Juno News - April 03, 2023


What’s next for Candice Bergen？


Episode Stats


Length

4 minutes

Words per minute

196.48312

Word count

879

Sentence count

58

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged


Summary

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

Candice Bergen joins me at the Canada Strong and Free Networking Conference to talk about her career in politics, her retirement from the House of Commons, and her vision for the future of the Conservative Party of Canada.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
00:00:00.000 Joining me here at the Canada Strong and Free Networking Conference is former Conservative leader, Candice Bergen.
00:00:05.920 Obviously, Candice, you had to be the interim leader during the leadership race. 0.69
00:00:10.260 You saw yourself being replaced in real time.
00:00:12.840 And now you've left politics.
00:00:14.620 So why are you still here?
00:00:16.680 Why are you still immersing yourself in this world when you don't need to?
00:00:19.120 It's funny, Andrew, because when I let Pierre, our leader, know that I was going to be stepping down,
00:00:24.200 I said, but, you know, Pierre, I got into politics as a volunteer,
00:00:27.260 and I want to go back to being a volunteer because I still love politics
00:00:31.260 and I still believe strongly in what a Conservative Party does
00:00:35.160 and what we need to do for the country.
00:00:36.580 So I said, I'm going to be retiring my official role as a member of Parliament.
00:00:40.880 But I said to Pierre and my caucus, I still want to help.
00:00:44.340 So, no, this is still very important to me.
00:00:47.240 I like, obviously, meeting fellow Conservatives.
00:00:50.340 It was great to see Stephen Harper and hear Stephen and Preston last night.
00:00:55.140 And this is important.
00:00:56.140 It's important that we come together.
00:00:58.520 Our Conservative Party and our movement is made up of coalitions of different groups of people.
00:01:04.600 And I'm a big believer in we need to be able to disagree and still be united.
00:01:09.560 And I'll tell you, more than ever, we need to be a united Conservative movement.
00:01:13.400 So even though I'm retired officially, I'm still, I care very much about the country
00:01:18.560 and I'm still a Conservative.
00:01:19.880 I know a lot of people here made a big deal about Stephen Harper speaking
00:01:23.240 because he has kept something of a low profile in Canadian politics since he left office.
00:01:27.620 But I know from talking to you and other members of Parliament that I know,
00:01:31.340 he has never disappeared.
00:01:33.120 He's always been giving advice and talking behind the scenes.
00:01:36.240 So he's still maintained a very involved role.
00:01:39.580 And I'm curious what you think of his idea that he put forward in his remarks
00:01:43.160 that we're witnessing a Conservative renaissance right now, to use his words.
00:01:46.400 Well, I always find it hard to believe that we just don't always have a Conservative renaissance
00:01:52.240 going on because I just think any common sense person would agree with Conservative policy,
00:01:58.100 you know, should, if we did the good job and the best job of communicating them.
00:02:03.300 So yes, I mean, I think that every government has a lifespan.
00:02:07.120 And so we're seeing the end of this Liberal government's lifespan come to an end.
00:02:12.880 So I think there's part of that.
00:02:14.780 Is there a renaissance?
00:02:16.180 I hope he's right.
00:02:17.920 I do worry that in Preston alluded to this yesterday,
00:02:21.020 even policy around balancing the budget, that seems to be almost old school.
00:02:26.540 A lot of people, not to me, it's not to me, but to a lot of people,
00:02:30.440 there are certain ideas that I would consider to be a good Conservative policy that are rare.
00:02:36.620 And so I hope he's right.
00:02:39.500 I do worry the way young people are being raised and what they're taught at school,
00:02:44.800 our universities, you know, the bastion for Liberal ideas.
00:02:50.420 There really is very little opportunity for young people to hear of Conservative policy.
00:02:55.660 So unless it's sort of intuitively in them or if their parents are raising them,
00:03:00.480 you know, you need to be responsible for yourself.
00:03:02.340 You need to make sure your finances are managed properly,
00:03:04.900 less government, individual responsibility,
00:03:08.220 unless they're raised with that kind of as part of who they are.
00:03:11.980 You know, I think it's very, it's going to be very difficult, but I hope he's right.
00:03:18.200 Just lastly, what do you think that the non-negotiables are?
00:03:21.160 Because obviously Conservative politics and politics changes over time.
00:03:24.160 What do you think the core values that should never change about the Conservative movement are?
00:03:27.500 You know, when I was leader, I talked about fiscal, the kind of the four pillars,
00:03:32.240 fiscal responsibility, law and order, national unity, freedom of expression and belief.
00:03:39.480 Those are sort of the four core things that make us all Conservative.
00:03:43.540 And I think any other issue, any other policy can be woven into that.
00:03:48.280 And there can be, you know, all kinds of interesting things that come out of other types of policy and beliefs.
00:03:54.060 But I think those are four core foundations of who we are as Conservatives.
00:03:58.600 And last year, I just remembered you had to skip it because you had COVID.
00:04:01.760 You were going to be coming in person.
00:04:02.860 I did.
00:04:03.480 And then had to be in the video.
00:04:04.480 So do you like being in person now?
00:04:06.020 I do.
00:04:06.800 I do.
00:04:07.140 I was thinking about that.
00:04:08.300 And I was wondering, I thought, I wonder what it was like last year.
00:04:10.740 Because, yes, I did my speech and I was like just feeling like, oh, no, I'm not feeling good.
00:04:14.900 And I tested positive for COVID.
00:04:17.320 But only once, only got it once and I survived.
00:04:21.120 All right.
00:04:21.520 Well, that's what matters.
00:04:22.580 Candice Berger, former Conservative leader.
00:04:24.240 Thanks for your service in politics over the years.
00:04:26.200 And thanks for sitting down today.
00:04:27.340 Great to chat with you.
00:04:28.180 Likewise.