Juno News - Will the China scandal be the end of Trudeau？

00:00:00.000 Transcription by CastingWords

00:00:30.000 We'll be right back.

00:01:00.000 Transcription by CastingWords

00:01:30.000 We'll be right back.

00:02:00.000 Welcome to Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show.

00:02:13.920 This is the Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by True North.

00:02:22.620 Hello and welcome to you all.

00:02:25.180 This is another edition of Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show.

00:02:28.560 it is Tuesday, February 28th, 2023. Fantastic to have you aboard the show. I was planning to spend

00:02:37.320 a considerable amount of the show today talking about the rather feckless denunciation by the

00:02:44.340 conservatives of Christine Anderson, who we had as a guest on this program a few weeks ago,

00:02:49.860 completely adopting the left-wing narrative about this woman and so far not proffering any evidence

00:02:57.040 in support of it. Now I am going to talk about that a little bit later on in the show but I feel

00:03:01.700 we need to start with things that are of greater significance first and one of them is going to be

00:03:06.860 an extension sadly of a discussion we spent a considerable time on last week on the show and

00:03:12.420 that is China's continued meddling in Canada's elections and Canada's democracy. Now I want to

00:03:19.280 say first and foremost what I said last week which is that China's election interference is not

00:03:24.900 something that we should view in isolation. China is meddling in pretty much every Western

00:03:30.020 institution imaginable. You see China's hands all over scientific research, all over the academic 0.87

00:03:36.140 world, politics, of course, and certainly the media. So the fact that China is also trying to

00:03:43.440 interfere in and sway the results of elections should not surprise us. But we have obviously 0.82

00:03:49.240 a sentimentalism that exists around democracy because elections are very important. Democracy

00:03:54.380 is important there should be sentimentalism there which means that we should also be mightily

00:03:59.660 offended when we find out in tangible concrete ways not only that China is trying to meddle in

00:04:05.700 our elections but they've done so in rather sophisticated ways and the intelligence eyes in

00:04:11.440 Canada told the government about this who basically just looked at it and said yeah okay whatever

00:04:15.940 so what's happened now is the liberals have been backed into a bit of a corner as we've seen

00:04:21.580 Justin Trudeau has been faced with what is fairly concrete proof from a CSIS person or people who are leaking to the Globe and Mail

00:04:30.280 that there was a pretty long runway in which CSIS was raising its concerns with the government.

00:04:36.920 At one point, as we've learned in the past week, CSIS said to the Liberals,

00:04:41.300 you know, this candidate of yours in Toronto, Han Dong, you really, really, really should drop him as a candidate.

00:04:49.080 The Liberals apparently said no. He was a candidate. He won a seat. He's now a Member of Parliament and has been oddly nonspecific when it comes to the questions that he's been asked about whether he was the beneficiary of significant support from China's consulate in Toronto. 0.85

00:05:08.060 In fact, he issued a statement in which he said, no, no, no, this is all false, nothing to see there,

00:05:14.260 and managed to not even use the word China in his statement.

00:05:18.020 He didn't say, I take China's interference seriously.

00:05:20.820 He didn't mention them at all, but claimed that he had nothing to do with whatever it is he's being accused of. 0.94

00:05:26.720 Justin Trudeau, for his part, has said that anyone raising these questions is a big old dirty racist. 0.96

00:05:32.400 Take a look. 0.94

00:05:32.920 just a follow-up on that question on CSIS and handong are you saying that they didn't warn you

00:05:43.580 or were you warned and you chose to dismiss it for those reasons just wanted some clarification

00:05:50.840 once again one of the things we've seen unfortunately over the past years is a rise

00:05:59.480 in anti-Asian racism linked to the pandemic

00:06:03.460 and concerns being arisen around people's loyalties.

00:06:10.620 I want to make everyone understand fully

00:06:14.520 that Handong is an outstanding member of our team

00:06:18.960 and suggestions that he is somehow not loyal to Canada

00:06:25.600 should not be entertained.

00:06:29.480 So the insinuation is that Mr. Dong, like several other members of parliament or candidates,

00:06:37.760 was the recipient of support from the Chinese regime, either directly or indirectly through

00:06:44.800 the consulate, through other people. And this is a pretty significant allegation. No one is saying

00:06:49.360 that Han Dong is not a loyal Canadian or a patriotic Canadian. People are saying that,

00:06:53.580 you know, clearly China was seeing in him something of value to them. And we have to wonder

00:06:58.320 what that is and one interesting observation that comes out there was a day and I can't remember

00:07:04.060 when it was when parliamentarians were voting on a motion to do with the Uyghurs and Mr. Dong had

00:07:10.380 been in parliament all day he had been voting in favor of this motion and that motion and on it

00:07:15.160 went and when it came time for the motion on Uyghurs he conveniently wasn't in the chamber he

00:07:21.040 had actually left for what ended up becoming a unanimous motion now you might ask why would

00:07:26.800 someone maybe he had to go to the bathroom maybe he had to take a call who knows what happened uh

00:07:32.880 maybe he got his wires crossed and there was a scheduling error but why would a guy who had been

00:07:36.320 in the house of commons uh conspicuously be absent when it came time to vote on something when uh the

00:07:42.560 vote did not go the way that the chinese wanted so this is a legitimate question that we should be 0.85

00:07:48.320 able to ask but to justin trudeau if you want to have this discussion you are a racist and it's

00:07:53.280 It's almost as though this is a strategy by the Chinese regime to neutralize itself from criticism,

00:07:59.740 which is very much important and very substantive criticism.

00:08:04.120 Let's talk about this in further detail with Patricia Adams, who is the executive director of Probe International.

00:08:10.660 She's done tremendous work on China, has written about it in recent weeks as well.

00:08:15.800 Patricia, good to talk to you again. Thanks for coming on today.

00:08:18.820 Thank you, Andrew.

00:08:20.000 So let's start off with just the variety of ways in which China does try to exact its control in

00:08:28.160 the West. Because I think a lot of the times people have this very Cold War, Soviet-US vision

00:08:34.080 of what a spy is. And they imagine, you know, the undercover person that, you know, integrates

00:08:39.020 themselves in the community. But espionage and influence are related terms. They're not

00:08:44.160 exactly symmetrical and we see in China's case the number of institutions that they tend to

00:08:50.460 penetrate through academia, business, politics. It's quite vast. It sure is and it goes starts at

00:08:59.320 the at the international level and it goes right down to the municipal levels of various countries

00:09:05.000 And they are essentially following a strategy of destabilization so that they can wield influence in countries like Canada.

00:09:17.600 So they want to get people in Parliament and in legislatures and in city councils who will make decisions that are favorable to them.

00:09:26.420 It's a very clever strategy, I think. Rather than firing a bullet, you insinuate yourself into a country and you get friendly, especially friendly elected representatives who will come up with policies that are very friendly to you.

00:09:42.320 So for example, in Canada, they wanted Huawei to have the 5G network, they want to invest in critical minerals, they would like to have various contracts, for example, with the federal government so that they can monitor activity, and they've done very well in Canada, surprisingly well, getting contracts with the RCMP.

00:10:02.320 For example, a year or two ago, they were running the visa office in Beijing.

00:10:09.340 So anyone applying for visas coming from China would be well known to the Beijing police, who were the owners of the company that were providing the visas.

00:10:20.400 So they have a lot of different ways that they will try to insinuate themselves. 0.91

00:10:24.580 And as you say, universities is a very powerful way, too, because that's how they can steal technology.

00:10:30.220 When we're talking about some of the allegations that are at the core of these Globe and Mail and other media reports to do with election interference,

00:10:38.960 and I want to be clear here, we haven't seen the reports.

00:10:41.320 We're getting this all through, you know, through sources that are talking to the Globe and Mail and Global News,

00:10:46.580 and then those reporters are conveying them.

00:10:48.800 So even though it paints a very clear portrait, there are still some aspects of this that are unanswered.

00:10:53.980 But do we think it's that China is looking at various candidates and parties and saying, you know, we think this person is probably going to align with what we care about as a country, as a regime when these issues pop up?

00:11:07.580 Or do you think it's a lot more deliberate than that, where they're going to these people early on in their careers and saying, hey, we can help you along, but we need something in return?

00:11:16.660 Or is it a bit of both?

00:11:18.180 Oh, I imagine it's a bit of both.

00:11:19.860 For sure, there's a lot of communication between people in the consulate and I'm sure in the embassy, but between them and various people in Canada, whether it's universities, they have all sorts of friendship committees, they have trips of people going to China.

00:11:35.520 Absolutely, they're looking for contracts, they're looking for inns, they're looking for all kinds of influence.

00:11:41.480 And they are apparently succeeding.

00:11:43.920 I mean, I think that the documents that have been leaked are powerful, and we really should salute whoever is getting this information into the hands of Global News and also the Globe and Mail, because this is extremely important information.

00:12:01.700 If we don't have control over our elections, we don't have control over our country.

00:12:07.160 And it's clear that something's going on, something very, very serious is going on.

00:12:13.960 Part of the problem is that we don't have the tools to find out.

00:12:18.100 The committees in Parliament have done a good job trying to get information.

00:12:21.680 The problem is that they cannot get it because the NDP are teaming up with the Liberals to stop the disclosure of information through investigations at these various committees.

00:12:35.540 And then, of course, the government comes back and says, well, we've got lots of experts and they're reviewing the situation.

00:12:41.280 And we can assure you that the election is held.

00:12:43.700 Well, they can't assure us.

00:12:44.880 They can't.

00:12:45.300 It's clear that they did not.

00:12:46.400 It looks like anywhere from 9 to 13 and maybe more conservative seats were lost to the Liberals.

00:12:53.340 That would change a lot in the House of Commons and in the committees if those seats had not gone to the Liberals and instead had gone to one of the other parties, but especially to the Conservatives.

00:13:03.180 It would have changed the dynamics considerably.

00:13:06.000 Yeah, and I do think that the timing of this new ban on TikTok on government devices is obviously not coincidental.

00:13:14.640 And I think it's hilarious in a way.

00:13:17.080 I mean, it's a serious issue, but you can't help but laugh when people are saying we need an inquiry into election interference.

00:13:22.280 We need you to get serious on Chinese espionage and influence in Canada's elections.

00:13:27.500 And Trudeau says, OK, hold off on that.

00:13:30.220 I'm going to ban TikTok on public servants' iPhones.

00:13:33.800 And it's like, well, OK, sure.

00:13:36.440 But, yeah, let's get back to the big thing here.

00:13:38.180 And I mean, I realize that the hardest hit by this is Jagmeet Singh, who's having to kiss away now his, you know, 800 and however many thousand followers.

00:13:46.020 But in all seriousness, I mean, if this is the extent of our tough on China policy, we're in trouble.

00:13:50.900 Yes, absolutely. And I think what the liberals are doing is handing out small things in a piecemeal fashion.

00:13:57.900 They also have constructed an election monitoring system, many, many, many committees, so many committees, I was keeping track of them, so many that I started a spreadsheet because there were a lot of committees and a lot of protocols and a lot of initiatives and so on.

00:14:12.400 And it creates the aura that they are doing something.

00:14:16.800 But in fact, most of these institutions lead back to the prime minister and to the government.

00:14:24.020 That when there's a report about something going wrong, who gets that information?

00:14:29.140 It's the government.

00:14:30.360 It's not Elections Canada right away.

00:14:33.380 It's not CSIS and, of course, some of the other agencies, the RCMP, will have information.

00:14:39.940 they are lacking in tools, essentially, to prosecute and to actually stop this from happening.

00:14:49.820 So, for example, CESIS, they can investigate, but they can't prosecute.

00:14:54.600 They have to report to the government.

00:14:56.020 That's as far as they can go.

00:14:57.700 So that's why when you get reports from them, they tend to be public reports,

00:15:01.220 they tend to be quite vague.

00:15:02.740 The detail that's coming out in these leaked documents through the Global Mail

00:15:07.360 and through Global News are extremely important.

00:15:09.940 It's starting to give information to the public.

00:15:12.680 Ultimately, this is information for us.

00:15:15.740 This is our country.

00:15:16.920 These are our votes.

00:15:17.960 This is our government.

00:15:18.900 We need to know what is going on in Canada.

00:15:23.080 And at the moment, the Liberals and the NDP are stonewalling,

00:15:26.860 stopping that information from becoming public.

00:15:31.380 I'll have you back on now.

00:15:32.680 But what I was saying is that I loathe Trump comparisons

00:15:35.300 because I find them overused and rarely effective.

00:15:37.780 But, you know, I remember the hand-wringing and pearl-clutching when Donald Trump was criticizing the intelligence community.

00:15:43.640 And now we've got Justin Trudeau effectively doing the same thing.

00:15:46.400 He's calling the people at CSIS racist indirectly, and I'd say veering on directly.

00:15:51.400 And he's also essentially saying that they lied, because his whole line up to this point has been, yeah, I wasn't briefed, I wasn't told.

00:15:58.680 And it's as though all of this stuff he's learning about for the first time.

00:16:01.880 So he's actually boxed himself into a corner here where he can't say what I think would have been his best defense, which was, yeah, they gave us the intelligence, but it wasn't compelling.

00:16:11.200 And we moved on because he basically said, no, we never saw it.

00:16:15.360 And now he's forced to just say, oh, now this is you guys are all racist.

00:16:18.880 There's nothing there to his response.

00:16:20.740 Yeah, and the two documents that were released initially to Global News and then were made public at the PROC or the committee that's dealing with this in the House of Commons, they're publicly available.

00:16:37.260 We posted them on our website. You can look at them. They're heavily redacted, but there's still a lot of good information in there to look at.

00:16:43.600 So it's very clear that the government knew about this. I mean, you know, this is obviously a major issue.

00:16:50.280 it's been a major issue going back to 2010 i am sure that on the first or second day of being in

00:16:56.120 office that the prime minister was briefed on this he would have had a national security briefing and

00:17:02.040 this had to be on there it is a major issue it has been for over a decade there's no way

00:17:08.440 that he could claim not to know all of this information and and i think the documents that

00:17:12.920 are coming out show that he did know he was informed his office knew the pco knew they're

00:17:18.440 coordinating the receipt of all of this information from all the various committees

00:17:23.440 that he's established. So they know for sure what's going on. Patricia Adams of Probe International,

00:17:30.800 always a pleasure to talk to you. People can find much of your recent work on this at

00:17:35.340 probeopinion.substack.com and they should also subscribe when they're there as well. Patricia,

00:17:40.580 thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. And I should say, I mean, we're condensing what is a

00:17:46.460 years-long effort by the Chinese regime into, I don't know what that was, a 17-18 minute

00:17:51.480 conversation. We're going to follow this more, but as I said last week, it's clear that this is a 0.53

00:17:57.760 drip, drip, drip, as they say in media. There's more and more coming out about this by the day,

00:18:03.020 so it's been, I don't know, five days since the last show, and I have that many more stories

00:18:08.240 that I need to condense into this discussion, but I think the takeaway that you need to remember

00:18:12.380 here, if nothing else, because oftentimes when the liberals are embroiled in scandal, they want it

00:18:17.780 to be muddled. They want to obfuscate. They want it to be something that's so complicated that

00:18:22.180 people can't understand it, which was how they weathered the Wee scandal and SNC-Lavalin and all

00:18:27.040 of that. What you need to remember is that China has been backing Justin Trudeau since at least

00:18:34.320 2013. And this was an important development of this that just came out today, where a Chinese

00:18:39.700 businessman wanted to give $200,000 to the Trudeau Foundation conveniently right after Justin Trudeau

00:18:47.560 became leader of the Liberal Party. Now, you could obviously donate to the Trudeau Foundation at any

00:18:52.920 time. Personally, I would rather light my money on fire and then light myself on fire just in case,

00:18:58.940 but you could donate if that's your bag to Justin Trudeau's foundation. Sorry, Pierre Trudeau's

00:19:04.200 foundation. Totally different, totally independent, arm's length, etc. But if that's what you want to

00:19:09.600 do go for it. But it does strike you as a bit odd, I hope. If you want to donate, having never

00:19:14.680 donated to the foundation before, immediately after, the guy who shares a name with the foundation

00:19:19.940 becomes the presumptive next Prime Minister of Canada. That was what a businessman connected to

00:19:25.680 the Chinese regime and the Chinese consulate did. He gave them $200,000. Oh, the guy at the Trudeau

00:19:33.380 Foundation who received that donation is now the guy that's overseeing the report into China's

00:19:38.960 interference in the election. So remember that if you remember nothing else. And I would also say

00:19:43.340 beyond that, remember that first Justin Trudeau said this never happened. He was never warned.

00:19:48.040 He didn't have all this information from Ceasef. And now he's saying, well, it's all a load of

00:19:52.500 crap. The information's not real. You've got Gerald Butts on there doing the Globe and Mail 0.99

00:19:57.420 as fake news shtick, which is as Trumpian as it gets. And this is what we're now seeing from

00:20:03.720 Justin Trudeau. So whether it will spell the end of Justin Trudeau, I think people should always

00:20:08.180 remain realistic about this because no other scandal has but at the same time we also need

00:20:14.060 to realize this is big and you have people that have never said an unkind word about Justin Trudeau

00:20:19.640 now that are getting very uncomfortable with how this story is unfolding. Let's talk about the flip

00:20:25.140 side of this and some of the big picture discussions that are taking place in Canada

00:20:29.180 specifically around the conservative movement. In just a few weeks time the conservatives of

00:20:35.800 this country with a small c for reasons that we'll get to in a moment will be descending on

00:20:40.960 the nation's capital for not another convoy but the canada strong and free networking conference

00:20:46.740 i am going to be back the true north team is going to be there and i'll actually be doing a live

00:20:51.780 edition of this show on stage which i hope you will watch either in person or online but the

00:20:58.600 president of the canada strong and free network jamil javani is back on the show jamil good to

00:21:03.900 talk to you, sir. Welcome. Yeah, great to be back with you, Andrew. And certainly I would encourage

00:21:08.720 the audience to be there in person if possible. You can watch the replay online, but I hope you'll

00:21:14.060 be there with Andrew and I in Ottawa. There we go. No, that's the better sales pitch, especially,

00:21:18.380 I mean, the line for conservatives and libertarians is that, you know, it was illegal for two years to

00:21:22.880 gather in person. So you should like, just to spite the people that made it illegal, want to

00:21:26.280 gather in person as much as you can here. But this is going to be coming up in Ottawa. And I mean,

00:21:32.080 obviously it's a bit interesting when the conservatives are not the ones in government

00:21:36.680 because I think a lot of the time, and we saw this in conferences past, there's been leadership

00:21:42.980 debates there and oftentimes the people there really try to shape the future of the conservative

00:21:48.780 movement. So what's the theme or the tone that you're anticipating? Yeah, well, as you said,

00:21:54.240 Andrew, you know, the conference is coming up in just a few weeks, March 22nd to 24th

00:21:58.900 in the nation's capital. And I think, you know, the theme of the conference is a very important

00:22:03.840 one, given our timing, which is working for the middle class. I think the average family in this

00:22:09.740 country looks at our economy, looks at our politicians and says, they're not in it for us.

00:22:14.960 This is not working for us, the average person. Life is getting more expensive. Things are getting

00:22:19.700 more difficult. Institutions that should have our back don't seem to be advocating for our best

00:22:25.180 interests so we're coming together to think about what does it look like to have a government what

00:22:30.300 does it look like to make policy what does it look like to have an economy that's working for

00:22:35.100 the middle class family and a lot of that andrew to some of what you've been talking about today

00:22:39.980 is about looking past the trudeau liberals they are reeling they're not going to be around forever

00:22:45.580 at some point the good lord above will have mercy on us and there will be a change in government

00:22:50.940 and we've got to be prepared to lead we got to be prepared to do right by the canadian people

00:22:56.220 and a lot of why we're getting together in ottawa in a few weeks is to think about what it looks like

00:23:00.460 when we have the chance to start making a difference i know the the manning center

00:23:05.260 previously and now the canada strong and free network have always made a point of saying this

00:23:09.740 is about the conservative movement not the conservative party but let's face it there's

00:23:13.980 a ton of overlap there when you look at the speakers list we've got the leader of the

00:23:17.500 the Conservatives, Pierre Paliab. We've got Danielle Smith, the Premier of Alberta, people

00:23:21.660 like Garnet Janis. So where do you position this conference and your organization in general in

00:23:27.300 conservatism? Well, certainly I believe we are still about the conservative movement.

00:23:33.220 If you look at the politicians who are invited to grace our stage, they are people who we believe

00:23:39.160 care about the conservative movement. There is a difference between the party and the movement.

00:23:43.180 and unfortunately, a lot of people in political parties don't care about the movement. We'd all

00:23:48.280 be better off if they did, but unfortunately, they don't. So when we look at Pierre Polyev,

00:23:54.340 Danielle Smith, Stephen Harper, Garnet Janis, some of these folks, these are people I believe

00:24:00.020 want to serve the movement in the role of politics. But there are politicians who have not been

00:24:05.380 invited to our stage, Andrew, and for good reason, because they have a track record of not showing

00:24:11.160 concern for the grassroots conservatives like the folks listening to us now who make the party

00:24:17.600 possible. And that's one thing I always like to remind people. The political parties depend

00:24:22.600 on volunteers. They depend on small dollar donors, the people who make up the movement.

00:24:28.520 And we need to make sure that the party is accountable to the movement. That's one of

00:24:32.960 the reasons why we build relationships with politicians, but ultimately we are independent

00:24:37.600 for good reason. Well, and there's also always been a focus on the pragmatic. And I know

00:24:43.500 historically best practices, which is more training oriented, has been a separate event.

00:24:48.540 But I think a lot of the times it's easy and I think important to sit around and talk about the

00:24:52.420 big ideas. But if you don't have people that are interested or capable of putting those ideas into

00:24:56.880 fruition, you're not really anything more than a talk shop. Exactly. And that's one thing I

00:25:03.280 absolutely love about Preston Manning's legacy. He was one of the co-founders of our organization

00:25:08.580 15 years ago, and he continues to be an advisor to me, a mentor to me. And a lot of what he

00:25:14.440 encourages us to think about is how do we solve problems? How do we make sure we're not just

00:25:19.960 talking, but we're laying out a foundation for how we can create change? And that is the spirit

00:25:25.420 of our conference. You know, we do networking because we believe relationships and community

00:25:30.100 are important, but we also need to learn from each other. And that's going to be how we solve

00:25:34.440 problems. And as I said, start to prepare for a post Trudeau world, because this guy's not going

00:25:40.760 to be prime minister forever. And we've got to know what we're going to do to make the country

00:25:44.740 better when he's no longer leading us. That actually could have been a good conference

00:25:49.420 title preparing for the post Trudeau world. But it's funny, though, because I remember the

00:25:54.500 conference in, I think it was 2016, and there was a little bit of wound licking going on. People that

00:26:01.640 saw, you know, the conservatives had just been trounced by Justin Trudeau, a liberal majority.

00:26:06.400 The party didn't have a leader yet to replace Trudeau. In 2017, the leadership race was ongoing,

00:26:13.640 and I remember Ronna Ambrose was very popular. There was the big leadership debate that had like

00:26:18.360 97 candidates, and they couldn't, you know, fit them all on stage at once. But I think that

00:26:23.580 there's there's a little bit more optimism now than there has been even you know as recently as

00:26:28.480 a couple years ago about where things are which is quite helpful i agree and in my view a lot of

00:26:35.240 the optimism andrew comes from the fact that we're becoming more confident and apologetic

00:26:41.480 about why conservatism is good for canadians there was this time over a few years between

00:26:48.060 I would say when Harper lost the election to Trudeau in 2015 and up until last year where it

00:26:54.500 felt like we were constantly operating on the defense, constantly apologizing for who we are

00:27:00.040 and what we believe in. But now we're starting to be emboldened by the reality that liberal

00:27:04.960 ideology is actually failing the average Canadian. And that is why the conservative movement has to

00:27:10.260 step up. We've got to be active. We've got to be confident and we've got to show people we can make

00:27:15.400 things better. Our ideas work. We are not going to play defense. We're not going to be pushed

00:27:20.200 around and bullied by the left. We have a real alternative to put forward. So just to talk about

00:27:26.920 one of the challenges in conservatism here, and I know this is about a week old now, but I think

00:27:31.720 it's relevant in that you had, and you've been doing a tremendous job, by the way, as president

00:27:36.200 of this organization for about a year now, and you had a very, I think, incisive and thoughtful

00:27:42.840 discussion on critical race theory in which you had black people speaking about this from their

00:27:48.940 own perspectives and as analysts and as people with lived experience, to use the word that

00:27:53.480 is so en vogue right now. And then James Moore, a I would presume non-black identifying man,

00:28:00.920 a former conservative cabinet minister, tweets out, this is what the Manning Center has devolved

00:28:07.020 into, such a shame. And I know you addressed this very eloquently in that discussion, but explain to

00:28:11.580 me why you have people in the conservative movement and the conservative orbit in this

00:28:16.880 country that think there's something wrong with talking about issues that matter to people.

00:28:22.540 Yeah, it's weird because, you know, someone like James Moore, who really should know better,

00:28:27.320 he's a cabinet minister in the Harper administration. You know, you would think

00:28:31.780 he'd be happy to see black people getting involved in conservative politics. I mean,

00:28:35.760 that is what people like James Moore often say. They want more diversity, but then they get upset

00:28:40.800 when diversity isn't what they expect it to look like.

00:28:44.440 And I think Dr. Lesley Lewis has faced a lot of that same blowback as well.

00:28:50.640 I guess, Andrew, there's sort of a charitable interpretation

00:28:52.960 of someone like James Moore's criticisms,

00:28:55.800 and then there's maybe a less charitable.

00:28:58.000 On the charitable side, I'd say maybe he just doesn't know better.

00:29:01.520 You know, this is a guy who might pay attention to politics

00:29:03.680 but might not understand that there's a lot of differences of opinion

00:29:07.460 in minority communities.

00:29:08.600 Maybe he thinks that things like critical race theory are associated with folks that he disagrees with and he doesn't understand how important it would be for conservatives from black communities and other minority communities to want to talk about these issues since it shapes the policies liberals create that affect our kids, that affect our communities, our neighborhoods. 0.97

00:29:28.480 So if I'm charitable, I'll say maybe he's just ignorant. But I think the more likely interpretation of it is that there is a conservative elite that wants us to play nice and play polite, that anything that might not get them invited to fancy cocktail parties or dinners on Bay Street all of a sudden becomes taboo topics we shouldn't care about.

00:29:50.740 But that's exactly why the theme of our conference in March is working for the middle class, because I don't care ultimately for James Moore's approval. And most, I would hope, conservatives, the conservative movement doesn't either. We shouldn't be trying to please James Moore, people at fancy law firms, people on Bay Street, people who are advocating like James Moore does for more business between Canada and China.

00:30:13.500 by the way we should be in my view prioritizing the needs of the average mom and dad the average

00:30:19.340 worker the average student in this country and if that means that we have to champion issues that

00:30:24.460 people like james more get offended by then he's welcome to get offended i could i could care less

00:30:30.060 you know i remember when when the conservatives were in government uh the manning conferences at

00:30:35.220 the time were you know basically the the rundown and i i'm not at all besmirching it but the rundown

00:30:40.140 was oftentimes, you know, this conservative cabinet minister will speak and then this

00:30:43.820 conservative cabinet minister will speak and then this conservative. And again, you want to hear

00:30:47.660 from them. It's good. Ministers are big celebrities. But what you're saying indirectly, I think, is

00:30:53.220 actually quite important here, which is that they should be listening. The politicians and future

00:30:58.040 and current for the conservative party should be the ones in the audience, largely listening to

00:31:02.800 what other people in the movement are saying if they want to be connected and relevant to the

00:31:07.020 grassroots. You're exactly right. And that's part of how we've organized this event. When Premier

00:31:13.640 Danielle Smith is on stage, she'll be on stage with a business leader, Jocelyn Bamford. When

00:31:19.820 the Honorable Pierre Polyev is on stage, she'll be introduced by a business leader,

00:31:24.340 Vesso Sobot. When we welcome MPs on, they will often be speaking with other people as equals

00:31:31.420 because we do not put politicians above the movement. And that is a really important

00:31:36.000 principle that we live by and as i mentioned before you will notice that there are some

00:31:40.400 politicians who are not on our stage and we're very careful about who we invite because we

00:31:44.560 believe it's important to invite people to speak to our audience who respect our audience and

00:31:50.160 respect the conservative movement at minimum i think conservatives deserve that so no one who

00:31:55.280 uh thinks the audience are a bunch of yahoos for example well you know there are some politicians

00:32:01.360 who I yeah I would say use words like that and you know it's it can be a little bit discouraging

00:32:07.220 and a little bit sad to see but my hope is that you know as we strengthen the movement and we

00:32:12.220 build the movement we'll show politicians that you know they really have to spend the time to

00:32:16.480 understand us if they want to be elected if they want to be able to do their job well if they want

00:32:21.260 to go around claiming to be a conservative then they absolutely need to speak to conservatives

00:32:26.300 and not take us for granted. Yeah and I mean I think we could do a whole hour probably a whole

00:32:30.800 week of shows on, you know, conservatism in general in this country, but I've always believed

00:32:35.420 that capital C conservatives should never be allowed to define small C conservatism. They

00:32:41.500 should be a reflection of small C conservatism. And I think the more you have the grassroots 0.94

00:32:46.260 setting the tone, the better off for the movement, the party and the country.

00:32:51.440 I absolutely agree. And you know what, even politicians recognize that. And I know those

00:32:56.400 who are listening to us who are watching this, Andrew, will know. You probably get emails asking

00:33:01.760 to donate your hard-earned money. You probably get notices asking for you to volunteer for campaigns.

00:33:08.180 Politicians need you when they need to get re-elected, and they should also care what you

00:33:13.640 think in between those elections as well. It's basic respect. I mean, these relationships should

00:33:18.920 not be a one-way street where people come knocking on your door for money and time and volunteering

00:33:24.260 when they need a favor from you,

00:33:26.360 but then not care what the conservative movement thinks

00:33:28.860 when the time comes to make policy

00:33:30.720 and make decisions that affect us and our kids.

00:33:34.180 Well said.

00:33:35.060 Well, we are certainly looking forward to it.

00:33:37.460 Let's tell the people, how can they register?

00:33:41.020 Well, you can go on our website,

00:33:42.740 canadastrongandfree.network,

00:33:45.200 where you will find our registration page.

00:33:47.400 Also, you'll find links to our registration page

00:33:49.680 on my Twitter account, on my Instagram,

00:33:52.080 at Jamil Javani.

00:33:53.060 please do join us March 22nd to 24th for no other reason than you'll get to meet Andrew Lawton live

00:33:58.940 in person no that that's not a selling point I assure you but there I will say I was very humbled

00:34:04.320 because I I did the uh the Red Deer edition of this a few months back and I had people that said

00:34:09.460 oh I'm I'm here for you and I'm like really people do that so uh if you do come out for whatever

00:34:13.780 reason we appreciate it very much uh Jamil Giovanni we'll talk to you soon sir and if not we'll see

00:34:18.760 in Ottawa. Thanks for coming on. Thanks for your time, Andrew. All right. I love Jamil. He's great

00:34:24.000 and he's done such great work with that organization. They're putting together all

00:34:27.040 of this regular programming that I don't always make it to all of them live, but the critical

00:34:32.680 race theory one is definitely one that rattled some cages. And I think you could probably put

00:34:38.020 on a bumper sticker. I'm not doing this for James Moore's approval, which might be an oddly specific

00:34:42.680 bumper sticker, but you never know. That does it for us for today. We'll be back tomorrow with more

00:34:47.300 of Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show.

00:34:49.860 Have a great rest of the day, a great evening,

00:34:52.680 wherever you are in the country or the world.

00:34:55.340 We wish you well.

00:34:56.260 Thank you, God bless, and good day to you all.

00:35:00.440 Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:35:02.560 Support the program by donating to True North

00:35:05.120 at www.tnc.news.

00:35:17.300 We'll be right back.

00:35:47.300 We'll be right back.

00:36:17.300 We'll be right back.

Juno News - February 28, 2023

Will the China scandal be the end of Trudeau？

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