were born in 2015, sort of out of the liberal win.

00:18:54.940 But I think we made a tragic mistake as a failure as a community for 30 years before that.

00:19:00.720 We suffer from bad branding because we were kind of taught, you know, keep your head down,

00:19:05.700 keep quiet about your sport, don't talk about it, maybe you won't be noticed.

00:19:09.640 And the problem is there are, you know, middle-of-the-road Canadians who don't even know we own handguns or AR-15s,

00:19:16.600 let alone support it.

00:19:17.600 So a big initiative that the CCFR started a couple of years ago, which is coming up right around the corner, is National Arrange Day.

00:19:24.760 It's the first Saturday in June every year, June 1st this year.

00:19:28.220 And that's a day where ranges and clubs across the country open their doors to average Canadians to come in, see what it's all about, get a little education, and, you know, if nothing else, go away with a different perspective.

00:19:40.380 All right. And generally speaking, is your view that when someone has a gun in their hands, they're a convert?

00:19:44.340 well I mean if they don't become a gun owner at least they stop supporting bad liberal policy

00:19:50.100 me I think every Canadian should become a licensed gun owner why not well I also think every journalist

00:19:55.520 should go through the firearm safety course so they understand what comes along with it and

00:19:59.320 certainly politicians too yeah well yeah we should pass a law actually if you want to vote on any

00:20:03.880 firearms legislation you have to have gone through the firearm safety course let's get behind that

00:20:08.540 yeah I did a parliamentary petition on exactly that and of course it was shut down yeah well

00:20:13.360 par for the course. All right, Tracy Wilson, thanks for your work. And as always,

00:20:17.120 good to see you in person finally. Yeah, you too, Andrew. Thanks a lot.

00:20:22.920 There might be a little bit of polarization on the firearms issue, but one thing I can say is

00:20:27.800 that if you're talking to Canadian Conservatives, and I mean that with a capital C and a small c,

00:20:31.820 you're going to find the closest thing there is to a universal position is that we need to support

00:20:37.820 the Canadian oil and gas sector, the Canadian energy industry. Now, what supporting that means

00:20:42.960 is a bit different depending on who you talk to and certainly there are contentious issues about

00:20:47.060 things like the carbon tax which has become one of the most galvanizing for the federal

00:20:51.820 conservatives right now but I wanted to talk about that core essence of what energy security

00:20:57.660 means in Canada and also at a time when energy is becoming more and more unaffordable in part

00:21:02.660 because of inflationary pressures and also yes the carbon tax what that actually means for Canada

00:21:07.660 and the Canadian economy so very pleased to have joining me on the show right now Shannon Joseph

00:21:12.540 who is from Energy for a Secure Future.

00:21:15.280 Shannon, great to have you on the show.

00:21:16.520 Thank you.

00:21:17.060 Thank you for having me.

00:21:18.280 So let's talk about that security aspect

00:21:20.760 because we often hear energy discussed

00:21:23.000 in the political realm and the environmental realm.

00:21:25.400 And what does it mean to talk about this

00:21:27.360 in a security context?

00:21:29.160 So, you know, I think when most countries

00:21:31.420 think about energy security,

00:21:32.700 they're thinking, do I have access to energy?

00:21:35.260 Is it affordable?

00:21:36.620 Will it be resilient if it goes out?

00:21:39.000 Those are the fundamentals.

00:21:40.260 And do we have a system that keeps us safe?

00:21:43.620 You know, this past January when they almost lost power in Alberta when it was minus 41,

00:21:48.560 that was a safety issue, it was a security issue.

00:21:51.380 So I think that's kind of a baseline for the way people kind of intuitively react.

00:21:56.660 Now, of course, in the world, it becomes a big security question

00:22:00.200 when you don't have your own domestic energy

00:22:03.280 and you're relying on other countries to supply you.

00:22:06.000 And I think a lot of countries were very strongly impacted

00:22:09.320 when russia invaded ukraine they found themselves on one side of the conflict but then on the other

00:22:14.280 hand they were still customers of russian energy and have been seeking to get out from under that

00:22:19.560 so there are different layers there's like a domestic lens and a local and international lens

00:22:25.400 but it's about people having the things they need to live well and that therein lies the problem of

00:22:30.360 how canada can not just do more for its own energy security but also for the security of our allies

00:22:35.000 And that's why Germany is an exceptional example of this.

00:22:38.000 When they say, yes, we'd love to buy Canadian LNG and our government says there's no business case.

00:22:42.540 And then Germany has had to look at other sources for this.

00:22:44.880 Like this is an obvious and a preventable problem.

00:22:47.960 And I guess that's the part that I find so frustrating here is that the only barrier is government policy.

00:22:54.320 I think an important barrier has been the whole way that we've approached the issue of environment and climate change.

00:23:00.440 A lot of countries look at this with a real box around the country.

00:23:05.000 And it's like, how do we get down Canada's emissions or how do we get down the 1.7 percent of global emissions that Canada is responsible for?

00:23:12.180 You could cut to zero and you haven't saved the planet.

00:23:14.800 That's right. And and that's a that's because of the way the international policy is framed.

00:23:19.900 And I think there's a push more and more to take a global perspective.

00:23:23.760 And when you open up that global perspective, then you realize that if Canada got our LNG to other countries,

00:23:29.780 it could take a huge cut out of the emissions globally, way more than if Canada went to zero.

00:23:36.140 And not only would it do that, but it would support reconciliation in Canada

00:23:39.560 because Indigenous people are owners in these projects now.

00:23:42.380 It would create wealth here because people need jobs,

00:23:45.720 and some of these are the biggest jobs that are available to unions and other workers.

00:23:51.540 And so there's a big value proposition for Canada to take a step back,

00:23:55.700 take a global approach to energy and environment, frankly,

00:23:59.780 And that would be good for everyone.

00:24:02.560 When you find that you're doing your work, which is domestic, but also to some extent international,

00:24:07.700 is Canada making that case?

00:24:09.320 Is Canada even at the table?

00:24:10.620 Or is it really falling on organizations like yours to go around the world and say,

00:24:14.440 hey, we could be a part of the solution?

00:24:16.160 I think there's just been a lot of, I think Canada's been operating within the box

00:24:20.360 that was created for us by the Paris Agreement, which is a real country by country box.

00:24:25.920 And I think the last two years with that Ukrainian conflict, with the inflation and energy prices, with the scramble of countries like Germany, Japan and others trying to get other sources of supply, we finally started to have a conversation in Canada about looking at this differently.

00:24:42.000 I don't know if all parts of government are ready to go there yet.

00:24:46.640 But I think the more that ordinary people, workers, Indigenous leaders, farmers talk about the need for this bigger picture, the more we're going to get there as a country.

00:24:56.320 Let's just talk about reality here in terms of the political system in Canada.

00:25:00.060 Conservatives are doing very well in the polls right now.

00:25:02.680 You have a very pro-energy agenda that's been put forward, notwithstanding we haven't seen specifics from Pierre Polyev.

00:25:08.940 If he were to come in or there were to be a different government, just to not push you into a partisan role here, are we going to be still dealing with the consequences of not acting on this sooner?

00:25:21.820 How long would it take, even if you had a very aggressive pro-energy federal government agenda, that were to come in and say, yes, drill, let the pipelines go, build it all?

00:25:34.160 like how long would it take to actually scale up to a point where Canada can do what it wants to do

00:25:38.300 or what you want it to do? Yeah. So, I mean, there have been times when we've missed the window

00:25:42.260 and the United States got in there and now they're the number one producer in the world.

00:25:46.980 But the good news is today, Canada has LNG Canada that's almost done. We have the coastal gas

00:25:52.620 link pipeline that's mechanically done. We have Cedar LNG that had a great announcement. So we

00:25:57.260 have a lot of projects that are moving forward and customers can see they're moving forward.

00:26:01.600 If we had a government that said, we want this industry to grow, and this is part of our strategy for helping the world with security, with environmental goals, with energy and affordability locally in those countries, then the investment community could say, okay, we can have confidence to invest in Canada, in phase two of LNG Canada, and in other projects that we haven't even been talking about yet.

00:26:25.700 But these signals actually are really important, and I think that's an easy thing for a new government to do.

00:26:32.400 So I take from this that you remain more of an optimist than some other people in this space are.

00:26:37.480 You see, I mean, because most people say there's all this stuff we could do.

00:26:40.600 You're saying, look, there are things that we are doing right now.

00:26:43.120 We're not totally left out of this.

00:26:44.640 Right.

00:26:44.980 Well, I mean, one must remain optimistic.

00:26:47.420 Otherwise, one, you know, you don't get anything to do.

00:26:49.520 What's the point?

00:26:50.000 No one would take your meetings if you were going in and you said, oh, it's all done.

00:26:53.000 What's the point of this?

00:26:53.580 The reality is we are finally at a point where some of these projects are coming to completion and there is an opportunity to do more and the customers are ready.

00:27:02.060 And that's a nice convergence. And so can we, will we take advantage of that? We'll see.

00:27:08.080 But the good news is the moment is here and we can.

00:27:11.340 And there is a broader base than ever that support that, including the Indigenous leaders I was talking about.

00:27:17.140 Yeah, and we're going to speak in just a few moments with Stephen Buffalo on this from the Indian Resource Council.

00:27:21.140 I guess the one question I'd ask you would be about investor confidence.

00:27:24.780 Like, do you think a lot of that can be recaptured?

00:27:26.700 Companies that have said it's just it's too precarious.

00:27:29.380 I don't know if I want to do business in Canada.

00:27:30.860 Do you think those people can be reengaged?

00:27:33.460 Absolutely.

00:27:34.240 I mean, people will reengage if they believe that if they invest, they have a good chance of return and that they can predict what's going to happen.

00:27:41.780 They can predict the regulatory process.

00:27:43.580 They can predict that things will stick once a decision is made.

00:27:46.880 And I think with all the different kind of pieces coming into place outside of the regulatory process, let's say, it would I think people will look if they want to believe in Canada.

00:27:58.480 I hear that from places, you know, you're a rule of law country and that kind of thing.

00:28:03.080 OK, now we can we'll have a chance to show it. I think they'll come back.

00:28:07.020 All right. Well, there's that rosy picture we all needed as we engage on this issue.

00:28:10.600 You never know. Sometimes you get the doom and gloom scenario from people on this.

00:28:14.500 But I do want to throw to a conversation I had earlier today with Stephen Buffalo.

00:28:18.760 He is the president of the Indian Resource Council and has been really front and center at pushing this idea that energy development is not anti-Indigenous.

00:28:27.320 In fact, it's one of the most pro-Indigenous policies you can champion in Canada.

00:28:31.080 Here's that discussion from earlier today.

00:28:34.380 Awesome. Thank you so much, Shannon.

00:28:36.240 Joining me is the president of the Indian Resource Council, Stephen Buffalo.

00:28:41.540 Stephen, great to talk to you. Thanks for sitting down with us today.

00:28:44.500 Thanks for having me today.

00:28:45.660 I'll start, really, I'll go for the guns here,

00:28:47.880 because you have in Canada this narrative that we have in the media

00:28:52.140 that Indigenous people are anti-energy and that the oil industry is anti-Indigenous.

00:28:56.460 Now, you've been doing so much work to push back against that,

00:28:59.200 but where does that, I'll say, false perception come from?

00:29:03.660 You know, obviously, through the years,

00:29:06.260 First Nations have embraced this energy sector in Western Canada,

00:29:10.320 And primarily it is the driver to really wean ourselves away from federal dependency through the Indian Act.

00:29:17.600 And, of course, it's been a strong driver for a lot of our community development, education,

00:29:23.580 and then we'd be able to address some of the needs of our community.

00:29:27.480 This activism, obviously we want to protect Mother Earth for sure,

00:29:31.800 but, you know, having responsible development is key.

00:29:35.360 And I think there's some outside forces really coming to intervene,

00:29:39.280 get involved in our communities and then really push that envelope of

00:29:44.260 environmental protection in the wrong way you know it's they don't speak for

00:29:49.520 us you know these environmental groups the nations have a voice and then it's

00:29:54.100 really up to the leaders of the nation to decide but ultimately I think you

00:29:58.900 know there's some foreign interference as we heard before you know a good friend

00:30:04.000 of ours Dr. Vivian Krause you know she kind of opened her eyes to what's what

00:30:09.220 uh the intrusion that's coming into canada and in our communities one of the things that you've

00:30:15.380 touched on there which i think is actually quite an important issue is that you do have a lot of

00:30:18.820 these american-funded environmental groups that really try to appropriate indigenous causes in

00:30:24.180 canada and yeah you know indigenous people i've heard uh actually i think i might have heard you

00:30:28.500 say it on a panel last year two years ago they're almost used as pawns in in this when most people

00:30:33.700 are just saying yeah i want to be able to develop this resource that's in our community absolutely

00:30:38.660 You know, unfortunately, some of our communities are in despair, a lot of poverty.

00:30:45.540 And when someone tells you, listen, I'll give you $300 to go protest this pipeline for today,

00:30:51.160 you know, it sounds like a pretty sweet deal if you're just going there to hold a placard

00:30:54.460 and kind of scream out some false pretexts.

00:30:58.720 But, you know, that's just the reality of some of the areas that we're in

00:31:02.300 and some of the issues that we face.

00:31:05.820 Having an ability to make $300 for a day is sometimes a good thing,

00:31:10.660 but it is the wrong message.

00:31:13.320 And that's kind of what I want to say is it doesn't represent our true meaning behind this.

00:31:18.180 So the long game, though, is that if you do develop these sectors,

00:31:21.560 it's a heck of a lot more than $300 that people are getting.

00:31:24.140 Now, not every Indigenous community has access to oil and gas reserves,

00:31:28.280 but for the ones that do, what does that trajectory look like?

00:31:32.100 What is actually available to them if they do develop?

00:31:34.880 Well, you know, definitely there's big opportunities, there's entrepreneurship, there's jobs, you know, there's business relationship with the proponent, development of service companies, the list goes on and on.

00:31:49.000 And quite honestly, some of the Indigenous services are now expanding, you know, where there's a huge, huge jump into reclamation.

00:31:58.260 it's pretty hard to see any further exploration and production on first nation land only because

00:32:05.240 the land is all we have yeah so the reclaiming is a big thing so there's a lot of jobs and a lot

00:32:12.040 of opportunity for our people to show that not only one we can develop the resource responsibly

00:32:17.840 and two we can definitely take care of mother earth when we're all finished so in that sense

00:32:22.620 the oil and gas sector and developing it and that economic opportunity can be a part of this

00:32:27.200 reconciliation process that we hear governments talk about a lot of the time and often pay lip

00:32:31.880 service too absolutely you know uh true reclamation you know back in alberta we we had a site

00:32:38.360 reclamation program and we're a period six we we spent over 131 million dollars in uh actually not

00:32:44.660 irc but the nations of alberta spent 131 million dollars reclaiming their land and and we utilized

00:32:50.560 a lot of the community members their services their equipment everything like that I think it

00:32:57.860 was very positive it was a well good spend you know people don't know what First Nation land

00:33:03.540 is regulated differently there are regulators Indian Oil and Gas Canada and unfortunately

00:33:08.020 they've been asleep at the wheel for the last 25 years they don't I think there's 39

00:33:14.260 uh litigations against Indianola gas Canada from different communities and it's just we have to do

00:33:20.960 it ourselves and then I think we proved that through that whole program uh we're hoping to

00:33:26.220 do more of it uh our province in Alberta we're the province is still sitting on 132 million dollars

00:33:32.660 left over from that reclamation program and this came from COVID because yes and and uh we're

00:33:37.980 hoping that the First Nation can utilize it to continue the reclamation because we need the land

00:33:42.680 we need to build houses we have developments that we want to do in our communities but we can't do

00:33:47.320 it when there's abandoned pipelines abandoned wells just in the background right so uh very

00:33:53.640 important and of course you know again our first nation communities have proved that we can do it

00:33:59.000 if given a chance because it's right in our backyard and we have to take care of it steven

00:34:03.480 buffalo thank you thanks for having me well the questions that are facing attendees here at the

00:34:11.720 the Canada Strong and Free Networking Conference are mostly of a domestic nature,

00:34:15.280 but occasionally we can look to our friends and colleagues abroad

00:34:18.900 for best practices, things to do, and in many cases, things not to do.

00:34:23.560 I referenced earlier the rather lively discussion between Tony Abbott and Boris Johnson,

00:34:28.540 which was moderated by the always convivial John O'Sullivan, who joins me here today.

00:34:33.860 John, great to see you. Thanks very much for coming on.

00:34:36.200 Very good to see you, Andrew. Nice to be back together again.

00:34:38.840 Now, you're not just some foreign interloper in Canadian politics.

00:34:42.120 You actually have a Canadian connection by way of the National Post.

00:34:46.520 Yes, I lived in Canada for three years, almost four,

00:34:51.080 working, well, helping to launch the Post under Conrad, its founder and owner,

00:34:59.520 and under Ken White, who was a brilliant editor.

00:35:05.080 And I think he's the most...

00:35:06.320 And my publisher now, to give Ken a plug there.

00:35:08.520 Well, I think Ken is the most brilliant editor in North America,

00:35:11.820 and I'm always amazed why he hasn't been lured down

00:35:14.580 to take over the failing enterprises there and give them some vim, you know?

00:35:19.060 Yeah, so you've obviously, by virtue of being involved in the National Post,

00:35:23.880 you've seen actually some of the critical steps in the development

00:35:26.680 of the modern Canadian conservative movement.

00:35:29.200 I mean, Canada, as you're well aware, has obviously taken its cues

00:35:32.860 from the old British Tory tradition,

00:35:34.620 but we also had this Western populist revolutionary party

00:35:38.640 that has really, I think, become the senior partner

00:35:41.440 in this merger with the current Conservatives.

00:35:43.960 And I was wondering if you could situate that in a global context

00:35:46.780 because there seems to be a shift in Conservative parties around the world,

00:35:50.460 not even just in the Anglosphere,

00:35:51.820 that is moving towards what the media would call the far-right populist view,

00:35:56.280 but it's a lot more nuanced than that.

00:35:58.740 Yes, it's much more nuanced than that.

00:36:01.100 I would say that conservatives throughout the world are now a divided group, divided parties or divided into two different parties.

00:36:12.240 That was the situation of Canadian conservatives back in the, well, I'm trying to think of the dates now, but something like in the 80s and later.

00:36:21.060 Now, what happened in that case was that two very brilliant entrepreneurs,

00:36:27.960 Preston Manning, who started reform, and Stephen Harper,

00:36:32.620 essentially campaigned against the Brown Mulroney's Conservative Party.

00:36:39.760 Mulroney had actually very serious achievements to his credit,

00:36:43.500 but he'd lost touch, really, I think, with the Conservative rank and file,

00:36:47.540 well, outside Ontario and to the West. So, you know, that led to the complete implosion

00:36:56.300 of the Conservative Party here, which by the way is likely to happen, maybe not quite so

00:37:02.420 dramatically to the British Tories now. And so, looking at the, so to speak, wreckage,

00:37:10.300 Harper and Manning created a party which combined the Conservatives of the East with

00:37:17.420 the reformers of the West. I don't think, I mean, populism is a misleading term in my

00:37:23.260 view because it tends to be the view of the left about the democracy of the right. And

00:37:30.820 essentially what Harper and Manning did was to create a new conservative party that represented

00:37:39.980 the conservative voters of the entire country. And that's not a majority party, but it is

00:37:47.120 now in the last two elections, it gets most votes, more votes than any other single party.

00:37:53.800 And it is plainly destined, I think, only a huge traffic accident can prevent the Conservatives

00:38:01.360 winning the next election. And that means that they will have been in power a significant

00:38:06.240 part of this new century. And I think that they are a serious governing party, probably

00:38:13.520 going to be the governing the main governing party for some time to come

00:38:17.920 and I think that the Conservatives in the rest of the world

00:38:21.480 have got to look at them and say how did this happen because we need to do the

00:38:25.360 same thing

00:38:26.020 there are interesting dilemmas in Canada which are really across the Western

00:38:31.140 world in terms of population we have in Canada dismally low birth rate I know

00:38:35.140 in Hungary where your Danube Institute is headquartered this has been an issue

00:38:38.860 that has been

00:38:39.760 really front and center for the government there.

00:38:42.140 But it's not one we hear Western conservative leaders talking about.

00:38:46.900 I've never heard Pierre Polyev talk about birth rate.

00:38:48.920 I've certainly never heard Rishi Sunak or Scott Morrison

00:38:52.140 or any of these guys talk about it.

00:38:53.960 So what can they learn from Orban's party,

00:38:57.040 or even in general, some leaders that have taken up this question?

00:39:01.440 Well, you say that you haven't heard them talk about the birth rate,

00:39:05.920 but you have heard them talk about immigration.

00:39:08.140 Yes, yes.

00:39:08.860 And those two issues are closely related.

00:39:12.180 If you don't produce your own population, then other people are going to come in to fill the gap.

00:39:19.780 And I think that that's something which obviously has been most clearly realized by Viktor Orban,

00:39:25.780 but is also now being seen by British conservatives looking at the prospective defeat and saying to themselves,

00:39:33.140 look, we've made a mistake in trying to replace our own people

00:39:40.400 who are more and more likely to be not working,

00:39:44.880 to be receiving different forms of social and medical benefit and retiring early.

00:39:51.000 One of the themes of British life at the moment is where are our own people?

00:39:55.840 Where do they go? They don't come to work anymore.

00:39:58.340 Well, that's an exaggeration, but there's obviously a trend there.

00:40:02.300 So what I think now is happening is serious conservatives are saying, for some years now, we've been quite complacent about treating our own workers, offering them low wages.

00:40:18.880 If they didn't take those low wages, we'd bring in cheap labor to do the work.

00:40:25.320 And meanwhile, we would pay them through the welfare system one way or another to stay at home.

00:40:31.720 That's not a sensible way to run a country.

00:40:35.100 And obviously that's going to be the number one problem to face any government,

00:40:41.780 but particularly the Conservative Party in opposition.

00:40:46.420 And remember, they're likely now to face another competitor on the right

00:40:51.520 in the form of the Reform Party, the equivalent of the Canadian reformers.

00:40:56.320 And that's going to make right-wing politics much livelier,

00:40:59.940 much more competitive

00:41:01.480 and with competition

00:41:03.600 they're going to have to pay attention to their

00:41:06.220 markets, in other words, the people

00:41:08.260 who vote for them, and I think they're

00:41:10.260 going to have to turn to the issues that

00:41:12.140 reform is

00:41:13.680 preaching, and the

00:41:16.300 Conservative Party cannot really write

00:41:18.360 those voters off. I wanted to

00:41:20.220 on the note of the UK Tories,

00:41:21.840 see if you could help demystify this, because

00:41:24.340 every now and then people will send me

00:41:26.280 something and say, oh, you won't believe what the UK Conservatives

00:41:28.440 are doing. And usually I'd say, yes, I can believe it either way. But they've been very strong in

00:41:33.380 some ways on resisting some of the transgender wokeness and on migration. Every now and then

00:41:39.580 they say the right thing and do the right thing. It never seems to last. But then on the other hand,

00:41:43.520 this is a party that went all in on the very worst aspects of the COVID era. It's a party that has

00:41:48.700 gone all in on the very worst aspects of the climate discussion. And I'm wondering if you

00:41:53.320 could explain this, how they can be so strong on some issues and so terrible on others.

00:41:58.440 Well, maybe you reject the premise that they're not strong in any of them, which is an option.

00:42:03.760 No, I would say that the problem is, in politics, when new ideas come forward,

00:42:10.820 they often come in a deceptive guise as simply reasonable attempts to deal with social problems.

00:42:19.380 For example, the transgender issue is a very serious issue.

00:42:23.860 And at first, if you didn't really look into it,

00:42:26.380 anybody who said, look, these poor kids,

00:42:30.040 their minds are in a mess because they think they're in the wrong body,

00:42:37.200 we have to really hand them over to the doctors

00:42:40.000 and let them sort their way out to a mental health.

00:42:45.280 And one way forward is to carry out, give them drugs and so on.

00:42:50.800 I think most people look upon this as a policy of kindness.

00:42:56.280 That's the problem.

00:42:57.640 The fact is it is not kind.

00:43:00.400 It is creating circumstances in which we encourage children to take actions in terms

00:43:07.200 or to accept actions by doctors in terms of drugs or in terms of surgery

00:43:12.440 that are going to completely alter the rest of their life

00:43:17.080 in ways that 5, 10, 15, 18-year-olds cannot conceivably understand.

00:43:26.340 And that realization did not come quickly.

00:43:31.260 And it hasn't come to everyone on the right or the left, of course, to everyone still.

00:43:39.620 But we are now realizing that this was a mistaken policy.

00:43:44.280 And I think that's what's going to happen now is the Conservative Party is, in a way that, much more united way than before, is going to row back from that policy and look for ways of stabilizing and improving the mental health of these kids, rather than encouraging a mass mania that is going to damage them.

00:44:04.340 And I understand you actually talk about, well, you take on wokeness head-on in your latest book, do you not?

00:44:10.380 Yes, I think I do.

00:44:12.340 But taking wokeness head on is really not a question.

00:44:15.940 So much of attacking it is of trying to ascertain what it is and why it's a mistake.

00:44:23.100 I mean, there are so many different aspects.

00:44:25.600 The identity crisis, one, nobody expected that when the identity became a subject of political interest,

00:44:34.520 that it would end up with political parties attempting to deny that there was such a thing as a woman.

00:44:42.340 or there was a clear distinction between a man and a woman,

00:44:45.940 or saying that some women in the Labour Party

00:44:49.080 who believed that a woman was an adult human female.

00:44:53.240 Just imagine when you were advising Margaret Thatcher,

00:44:55.460 having to sit her down and say,

00:44:57.360 now, Prime Minister, you have to come up with a position on what a woman is.

00:45:01.800 That would have been such a foreign laughable,

00:45:04.460 that would have been a British telly sketch back then.

00:45:06.520 Well, it could have been exactly that.

00:45:07.460 It might have actually been at the time.

00:45:08.660 I mean, it's a great pity that, yes, Prime Minister didn't, in fact,

00:45:12.120 to include that topic. I don't think it did. And I'd like to see a version in which it

00:45:17.360 did. But yes, common sense is obviously generally a guide to policy most of the time. But every

00:45:30.040 now and then political manias occur. And indeed, in a way, my own view is that left socialism

00:45:37.960 is a kind of political mania. And we're seeing that in British politics today and indeed

00:45:44.200 in American politics. When you have seen the actual consequences in practical life of socialism

00:45:53.640 and communism, nobody in 1990 thought it would be a good idea to continue with communism.

00:46:03.380 In the Soviet Union, you couldn't find a communist except in the party, and they were

00:46:07.920 doing well out of it.

00:46:09.340 So effectively, sometimes, and a very interesting example, when Burke originally denounced what

00:46:18.560 was happening in the French Revolution, most of his fellow conservatives, Whigs and so

00:46:23.380 on, they didn't agree with him.

00:46:26.820 it was much too excessive, exaggerated. He was not demented exactly, but he was taking

00:46:34.940 things much too seriously. A couple of years later, when heads started

00:46:39.940 being chopped off by the guillotine, they came round to seeing that he had realized

00:46:46.640 from the very earliest stages where this kind of thing led. And essentially that's a very

00:46:54.260 common trend of events in politics. Wokery is now understood to be something that is

00:47:00.520 dangerous. It's a hydra. It's a beast with many dangerous heads. But, obviously, one

00:47:11.020 of them, transgenderism, is now coming under attack in a serious way from both doctors

00:47:19.140 On the one hand and also most recently from the Pope and we don't think of the Pope as someone who rages on about this kind of thing

00:47:27.140 No, and to the contrary you're my favorite book of yours from my nearly two decades ago the president the Pope and the prime minister was

00:47:33.960 Of a pivotal time in history when the Pope was part of this force vanquishing communism and the the current Pope could learn

00:47:39.900 Perhaps he should read that book and see what he could be doing

00:47:43.040 Well, I look forward to reading the new book John O'Sullivan from the Danube Institute wonderful to have you on

00:47:48.040 Thank you so much.

00:47:48.600 Very nice to be here.

00:47:49.480 All the best, Andrew.

00:47:50.220 Yeah, really good to see you as well.

00:47:51.860 Let me give you the book.

00:47:52.920 Oh, you brought a prop.

00:47:54.700 Okay.

00:47:55.220 There it is.

00:47:57.340 Sleepwalking into wokeness, how we got there.

00:47:59.520 Well, hopefully through that we can learn to get out.

00:48:01.540 Thank you very much, Sean.

00:48:02.860 Always good to talk to you.

00:48:03.540 Wait, is this signed, by the way?

00:48:05.080 No, but it will be.

00:48:05.820 Okay, it will be.

00:48:06.500 All right, I'll give that back to you for now,

00:48:07.800 and I'll pick it up after the show.

00:48:09.300 Thank you very much, Sean.

00:48:10.360 Always great to see John O'Sullivan.

00:48:12.300 I must admit, last time I saw John, it was on a cruise ship,

00:48:15.520 but he's always in fine form.

00:48:16.920 So glad to have John back on the show.

00:48:19.680 Now, you hear me quote all the time John O'Sullivan's first law, which is I'm worried about misquoting it in his presence.

00:48:26.600 But basically that any institution that's not explicitly right wing will over time become explicitly left wing.

00:48:32.100 And what's phenomenal about that is how true it is.

00:48:34.940 If you do not continue to swim upstream and continue to resist the currents that are trying to pull all of us in society and culture to the left, you will end up one of them.

00:48:45.640 And that's so true of organizations.

00:48:47.460 And by the way, so-called conservative parties are not immune to that.

00:48:50.460 If you do not actively stay and remain a conservative party,

00:48:54.080 you will become a party that is indistinguishable from those on the left.

00:48:58.100 So I want to bring it back home here.

00:48:59.960 There is a bit of an Andrew Lawton show tradition

00:49:01.940 where every Monday we kick back with our good friend Chris Sims,

00:49:05.260 who is the Alberta director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

00:49:08.240 But the conference didn't run Monday, so we did our Monday date with her

00:49:11.360 and we wanted to have her back on in the flesh on this Wednesday.

00:49:14.640 We don't have the Chris Simms theme song with us, though, so perhaps you'll do a live rendition.

00:49:20.080 But, Chris, good to have you in person.

00:49:21.840 Thanks for coming.

00:49:22.600 You do not want me singing.

00:49:24.000 No, I don't.

00:49:24.840 Will that just make the numbers plummet down?

00:49:26.600 Okay.

00:49:26.980 All right.

00:49:27.820 Disregard that.

00:49:28.460 You can just pick it up from the show we did last week.

00:49:31.120 But, Chris, obviously the Canadian Taxpayers Federation here in full force.

00:49:35.120 We can't turn our cameras around, but you're right across there.

00:49:38.220 You've got the Teddy Award, which is like the preeminent award for government waste.

00:49:43.120 Do you get to the point where you have too many nominees now?

00:49:45.940 Oh, yes.

00:49:46.720 So we call it, when we do our nominations each year, we call it the Battle Royal.

00:49:50.940 I'm speaking outside of school here, so I hope it's okay with my boss.

00:49:53.720 And the conference call lasts like five hours.

00:49:56.500 And we all have to make our hard pitch for what we want to be for our region.

00:50:00.800 So you have the municipal category, you have the Alberta category or provincial category, and then federal.

00:50:06.300 And then there's lifetime achievement.

00:50:07.620 And for the last few years, unfortunately, there's been so many nominees that it's a real fight to see who wins.

00:50:14.140 And it is so much money being wasted. But yeah, Teddy is definitely a big highlight of the year.

00:50:18.900 You were obviously there this morning when I did the interview with New Brunswick Premier Brian Higgs.

00:50:23.420 Tomorrow, I'm in your domain doing an interview with Premier Danielle Smith.

00:50:27.240 What are the issues that you think, and you can talk about Danielle Smith, or in general,

00:50:30.840 provincial premiers should be tackling when they're at a forum like this.

00:50:34.180 And you have that advantage of speaking to your movement faithful.

00:50:38.000 This is the red meat group where you really can't try to be the whole winning over the CBC type.

00:50:43.660 Yeah, exactly.

00:50:44.460 What I love about this conference and this forum is that you're speaking directly to your base, as you point out well.

00:50:49.440 But if you look carefully, there's also some press gallery journalists around here because it's right down the street.

00:50:55.420 And so you're getting this alloy, really, of the grassroots red meat base and the fancy people in the press gallery

00:51:03.380 who can turn around and take that message up to Parliament Hill and pressure Trudeau to do things.

00:51:08.480 And what I find fascinating is now I think it passed with almost all parties except for the Liberals

00:51:13.460 pressuring Trudeau to have a conference on the carbon tax.

00:51:17.060 So that is huge.

00:51:18.800 And so we're really happy to see that kind of movement.

00:51:21.540 And we're really happy to see things like axing the tax really becoming a headline now.

00:51:26.280 For a long time, people were just taking it on the chin.

00:51:29.300 They were spending way too much money on this carbon tax.

00:51:31.440 And now it's a headline item.

00:51:32.800 And so we're really pleased to see that.

00:51:34.880 Yeah, I get somewhat pessimistic on these things when you have leaders like Pierre Polyev, for example,

00:51:39.740 that are constantly beating the drum on a particular issue, as the opposition leader is supposed to do.

00:51:43.920 And you say, OK, what's the point of all of this?

00:51:45.820 But at the same time, I will say that part of this, I think, is a Polyev specific thing.

00:51:50.200 You see ways that he has had tremendous influence.

00:51:53.920 One great example is the number of people I hear use the word gatekeepers now compared to even a couple of years ago.

00:52:00.080 Like, this has actually become a word that has really been adopted into the political discourse beyond the conservative media.

00:52:06.020 Some people use it ironically and as a joke, but people get that concept that, yeah, there are gatekeepers that are standing in the way of progress, development, of liberty, of all of these things.

00:52:15.860 Yes, exactly.

00:52:16.800 People often joke about slogans, but slogans and icons matter because they're short and they put an image in your mind and you remember them.

00:52:26.940 it also really matters to tell a story and paint a picture and while I'm really

00:52:31.800 glad that he says things like axe the tax because that sticks in your mind it's

00:52:35.040 very similar to a bumper sticker of scrap the tax I like how he paints a

00:52:39.480 picture as well and he describes the Canadian family coming home to the home

00:52:43.860 they can afford and one of the best things I've ever heard in communications

00:52:48.600 was from Maya Angelou who said something to the effect of people may not remember

00:52:53.100 what you say. They'll always remember how you made them feel. And he really had the room when

00:52:59.640 he was describing that. He almost had himself. He got a little bit, tiny bit choked up if you

00:53:04.580 look carefully there. And so I find that messaging really important. And that's something that we

00:53:08.740 try to do at the Taxpayers Federation. We take the numbers, yes, but we make it about a story,

00:53:14.660 right? Because, you know, you can say, oh, well, the carbon tax costs you $85 per ton.

00:53:20.320 What's a ton?

00:53:21.200 Honey, did you pick up a ton of carbon on the way home?

00:53:23.800 Nobody knows what that means, but they sure know what it means if you spend.

00:53:26.660 They know what it means on a liter of gas.

00:53:27.800 That's right.

00:53:28.220 And they know what it means on the heating bill, right?

00:53:31.080 $13 per minivan.

00:53:32.720 Yeah.

00:53:33.200 It's $18 per pickup truck.

00:53:36.160 $350 per winter.

00:53:37.940 That's how much the carbon tax is costing you.

00:53:40.080 And I think that was really effective.

00:53:41.900 Yeah, I would agree.

00:53:43.000 I mean, I deal with this stuff for a living.

00:53:45.200 It's the same as when we were talking about wind turbines and people in Ontario.

00:53:47.820 And people would make the argument, oh, it's this.

00:53:49.100 you know kilowatt hours that none of that matters to people it's how much is it on their bill on

00:53:53.480 their energy bill on their hydro bill because that's a number people have committed to memory

00:53:56.700 everyone knows how much they spend at the grocery store you know spending three hundred dollars to

00:54:00.320 get food for you know a family of four for just a few days people know those numbers exactly i can

00:54:05.300 get so what it costs you to extra to fill up a pickup truck now light duty so if you're 18

00:54:09.960 i can get a roast chicken and a jug of milk for that you're taking food out of my fridge and off

00:54:15.520 my table and for no reason right even if canada ceased to exist god forbid if we stopped eating

00:54:21.920 we stopped heating our homes we stopped driving it wouldn't make a dent in global emissions if we

00:54:26.080 really want to fight global emissions why don't we tackle the big end of the arithmetic problem

00:54:29.760 again as has been pointed out by so many panelists and this was almost taboo to talk about these

00:54:35.440 things five or six years ago this was you know it was it was such a fait accompli we had the

00:54:41.680 former previous leader of the Conservative Party do a massive flip-flop and say, okay, a carbon tax

00:54:46.440 is just fine. It sure isn't fine. Yeah, I don't know where I can redeem my O'Toole box now, but

00:54:51.420 we'll have to figure that out. Your solar blender? Yeah, yeah, exactly. I can buy an energy efficient

00:54:56.000 way home. So I can buy carbon offsets on my Air Canada flight with those O'Toole box. But

00:55:00.680 you raised that point. And I think another area where I'd say events like this are valuable

00:55:05.360 is always providing that baseline Conservative position to say to any leader that thinks of

00:55:10.840 doing that, whether it's Pierre Paulyev or Danielle Smith or anyone. No, we won't stand for

00:55:14.580 that. I mean, because if you can't talk about conservative ideas around conservatives, you're

00:55:18.680 never going to be able to talk about them anywhere else. And that was the problem with, I say, the

00:55:22.240 Conservative Party in 2021, is that they didn't even really have an interest in cementing those

00:55:26.760 base, unflappable, unshakable principles. So when they put out this platform and they get bad press

00:55:31.740 from the media, it's easy to just say, oh, yeah, well, we changed our mind on that. It's like, well,

00:55:35.460 it's laminated. Like, if you printed it, why are you changing your mind on your own platform? But

00:55:39.200 It's easy to do that if you haven't actually committed to represent, I mean, largely the people that are in this room behind us.

00:55:45.760 Yeah, and I think there's a bunch of factors at play here.

00:55:48.980 So you and I have both worked in mainstream media and in new and alternative and independent media.

00:55:54.140 And the waning of the power of the mainstream media and thus of the press gallery, I think, has given some politicians the courage to kind of reach past them, right?

00:56:04.900 to reach past the gatekeeper, right, to use that term,

00:56:07.600 and to speak directly to their base and have the confidence in it.

00:56:10.320 And now they can have a direct email list.

00:56:12.900 They can have a YouTube channel that's getting more views than the CBC.

00:56:15.960 They can see in real time that they're getting their message through.

00:56:19.600 Up until a few years ago, they would have been guessing

00:56:22.340 if they had dared gone against the narrative

00:56:24.720 and tried to vault that press gallery.

00:56:27.760 Now they can see it.

00:56:28.820 They can see it in the subscriptions, in the views, and in their donations.

00:56:32.360 Yeah. Very well said.

00:56:33.480 Chris Sims, great to see you in person.

00:56:35.440 I see you in person every now and then, but not on our regular Monday check-in.

00:56:38.780 I'm his official photographer.

00:56:40.180 Yeah, very vibrant as always, both in blazer and in demeanor.

00:56:43.980 So, Chris Sims, thank you so much.

00:56:45.860 I guess we'll see you on Monday in the regular time, but it won't be like this anymore.

00:56:49.080 So, all right.

00:56:49.860 Well, with that, I will say to you all that concludes our program for today.

00:56:53.940 We'll be back with a bonus Friday edition of the Andrew Lawton Show tomorrow in lieu of Off the Record.

00:56:59.300 I hope you Off the Record loyalists won't mind, but we're preempting it just while we're here.

00:57:03.100 and we got the big fancy set up.

00:57:04.480 But we will talk to you tomorrow in just 23 hours.

00:57:07.380 Thank you, God bless, and good day to you all.

00:57:11.140 Thanks for listening to The Andrew Vaughn Show.

00:57:13.160 Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.

00:57:33.100 You

Juno News - April 12, 2024

What's happening to Canadian cities？｜ CSFN Day 2

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