Juno News - What’s next for the Conservatives？

00:00:00.000 The Freedom Rally scores another victory as the Conservative Party of Canada dumps their Liberal

00:00:05.200 Light Leader, Erin O'Toole. What's next for the Conservative Party of Canada? I'm Candice Malcolm

00:00:09.520 and this is The Candice Malcolm Show. Hi everyone, thank you so much for tuning in. So ever since

00:00:19.120 the news broke that a freedom convoy was heading to Ottawa, to the Canadian Parliament, to the

00:00:24.800 capital of Canada, to protest against government overreach, to protest against mandates specifically

00:00:29.760 on truckers, but also just generally protests against government overreach, the suspension of

00:00:34.720 our charter over the past two years, that really has galvanized the country in support of these

00:00:40.160 truckers. And let me just say the truckers are winning. I know that the media is working in

00:00:45.200 overtime to try to smear them, to try to derail them, to try to discredit them. But I think more and more

00:00:50.000 people are tuning out from that noise and more and more people are focusing on the task at hand,

00:00:55.200 which is getting our country back, getting back on track with freedom. And we are seeing little

00:00:59.440 victories along the way. And so I think that, you know, a couple of big victories that we saw,

00:01:03.680 Quebec announced that it was going to drop its absurd, ridiculous decision that it had announced

00:01:09.200 earlier that it was going to add an additional tax to unvaccinated people. So the vax tax is gone.

00:01:14.720 That is a victory. Saskatchewan came out and announced that they were lifting all of their

00:01:18.960 restrictions. Restrictions are gone. They're now living with COVID. It is an endemic. It is not a

00:01:23.680 pandemic. Manitoba likewise announced that they are loosening their restrictions. And Alberta announced that the

00:01:28.800 restrictions in that province will soon be gone. We are hearing more and more voices coming out

00:01:33.520 opposing lockdowns, including Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown, former leader of the PC party in Ontario,

00:01:39.360 which is significant because this guy used to run the run the party. This guy used to run the party

00:01:44.880 that Doug Ford now runs. And he's out there really vocally saying, let's put an end to these lockdowns.

00:01:50.800 We've seen public opinion polling. So that report came out that 54% of Canadians agree with the truckers.

00:01:56.880 They want all restrictions gone. They want people who are sick to take responsibility for themselves,

00:02:02.320 personal responsibility to isolate, stay home, people who are vulnerable, personal responsibility,

00:02:07.200 protect yourselves, no more lockdowns. And there was this really, really interesting study that came

00:02:11.760 out from Johns Hopkins University. We covered it over at tnc.news at True North. And they basically said

00:02:17.840 that lockdowns didn't work. This is the most comprehensive study that we have seen to this

00:02:21.280 point. I'm just going to read a bit from it because it is really something. It is really something.

00:02:24.720 So here is a headline over at TNC. It says, lockdowns did not reduce COVID mortality rates,

00:02:29.040 according to Johns Hopkins researchers. Johns Hopkins is one of the best research universities

00:02:33.280 in the world. So a groundbreaking report from Johns Hopkins University researchers has concluded that

00:02:38.320 lockdowns did little to nothing when it came to reducing COVID-19 mortality rates and instead had

00:02:43.520 devastating effects on the social and economic fabric of our society. The study titled a literature

00:02:48.720 review of meta-analysis of the effects of lockdowns on COVID-19 mortality reviewed 18,590 research

00:02:56.640 reports to arrive at its conclusion. Like I said, I think this is the most comprehensive review that

00:03:01.200 we have seen so far. Lockdowns were defined as at least one compulsory non-pharmaceutical intervention,

00:03:07.360 including limiting internal movement, school and business closures, bans on international travel,

00:03:12.080 and more. Overall, we conclude that lockdowns are not an effective way of reducing mortality rates

00:03:16.400 during a pandemic, at least not during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers wrote.

00:03:22.000 In Edmonton, Canada, isolation and quarantine were instituted. Public meetings were banned,

00:03:26.400 schools, churches, colleges, theaters, and other public gatherings were closed, and business hours

00:03:31.200 were restricted without obvious impact on the epidemic. So no, lockdowns do not work. We're

00:03:37.840 seeing more and more evidence that all of the things that the Liberals said that were science,

00:03:43.120 that you had to follow the science, you had to listen to the science. If you weren't, it was because

00:03:46.640 you were wrong, because you're stupid, because you hated liberalism and modernity. All of those slurs 1.00

00:03:52.720 are proving to be wrong. At this point, it's so obvious. We know that the vaccines don't stop the

00:03:57.280 spread of COVID. That is why all these people who are triple vaccinated, including our own Prime

00:04:01.280 Minister Justin Trudeau, have COVID. So the whole justification for these lockdowns, and specifically

00:04:06.560 the vaccine mandates, that the idea that you can't go to restaurants or movie theaters, our own

00:04:10.800 public, if you're not vaccinated because you could spread COVID. That's just not true, because

00:04:15.280 everyone can spread COVID. It doesn't matter if you're vaccinated or not. And here we see that the

00:04:20.240 big solution proposed by governments across Canada to lock down, well, it didn't actually save lives.

00:04:25.760 So shame on everyone who are pushing these things. It is time to end this thing. It is time to do what

00:04:30.800 the truckers want us to do and end the pandemic, go back to life as normal, as they are doing in so many

00:04:36.880 countries around the world, the UK, most of Scandinavia, most US states now. It's like Canada

00:04:42.480 is the one holdout here, just gripping onto the power of forcing citizens to comply and do things.

00:04:49.280 And Canadians are standing up, saying enough is enough. Now I want to cover this sort of big story

00:04:54.800 of the day here. The Conservatives have removed their leader, Erin O'Toole. So we covered this in

00:04:59.760 depth here at True North. I did my show on Tuesday, sort of leading up to it, I talked to a bunch of MPs

00:05:04.240 off the record to sort of get the feeling on the ground, get the pulse of the party and what was

00:05:08.320 going to happen. It was pretty obvious to me after talking to those MPs and after putting that report

00:05:12.560 out that O'Toole was finished, that this was a foregone conclusion, he was going to be removed. And

00:05:18.000 that is pretty much exactly how it played out. My colleagues and I, myself, Andrew Lawton and Harley

00:05:22.640 Sims, we jumped on a live yesterday. And so you can go find that and see all of our reaction. We recorded

00:05:28.560 the show live at one o'clock. So like five minutes after we learned that Erin O'Toole 0.51

00:05:33.200 was getting removed. So you can see all of that analysis and reaction in that video there. But

00:05:39.200 I'll just kind of go through a little bit of what happened. So there was that letter, 35 MPs initiated

00:05:44.480 this saying, let's review this guy's leadership. Let's get him out right now. So in response,

00:05:49.120 Erin O'Toole put out a pretty firm letter saying, I'm not going anywhere. I'm going to fight for my job.

00:05:53.200 And this is my party. I want to continue to lead it. Obviously, he hadn't really read and had a good

00:05:58.240 understanding of where the MPs were at that point, because I think that letter just turned more people

00:06:02.640 against him. It was pretty divisive. And basically, he was calling the people in the party that were

00:06:07.840 going against him angry and divisive and extreme. And then he was leaking stories to the CBC and the

00:06:13.760 Toronto Star saying that the people who wanted him gone were like this anti-LGBT coalition within the

00:06:19.600 party. Well, that's pretty devastating to say about your own party on the way out. He kind of had a change

00:06:24.240 of tone, change of heart, because we had the story in the global news saying that O'Toole tells his MPs

00:06:29.680 he's open to changing policies if he survives the caucus for evil, which had a lot of people

00:06:34.560 chuckling. It's a little bit ironic. O'Toole was known as a conservative leader who didn't really

00:06:38.880 stand for anything. He flip-flopped on almost every single issue he ever talked about. He ran as being

00:06:44.160 a true blue conservative in the leadership race. And then he presented himself as a liberal during the

00:06:48.880 election campaign and flip-flopped on like every major issue. And I'm not even exaggerating,

00:06:53.440 be it carbon tax, defunding the CBC, his position on firearms, his position on mandates,

00:06:59.280 his position on balancing the budget. Like anything you can think of policy-wise, O'Toole has had both

00:07:04.160 positions. He's a flip-flopper. And so him coming out saying, hey guys, I'm open to changing my

00:07:10.000 policies if you let me stay, just re-emphasize all the reasons why so many people wanted him gone.

00:07:15.360 He couldn't make up his mind. He couldn't, he didn't stand for anything. He couldn't articulate his,

00:07:19.760 his views. He didn't have conviction. He didn't really believe in anything.

00:07:23.120 And politicians who don't believe in anything are never going to stand up for what is right.

00:07:27.680 They, they, they, they're always going to look to the polls to figure out what they should,

00:07:31.040 where they should stand on position. And then when you have something like the Freedom Convoy

00:07:34.720 coming into town, representing the working class and the people that the conservatives should be

00:07:38.880 representing. But then you have the fancy people in the media saying, no, no, no, these people are

00:07:42.480 bad. It, it, it emphasized again O'Toole's biggest flaws is that he couldn't make a decision.

00:07:46.880 He always had to look at the polls in order to guide him as to where to stand, where he stood on an

00:07:51.280 issue. He didn't have time. And so he waffled and flip flopped on the trucker issue. And by that

00:07:55.120 point it was like, okay, this guy has to go. He doesn't even know what he stands for. So again,

00:07:59.200 a little bit, a little bit sad that, that at the point where here we were on Tuesday evening,

00:08:03.920 it was pretty clear that O'Toole was going to get removed from office. And he's basically begging and

00:08:07.840 pleading for his job, saying anything, he'll do anything. More stories along those lines saying,

00:08:12.880 Aaron O'Toole was calling MPs and leaving voicemails, promising an earlier leadership

00:08:17.200 than August, 2023, if they vote to keep them on. It's interesting because after the election in 2021,

00:08:22.480 when O'Toole lost any, and he lost ground for the conservatives, like they lost, they won the

00:08:26.880 popular vote against Trudeau. That's great. But they lost their share of the popular vote. They lost a

00:08:31.200 bunch of seats, including in sort of target areas in around Toronto and Vancouver. O'Toole's strategy

00:08:36.400 was to run as a liberal in order to win over voters in big cities, in urban areas like Toronto

00:08:42.080 and Vancouver. And yet he didn't gain any ground. He didn't gain any ground in Quebec. He lost seats. So,

00:08:46.320 so O'Toole lost the election, but afterwards he came out as if he had won. He was, he came across

00:08:51.280 really arrogant, really sure of himself. He was continuing to malign conservatives. He had that 0.66

00:08:57.040 line saying that conservatives have to have the courage to change. And a lot of people took that

00:09:01.360 to heart because I think it seemed like what he was saying was that the courage to change to become

00:09:06.000 more liberal, more progressive, and they didn't want to hear that. And we didn't really see a lot of

00:09:10.640 reconciliation, a lot of humility from O'Toole at that point. I'm talking about in September and October

00:09:15.840 after the election. And then all of a sudden here he is at the 11th hour saying that he's open to

00:09:20.480 changing, saying that he'll have a leadership review earlier, making all the concessions that

00:09:24.960 probably if he had made right after the election, he would have continued to be leader. However,

00:09:29.280 at this point it was just too little, too late. So Wednesday morning, we have the vote to remove

00:09:33.840 Aaron O'Toole. It took a lot longer than people thought. It's supposed to start at nine o'clock

00:09:37.360 and we were supposed to get the results by like 11. Instead, it sort of turned into this long,

00:09:41.840 drawn out affair. Now this was completely off the record. It was a private meeting

00:09:45.200 and it was done virtually. So MPs were on their computers. So we don't know exactly what happened

00:09:49.040 in the room because it wasn't public. But according to leaks that came out from MPs and journalists

00:09:53.440 that were talking to people, basically got drawn out because MPs were making speeches for and against

00:09:58.880 O'Toole. O'Toole made a passionate plea, basically begging for his job and saying that he wanted to

00:10:02.880 stay. But again, too little, too late. So finally at around 12.45 in the afternoon on Thursday, members voted.

00:10:09.360 And we were told that the final tally was 73 to 45. So it wasn't even close. Conservatives voted to

00:10:16.880 remove Aaron O'Toole, fire him from his position. And he is no longer the leader of the party.

00:10:22.240 Later in the day, it took took all night, basically, but the Conservatives elected an

00:10:25.920 interim leader who is going to be Candace Bergen, the MP from Manitoba. She's fantastic, by the way.

00:10:31.440 I sort of wish that she would run for leader of the party, but I think she'll make a great, 0.68

00:10:36.000 a great interim leader in the meantime, while they continue to search for a new leader.

00:10:40.960 So that's the big question on everyone's mind, who is going to replace Aaron O'Toole? Well,

00:10:45.200 we haven't really heard a lot yet. But there's lots of lots of speculation. I think the front runner,

00:10:50.160 the first person on everyone's mind is Pierre Polyev. Pierre Polyev is a fighter. He has so many

00:10:55.520 of the skills that Aaron O'Toole did not, right? When I was talking about conviction, and being sure of

00:10:59.680 yourself, being confident, being able to decide where you stand on an issue without reading the polls,

00:11:04.640 without caring about what the elites in the legacy media have to say. Pierre is just that. He is

00:11:10.000 incredibly well-spoken. He is fierce. He believes in what he says. He knows where he stands on issues.

00:11:15.120 And you can see him. You saw him out at the Freedom Rally. Here we have all these journalists and

00:11:18.720 all these liberals and all these bureaucrats trying to tell you that the Freedom Rally was made up of

00:11:23.040 the far right and their extreme, and they had these Confederate and Nazi flags everywhere. Pierre wasn't

00:11:27.920 buying any of that. He was there. He was supporting them. He was cheering them on. He was saying,

00:11:32.160 this is what we need in this country. And I think a lot of people were really impressed and proud that

00:11:36.240 Pierre was so willing to get out there in front of the issue when some other MPs, including the

00:11:41.120 leader of the party at the time, Aaron O'Toole, was afraid to do that. So I think he's definitely

00:11:45.360 the front-runner. Leslyn Lewis is another name that's being thrown around. She ran for leader 0.88

00:11:49.760 last time around. She was very unknown at the time. People, you know, she was new to politics,

00:11:54.080 and she really got a lot of support. She ended up winning the vote in the province of Saskatchewan,

00:11:59.120 and becoming an MP over in Halton in Ontario. And so she's another person to watch. And then there's

00:12:05.360 a bunch of people that everyone's kind of speculating upon. This might be like a wish list,

00:12:09.280 but people are saying maybe Brad Wall will jump in, Michael Chong. There's talk of Patrick Brown,

00:12:14.720 who was the mayor of Brampton, jumping in. So regardless of who puts their name forward as a

00:12:19.440 potential leader of the party and who wins, there are two things that the new leader must do that

00:12:24.240 Aaron O'Toole failed to do. Number one, they must connect with the grassroots. They need to get

00:12:29.280 out there, talk to the supporters, talk to the base of the party to know what people are concerned

00:12:34.320 about. What are their issues? What are they worried about? How can the conservative party

00:12:38.480 represent them and speak to them and speak for them? What can they do to connect those people?

00:12:43.440 It is just so incredibly important to connect with the grassroots. And the second thing is that

00:12:48.160 they need to be an authentic communicator who believes in and can champion conservative values

00:12:55.040 and conservative ideas. That is something that Aaron O'Toole was never able to do.

00:12:58.640 You must believe in what you say if you're going to leave this party.

00:13:01.680 I'm Candace Malcolm and this is The Candace Malcolm Show.

Juno News - February 03, 2022

What’s next for the Conservatives？

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript