Rebel News Podcast - CPC leadership candidate Jim Karahalios： The Party establishment is out of touch with the grassroots

00:00:00.000 Hello, my Rebels. Our goal is to interview all of the candidates running for the leadership

00:00:06.080 of the Conservative Party of Canada. So far, we've had two, Leslyn Lewis and Derek Sloan,

00:00:11.980 and today, our third. His name is Jim Carajalios. He's been active in the Ontario PC party.

00:00:18.500 His wife is actually an Ontario PC MPP. And I should tell you, it's a very interesting

00:00:24.820 conversation, if I may say so myself. I encourage you to stick around, including for when he says

00:00:30.500 what he would do with Maxime Bernier. Very interesting. Before I get out of the way,

00:00:37.380 let me invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus, which is the video version

00:00:43.480 of this podcast. You can get that at rebelnews.com. Okay, here's the podcast.

00:00:54.820 Tonight, our latest interview with the candidate for the Conservative Party of Canada leadership.

00:01:08.980 We'll talk with Jim Carajalios. It's March 5th, and this is The Ezra Levant Show.

00:01:16.380 Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?

00:01:19.920 There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer. The only thing I have to say

00:01:25.460 to the government about why I publish it is because it's my bloody right to do so.

00:01:35.120 Well, the Conservative Party of Canada is choosing a new leader, and I say, I'm glad for that.

00:01:41.100 But who will it be? What will they stand for? How will they fight Justin Trudeau? And more

00:01:46.480 importantly, fight against the media party. It's a question that we think about a lot here at Rebel

00:01:51.640 News. And although we're not formally a Conservative Party outlet, we do support the

00:01:56.540 party in general, despite our criticisms of it. I think it's very important that we have a strong

00:02:02.840 leader of this party. And I think it's critical that Justin Trudeau be unseated in the next election.

00:02:09.520 One of the things we're doing in this leadership campaign is that we're inviting each of the

00:02:14.120 leadership contestants to come here on the show, preferably in studio where it can be more

00:02:20.260 intimate, and to talk to us. The first interview, more of a biographical nature, but then as the

00:02:28.520 campaign goes on, maybe sharper conversations about different issues. This marks the third

00:02:34.920 leadership interview that we've done, the first being with Dr. Leslyn Lewis, the second conducted

00:02:40.620 by my friend and colleague, Kian Bextie with Derek Sloan. Today, I'm pleased to present to you a

00:02:45.740 conversation with Jim Karahelios. And he joins us in studio now. Jim, nice to see you. Thanks for

00:02:51.480 Good to see you, Ezra. Thank you for covering stories that the mainstream media, as they like to

00:02:56.500 call themselves, don't cover. So you're always there to cover the right stories.

00:02:59.700 Right on. Well, thanks for saying that. And I know one of the stories that you've focused on as an

00:03:05.520 activist is one of the things that we focused on early in the life of Rebel News, which is fighting

00:03:10.960 the carbon tax. That's, I think, how I came to know you in that capacity. Why don't you refresh the

00:03:16.580 memory of our viewers of who you are politically? Because you've been an activist for many years.

00:03:24.580 Right. I'm a lawyer with two engineering degrees. I've been involved in conservative politics for 15

00:03:29.760 years since Stephen Harper became the leader, and I was inspired by his leadership. But when Patrick Brown

00:03:35.040 took over the Ontario PC party, we had a couple things going on. He imposed a carbon tax top

00:03:39.960 down, like red Tory establishment politicians like to do, on the membership. And then soon

00:03:44.940 thereafter, we started seeing nominations with vote rigging taking place in Ontario. So I started

00:03:49.620 an Axe the Carbon Tax campaign. I remember that one. And that was before it was cool.

00:03:55.080 Yes. I mean, you were on it, Ezra, but it wasn't just me. But yeah, it was not cool. And the

00:04:01.320 mainstream media said it was a fringe movement. Yeah. Isn't that amazing? Tell me a little bit

00:04:05.620 about that, because I know that we face pushback for daring to challenge that sacred cow. I don't

00:04:13.040 think I ever heard from you what it was like pushing against the nominally conservative party

00:04:18.280 leader, Patrick Brown, on that issue. What was that like? Well, it was funny reading the media,

00:04:23.180 how they would say it's a fringe movement. Everyone's moved on from the carbon tax question.

00:04:27.480 And I knew in my heart that the conservative voters, not only conservative voters, the general

00:04:31.980 public was not sold on this carbon tax. And what really comes after a carbon tax from the top,

00:04:37.180 from the red Tories, is then they've got to force, the establishment's got to force nominations to go

00:04:42.480 a certain way and block candidates from running that they suspect might not be in favor of a carbon

00:04:48.500 tax. Because it really becomes a litmus issue, doesn't it? Yes, it does. Because it's not just

00:04:52.260 opposing a tax. It's, oh, you're a denier, you're morally unacceptable. Like, it's shocking to me,

00:04:59.760 the deplatforming. We're dealing with this right now with Dr. Patrick Moore, who was deplatformed

00:05:04.060 from a speaking conference over this in Regina. It really is a crazy religious issue in its own way.

00:05:10.960 Like, it's like a, it's a substitute religion. It's a superstition, this theory of...

00:05:17.260 And apparently, if you're in favor of a carbon tax, you can get away with anything. You can get away

00:05:21.700 with vote rigging. You can get away with misusing taxpayer money.

00:05:24.400 They mentioned that a couple of times. That was one of your battles with Ontario's PC party.

00:05:28.260 Well, it didn't start that way. It started with the acts of the carbon tax movement. And then

00:05:31.720 very shortly thereafter, candidates were being targeted in nominations. Either they were being

00:05:36.380 disqualified from running or they suffered losses because of ballot box stuffing. And so the other

00:05:40.940 campaign that started was Take Back Our PC Party, which David Menzies interviewed me a couple times

00:05:45.840 during the PC leadership. You know, they tried to shut down my campaign because they couldn't

00:05:50.100 convince grassroots conservatives that they're on the right side of the issue.

00:05:53.140 Now, you're talking about the Ontario PC campaign.

00:05:55.300 Yes, yes.

00:05:56.300 Well, that came to a head when Patrick Brown was defenestrated. And I mean, that was quite a dramatic

00:06:03.000 turn of events.

00:06:04.120 Right. But what the mainstream media missed is four weeks earlier, I won a lawsuit

00:06:07.620 against the Ontario PC party. And they kicked me out of the party and they walked me out of their

00:06:13.120 policy conference and they sued me to silence my campaigns and bankrupt me. And I won the court

00:06:18.740 case in six weeks when a judge ruled, you know, the mainstream media likes to say the judge said

00:06:22.860 there was no merit to the lawsuit. No, that's not what the judge said. The judge said that the lawsuit

00:06:27.560 was a strategic attempt to silence my ability to participate in the political process. That's short

00:06:34.080 for shutting down freedom of expression, freedom of campaigning.

00:06:37.360 Huh. So you've had this love-hate relationship with the Ontario PCs. Your wife is a newly elected

00:06:46.480 MPP for that same PC party of Ontario. That's very unusual to me.

00:06:52.640 Well, she's doing a great job and she's a strong conservative voice.

00:06:55.920 What's the name of her role? 0.99

00:06:56.600 Oh, Belinda Carhalios from the Riding of Cambridge.

00:06:59.140 Cambridge, got it.

00:06:59.840 That's right. So she's doing a great job. She's fighting an injection site going into the Riding 0.97

00:07:03.960 of Cambridge. We've seen injection sites pop up in Kitchener and Hamilton, all around,

00:07:09.000 and she's been a strong voice. And she actually introduced her first private members bill,

00:07:12.880 Bill 150, which would make it illegal to rig elections in an internal party election. Right

00:07:18.440 now there's a gap in the law there and nothing is stopping that. And the corruption runs rampant

00:07:23.780 sometimes in internal party elections.

00:07:25.080 And how does the current conservative party leader in Ontario, Doug Ford, get along with

00:07:32.360 your missus? I mean, does he accept and allow this private members bill? Because it sounds

00:07:38.680 like it's taking care of all business. How's her private members bill being received?

00:07:42.600 Well, it's obviously going forward and fixing a problem. You know, some of the government staffers,

00:07:47.560 the kids in short pants came out the day after she introduced her bill and said

00:07:50.920 the government was going to vote against it. And then they actually read the bill. And two weeks

00:07:55.720 later, she got unanimous support at Queen's Park. So it's moving over to third reading now. So

00:08:01.160 between second and third reading. So she's doing a great job being a strong conservative voice in

00:08:05.400 Cambridge. I'm really, really proud of her. Great. Well, I mean, obviously you're two independent

00:08:08.920 people, but it shows that your family is a very political family. You're very savvy. And I find it

00:08:14.600 fascinating, I got to tell you, that you're a dissident, but you're also still within the movement.

00:08:20.280 And, uh, and your wife's private members bill, which was first met with some rejection is now,

00:08:26.840 you mentioned unanimous consent. I find that very interesting, but I want to pull the camera back.

00:08:32.760 Sure.

00:08:33.160 What I mean by it, like it's widened the focus because we're talking about things that you

00:08:37.320 and I have discussed in the past. That's right. Patrick Brown, carbon tax, things like that. Okay.

00:08:42.520 That's interesting. But you're running now to be the leader of the conservative party for the whole

00:08:47.480 of the country. And prime minister. There you go. Yeah. So let's talk about things that the

00:08:52.040 rest of the country wants to talk about too. I'm not saying carbon tax is unimportant. It's extremely

00:08:56.840 important. And corruption, obviously we're against that. What is your sales pitch? What is your

00:09:05.000 talking point or your main value proposition to voters? Why would they choose you?

00:09:09.880 The establishment of the conservative party has drifted in their wildly off base with the membership

00:09:15.800 and the conservative voters. Uh, and I'm running, first of all, to stop the red Tory coronation that

00:09:20.600 we see going on. Who, who do you think is going? Oh, Aaron O'Toole and Peter McKay are the red Tories

00:09:25.240 in this race. Okay. Well, which one of them do you think is going to win? Uh, that's a good question.

00:09:28.760 If I'm on the ballot, I don't think either one of them are going to win. Now, why do you think,

00:09:33.080 I mean, I agree with you about Peter McKay. I don't think he would argue that either. I think he's a red Tory,

00:09:37.560 I think. Um, we've invited him on the show. We'll make sure that invitation is clear. I don't think

00:09:42.200 he'll come. Aaron O'Toole, I've been following him on social media at least, and he's trying to

00:09:46.520 sound a little bit tough. Yeah. The day after, the day after I said I was collecting signatures

00:09:51.160 and I announced I was running, Aaron O'Toole has tried to portray a true blue conservative,

00:09:56.280 and it's laughable. Everyone knows his track record. He's a red Tory. He should be authentic about

00:10:00.600 who he really is. You know, they, they didn't talk about, Aaron, uh, is getting edgy with my candidacy

00:10:06.120 in this race. And him and Peter didn't talk about a carbon tax for four weeks while they were running,

00:10:10.840 and longer. As soon as I announced, the day after they went to the Global Mail, the pro-carbon tax

00:10:14.840 Global Mail, and said, of course we're against the carbon tax all of a sudden. I announced another

00:10:19.560 policy that we were going to put in the criminal code, uh, the shutdown of critical infrastructure

00:10:24.600 to make these blockades criminal. Uh, Aaron O'Toole, uh, copied the policy five hours later and ran with

00:10:31.000 it. I'm not, I'm not ashamed of it. We're obviously moving the narrative in the right direction.

00:10:36.040 But if you look at Aaron O'Toole's track record, you look at his team made up of people who attacked

00:10:40.600 Andrew Scheer over his faith, and you look at his campaign chair, Waleed Solomon, who ran the Ontario

00:10:46.200 PC party under Patrick Brown. He was very, very close to Patrick. Oh, he was his campaign chair,

00:10:50.040 just not very close. He was running the show. Right. These are red Tories. And so it matters what

00:10:54.520 happened in Ontario provincially to the rest of your viewers. So are you saying that Aaron O'Toole is

00:11:00.200 really a placeholder for a red Tory cadre, really the Patrick Brown campaign? The red Tory

00:11:06.600 establishment in Ontario ran the Ontario PC party a certain way. Then they went after Andrew Scheer,

00:11:13.000 members of Aaron O'Toole's team tore him down after that election. And now we're seeing a top down,

00:11:18.360 a top down race with a $300,000 buy-in to make it very, very hard for a grassroots blue conservative

00:11:24.360 to get in. Now you can't put that around Aaron O'Toole's name. That's the party itself. I think

00:11:28.280 $300,000 is absurd. Right. Obviously designed to keep out grassroots candidates. Now there's

00:11:34.040 different milestones you have to make. Tell me, you're so far, you have met the first milestone.

00:11:40.520 Yeah, we got the thousand signatures in two and a half weeks. We got approved a week after that.

00:11:44.200 There's an entire process where they review your signatures, your application. You do an interview

00:11:48.840 with a small committee that no one knows how this committee was created or who's on it. I got approved.

00:11:54.760 There were other campaigns trying to get me disqualified. Even Lesley Lewis's campaign

00:11:59.320 manager told me at the Ontario PC convention a couple weeks ago that he wanted me disqualified

00:12:03.960 from the race. Aaron O'Toole's campaign, you know, Edgy Aaron, as I like to call him,

00:12:08.680 he's been a little uptight with me in the race because I'm calling him out on his record and

00:12:11.880 being in favor of the Paris Accord. I want to get Canada out of the Paris Accord. They were putting

00:12:16.760 some pressure in the back to get me out of the race. But now we're past the first hurdle and we're

00:12:22.280 getting into the second hurdle. So you got to raise how much money now?

00:12:24.600 $300,000 by March 25th. That's an incredibly short period.

00:12:28.600 Yeah, it's a top-down red Tory coronation race.

00:12:31.320 So you've got to raise $15,000 a day, seven days a week. How are you doing with that?

00:12:37.080 The fundraising is going well, but I'm not going to sit here and tell you this is an easy thing to do.

00:12:42.440 This has never been done in Canadian politics in such a short time frame. You remember the last

00:12:46.280 leadership, Ezra? They had 18 months to raise money. And most of the candidates didn't raise more

00:12:52.120 than $300,000 or $400,000, including Lisa Raitt. She raised $400,000 in 18 months. Now she's the

00:12:57.240 co-chair of a committee asking candidates to raise $300,000 in two months.

00:13:01.000 And are there limits for the maximum donation?

00:13:03.000 $1,625. The donations go through the party. So if you donate $400, you get $300 back.

00:13:10.040 And a donation to one of the other candidates, Leslyn Lewis, Derek Sloan, is a vote for Erin O'Toole.

00:13:15.320 A donation to Jim Carajalios is a vote for Jim Carajalios. Because if I'm on that final ballot,

00:13:19.960 as the blue Tory fighting corruption, fighting the Paris Accord, fighting carbon taxes,

00:13:24.440 and fighting the establishment, it's going to be a game-changer in a different race.

00:13:27.800 You know, just before we sat down here and turned the cameras on, we were talking about another

00:13:32.120 candidate who was disqualified by some internal committee. It's this fella, and I can't say I know

00:13:40.840 him, DeCary. Do you know him? I shook his hand at the Ontario PC convention. I don't know

00:13:47.160 anything more about him beyond that. Here, here's a quick look at who he is.

00:13:50.360 This is a TV appearance he made, I don't know, a couple months ago. Take a look at this.

00:13:54.600 LGBTQ people are real people too. I'm just trying to figure out your terms. Are they not real people?

00:13:59.960 I think LGBTQ is a liberal term. I don't talk about people that way. I talk about persons.

00:14:10.200 And I think we all need the full respect for being a human being, simply.

00:14:16.360 Oh, so, okay, so you don't think that being gay, you don't think, what, do you think that's a choice?

00:14:23.560 Or do you think it's biological?

00:14:26.360 I think it's a choice. And it's how people are behaving, it's one thing. I think government has

00:14:32.280 responsibility to encourage the traditional value that we have had for the past years. So

00:14:40.520 that's the kind of soak-on issues that I would bring as a leader.

00:14:45.080 All right, so that's Richard DeCary. People can agree with him. People can disagree with him. People

00:14:49.480 can agree with him, but disagree with how he said it, or whatever. People can despise him. What I don't

00:14:54.280 understand is why he is not allowed to be put to the test of party members. And that gives credence

00:15:02.520 to what you're saying about this being an internal cabal. I mean, let everyone run. Let an extreme

00:15:09.720 red Tory run, okay? Let everyone run and let the party choose. I don't like the fact that they're

00:15:15.880 running it like a closed club. Right, so we have a problem with the conservative and liberal

00:15:19.640 establishment in this country, that they treat political parties like a private club.

00:15:23.800 Well, I've got to say, you know, the way you just phrased that, you remind me of Maxime Bernier.

00:15:28.040 Well, Max is a good guy. We can get into Max in a little bit. What are your thoughts on Maxime

00:15:32.280 Bernier? Well, I asked him. Let's get into Richard and we'll get to Max, because I have some important

00:15:35.960 things to say about Max as well. So my problem with the narrative that's taken place since the

00:15:40.440 October election is Andrew Scheer and Richard DeCary, I believe they got targeted with certain

00:15:45.240 questions from the mainstream media because they're Catholics and because they're Christians.

00:15:48.440 And let me just tell you, no surprise, you will be asked those same questions.

00:15:52.920 It's such a lazy playbook, but our side ought to be able to answer those questions and prepare for

00:15:59.880 them because they're not a secret. So a thousand people signed Richard DeCary's nomination forms,

00:16:05.480 and a small group of a handful of people disqualified him with pressure from the O'Toole

00:16:10.120 and Lewis campaign to get Richard out of the race. And Derek Sloan has now jumped all over it within

00:16:14.360 minutes. He jumped all over it to get the political capital out of Richard getting out of the race. I want

00:16:18.600 everyone to be in the race. I want options for the membership because the ultimate determinator

00:16:22.920 or decision maker should be the voter when it comes to races, whether they're nominations or

00:16:28.280 leaderships. We should be having open and public nominations. And my biggest concern with what's

00:16:33.160 going on here is Richard DeCary, Andrew Scheer. You know, I saw people from Aaron O'Toole's team

00:16:38.440 target Andrew Scheer for his Catholic faith, the way he was raised, the way he raised his family. I didn't grow

00:16:43.960 up in a home like Andrew Scheer did, overtly Christian. But, you know, there's a double

00:16:48.840 standard where you've got a guy like Waleed Solomon, who's the campaign chair of Aaron O'Toole,

00:16:53.560 who in 2007 in the Globe and Mail advocated for Sharia law in banking in Canada and Ontario two years

00:17:01.240 after Dalton McGuinty said we're against Sharia law in Ontario, Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty.

00:17:07.800 No one asks the question if that's acceptable of Aaron O'Toole or Waleed Solomon,

00:17:12.840 but if you're a Catholic or a Christian, it's a consistent targeting of questions

00:17:17.480 where Evan Solomon will spend 11 minutes in an interview talking about the biology of sex

00:17:22.840 and not talking about the issues that matter to Canadians. Yeah, it's a little bit crazy,

00:17:26.280 but my point that I said earlier is that this is not a surprise and knowing how to handle the media.

00:17:32.840 I think handling the media is actually the number one job requirement. And I think it's actually

00:17:42.520 Trump's, everyone is so outraged with how Trump talks and insults and pushes back,

00:17:48.680 but I think that's the only reason he survived the utter onslaught of 95% of the media party in 2016.

00:17:56.440 And that bully nature is the only, Mitt Romney didn't have it, he lost. John McCain didn't have it,

00:18:03.080 he lost. I think you need, maybe not to be Trumpian, like a mini-me of Trump, but if you're not willing

00:18:10.760 to fight the media, you are dead. I 100% agree. And you'll see Andrew Scheer's polling numbers,

00:18:16.280 conservative parties have gone up. When Andrew Scheer is now criticizing the blockades, you know,

00:18:21.400 I came out and I said we need to make that criminal. We also have private members bills coming forward.

00:18:27.080 And it's fascinating to me that his polling numbers are going up now. And everyone's asking,

00:18:34.280 where was this Andrew Scheer during the election campaign? Why did he listen to the lobbyists in

00:18:38.280 the back that were telling him how to behave? Why wasn't he acting like himself?

00:18:41.640 All right. Well, you said you were going to talk to me about Maxime Bernier. What are your thoughts on him?

00:18:45.400 Well, I firmly believe that we need a united conservative party in this country. And Maxime Bernier

00:18:51.240 said that he had problems with the conservative party and how it ran, not only based on policy,

00:18:57.080 but he believes there's corruption in the conservative party. I've seen that corruption

00:19:00.680 from Ontario backroom hacks provincially. A lot of them are on Peter McKay and Erin O'Toole's team.

00:19:06.760 And we need to clean up the conservative party. We need to send the establishment a message.

00:19:12.040 And I'd love to see Max Bernier run as a conservative in the future, because if we were a united party in

00:19:17.720 the last election, we would have had more votes. We would have had more seats. You ask the red 0.92

00:19:21.960 Tory establishment, they'll tell you they want a big tent party. Well, I saw an analysis where if the

00:19:27.560 PPC votes were with the conservative party, and if Max Bernier and other good candidates he had around,

00:19:34.680 like Saleem Ansour ran for us, we would have had eight, nine, ten more seats, maybe even more.

00:19:38.840 Did you run as a federal PPC candidate? No, I did not run.

00:19:41.240 Okay, because you said run for us. Are you...

00:19:43.960 What I meant was I saw PPC candidates that should be allowed to run in internal party

00:19:49.400 nominations for us, the conservative party. I think it was outrageous that Saleem Ansour was

00:19:53.960 blocked by the conservative party. Well, that's very interesting that you would invite Max Bernier

00:20:00.280 back in. I don't think the other candidates would say that, at least not O'Toole and McKay,

00:20:05.720 but I don't know without checking. We've gone down this road before of a split party.

00:20:10.680 Yeah. And, you know, when I interviewed with you in the Ontario PPC party a couple of years ago,

00:20:16.280 there were people locally or provincially that said we should start a new party. And you and I

00:20:21.160 agreed that you need one strong conservative party and a grassroots party to take on the Liberals. And

00:20:25.640 now we're seeing this split, and we're seeing a third movement start out west with the Wexit

00:20:30.680 movement, and that's not good for conservatism long term. It's exactly fracturing under the same

00:20:36.760 lines. The right was fractured. And the red Tory establishment think they know better. They think

00:20:42.760 it doesn't matter if Max is getting a quarter million votes, if the Wexit movement is gaining

00:20:48.280 speed, we can just tell the membership and the voters what they should believe in, and we just

00:20:52.920 move on forward. Eventually we're going to win. We're not. We're going to be in hiatus for a very

00:20:56.440 long time if we keep fracturing the conservative movement. Well, you've spoken, you used the word

00:21:03.480 Coronation. You didn't specify really Aaron O'Toole or Peter McKay, you said both.

00:21:11.880 They have teams, you've described them. Right. Including, you mentioned Waleed Solomon.

00:21:19.400 I'm slightly familiar with him. He's a big shot at a big Toronto law firm. Oh yeah,

00:21:24.680 big pastry firm with Brian Mulroney. Oh yeah. Very large, one of the world's largest law firms.

00:21:29.720 Peter McKay is a lawyer at one of the world's largest law firms. And the reason I mention that

00:21:36.040 is because law firms have partners and associates who can each cut those $1,600 checks. You work at a

00:21:42.600 big law firm and a big shot partner there says, I'm chairing this campaign. You could have 50 or 100

00:21:49.800 checks walk in of $1,600. You're right.

00:21:52.120 And you take care of it that way. And everyone wants to be a judge. So all these lawyers say,

00:21:59.880 oh, I'll maybe do some door knocking and volunteer. So McKay has some of that. And he's got the family,

00:22:07.080 you know, maybe he inherited some helpers and some support from his dad. Aaron O'Toole,

00:22:13.080 Waleed Solomon at the big law firm. Aaron O'Toole's dad was a politician as well,

00:22:16.280 very well connected. So I guess you said it was going to be a coronation, if not for me. How are

00:22:22.920 you? I mean, we've talked a little bit about your David and Goliath fights before, and you're not

00:22:28.520 nothing. You've been around, you did have campaigns, your missus is an MPP. But it does seem like a

00:22:34.520 lopsided fight. There's two big hurdles for me. And the first hurdle is the $300,000 in donations.

00:22:40.600 Because I announced two weeks later, we had signatures from all 10 provinces and over 180

00:22:47.000 ridings. I'm quickly at 3,000 signatures. I was the last person to jump in the race. So

00:22:51.720 the grassroots support right across the country is there. And now I have to raise the $300,000

00:22:57.320 by March 25th. So you're right. When the Aaron O'Toole and Peter McKay campaigns had one hand,

00:23:03.960 in one hand was the knife that they were plunging in Andrew Scheer's back. In the other hand,

00:23:07.640 they were collecting checks from Bay Street to get in the race. That's an advantage for

00:23:12.760 well-connected insider candidates, those that are born into politics, and those that have corporate

00:23:17.720 interests, and people running their campaigns that are in the business of politics.

00:23:21.880 All right. So are you running to make a point, or are you running to win?

00:23:25.000 No, I firmly believe that I have the grassroots support across this country. In two weeks,

00:23:31.000 I got over 1,000 signatures. We're almost at 3,000 signatures. The big hurdle is March 25th.

00:23:36.280 All right. If I get in this race and I'm the blue Tory who wants to get out of the Paris Accord,

00:23:40.920 who wants to clean up the party, who wants to fight the establishment,

00:23:44.200 I see the sky's the limit with our candidacy. But I have to get past March 25th.

00:23:48.600 I got to tell you, 1,000, 3,000 signatures, what you're saying,

00:23:52.760 in a big country in a few weeks, I'm not impressed.

00:23:56.520 Oh, okay. I'm just using it as a contrast.

00:24:00.280 I mean, I'm impressed enough, but how are you going to beat O'Toole and McKay, and how are you

00:24:07.560 going to beat Trudeau? If you added a zero to those numbers, I'd say, oh, okay. But how are you

00:24:13.960 going to raise 300,000? How are you going to beat those guys?

00:24:16.840 So the signatures, I'm contrasting to Peter and Aaron, who've taken longer to get the signatures.

00:24:21.480 That's what I'm saying about the signatures. You're right. When I provide a refreshing,

00:24:27.640 grassroots, anti-establishment, get out of the Paris Accord, we're going to ask the carbon tax

00:24:32.680 message to conservative members, my campaign is quickly gaining traction. And if the mainstream

00:24:39.480 media finally starts to cover me, which they haven't wanted to cover for four weeks,

00:24:43.720 my number one goal is getting past March 25th, getting on the ballot, and letting people know

00:24:48.600 who I am, who our family is, and what we're fighting for. And I believe that the vast majority

00:24:54.200 of conservatives agree with the message, because everyone I talk to, and everyone who gets to know

00:24:58.840 what we stand for, gets on side. Now, you mentioned Leslyn Lewis's campaign manager. I know who you mean.

00:25:05.000 I know Waleed Solomon, and I know some of the people in Peter McKay's campaign.

00:25:09.000 Who is with Jim Karahelios, other than Jim? A grassroots conservative. So I don't have...

00:25:15.080 A campaign manager. Of course I have a campaign manager. We have a campaign office in Cambridge.

00:25:18.520 It's being run. I don't like to talk about the people running my campaign because...

00:25:22.760 I'm not looking... No, no.

00:25:23.640 I'm looking to name-check them. I want to know. Like, it's one thing to be an activist.

00:25:28.040 Yeah. I am one. Yeah, yeah.

00:25:29.240 It's one thing to be a pundit. I am one. Yeah, yeah.

00:25:32.280 And I don't deny that you have some political infrastructure. Your missus 0.99

00:25:35.560 successfully became an MPP. Right, right. But all these things that we're talking about,

00:25:40.600 the advantages of the red Tory candidates, they come with their disadvantages, but they have an

00:25:46.680 advantage. He's got boots on the ground. Are you traveling the country? Mainstream media is not

00:25:53.160 covering you. Get used to it. Yeah, of course. Welcome to being a conservative candidate. Absolutely.

00:25:57.480 So what are you doing? What are you doing at Costco? Have you been to Alberta yet? Have you been to BC yet?

00:26:03.080 We've been in the race for four weeks. We've gotten the campaign up and running. We're obviously going

00:26:07.000 to tour the country. We've got to get the signatures in place and the infrastructure in

00:26:11.960 place to hit that tour. But you can't put the cart before the horse. I have regional organizers

00:26:18.040 right across the country. The chair of Manitoba for me actually was Andrew Scheer's chair. I've got

00:26:24.680 people in Saskatchewan that are chairing. Alberta, BC, obviously very strong in Ontario. We've got a

00:26:31.800 campaign office set up in Cambridge. And you can't run in a campaign if you don't have,

00:26:36.920 even in the application they ask for, campaign managers, point of contact, CFOs. And there's

00:26:42.920 other advisors that I keep in confidence because when you're running an anti-establishment campaign,

00:26:48.520 Ezra, and you see that the establishment likes to come down hard on the grassroots,

00:26:52.760 there are people that give me advice that I keep in confidence because...

00:26:55.480 I'm not... I mean, I am curious who they are, but more I was curious do they even exist?

00:27:00.600 Because I enjoy the lack of responsibility of just talking into cameras. I don't... I mean,

00:27:07.880 we do organize. What am I saying? We have 1,600 people signed up for an event on May 19th in Regina.

00:27:14.680 So that's boots on the ground. But at the end of the day, my job is to provide political commentary to

00:27:19.320 Canada. I've got riding a president across... That's different than can you sign up members?

00:27:21.800 I've got riding presidents across the country that are signed up for more campaigns.

00:27:26.520 And what about in Quebec? One of the most interesting things you told me today is that

00:27:29.400 you're open to Maxime Bernier and you want to rejoin what has split. That's very interesting to me.

00:27:36.760 What are your Quebec plans? Because I think like me, your Francais is very, very limited.

00:27:41.720 Well, I speak the universal language of fighting corruption and I'd love to see Max Bernier be my

00:27:45.880 Quebec lieutenant when I'm leader. Have you had any communication with what's

00:27:49.160 with him whatsoever? With Max? Or his people?

00:27:51.880 Not during this race, no. I think that'd be inappropriate during a race. 0.98

00:27:55.560 Well, it would be a hell of a thing to bring to the table and say,

00:27:57.560 I'm bringing Max back to the table. Yeah, I'm going to leave it open to him. As leader,

00:28:00.600 I'm going to clean up the party. I'm going to fix the policy process that he has a concern with.

00:28:04.920 We're going to have open nominations and I'm going to lay it all out for Max and it's going to be up to him.

00:28:09.000 I haven't closely studied the rules for this leadership race, but Andrew Scheer's campaign

00:28:13.960 manager Hamish Marshall did and he gained the system and credit to him.

00:28:18.680 Okay. And one of the ways that Andrew Scheer won the last leadership race is he did the math and he

00:28:23.880 realized one member in Quebec is worth about 10 members in Alberta because of the point system.

00:28:31.240 Now, I don't know the minutia of the system now, but that's why Andrew Scheer went full

00:28:36.200 dairy cartel is because a handful of votes in Quebec outweighed votes elsewhere. My point is,

00:28:43.800 do you have any game in Quebec? Because if you're conceding a province with a quarter of the population

00:28:50.760 to O'Toole and McKay... Why do you think I'm conceding it to O'Toole and McKay?

00:28:55.640 I don't think you are. I'm asking if you are. I'm asking, do you have anything in Quebec?

00:29:00.360 I do have people in Quebec that are supporting and I've got signatures from Quebec and I'm not

00:29:08.440 conceding anything. And every, the dynamic of every race is different. And I think the starting

00:29:14.280 point is it's not gaming the system. There is no gaming of the system.

00:29:17.160 You need to know the rules.

00:29:18.200 Of course you need to know the rules. And I know the rules in terms of how the votes are

00:29:21.240 and the points are tabulated.

00:29:22.440 Am I right to say that a vote in Quebec in a small membership riding?

00:29:25.800 It depends on how many members are in the riding.

00:29:27.880 Let's say there's 200 members in a rural Quebec riding and 2,000 members in a Calgary riding.

00:29:32.520 The threshold is 100. So if you've got 50 members in a riding in Toronto or a riding in Quebec,

00:29:37.720 every member gets one point. If there are 1,000 members in a riding like Cambridge or out west,

00:29:44.360 it's a percentage. But the race is different. Because when Andrew Scheer ran,

00:29:51.480 the prominent leading candidates in the race were not really from Ontario. Like,

00:29:55.560 Aaron O'Toole finished a distant third in that race. Now we're seeing a race where Peter McKay and

00:30:00.760 Aaron O'Toole are from Ontario. I'm from west of Yonge Street. We don't have a western candidate,

00:30:07.240 aside from Rick Peterson, but he's establishment red Tory in the race. And the western vote is going

00:30:13.640 to be very, very significant. And I don't think Aaron O'Toole or Peter McKay's pro-Paris Accord message

00:30:19.560 is going to be appealing to conservatives in Manitoba, Alberta, Saskatchewan, BC.

00:30:24.600 Is that the big issue?

00:30:25.560 Rule of law is a big issue. The Paris Accord is a huge issue.

00:30:28.680 What do you mean by rule of law?

00:30:29.800 Rule of law, seeing as the way we're governing our party and the way we're governing our country and

00:30:34.040 the way Justin Trudeau has been governing Canada in a corrupt manner. And everyone's tired of these

00:30:40.840 backroom negotiations between lobbyists that are setting government policy, whether it's Jody

00:30:45.640 Wilson-Raybould on the left getting kicked out, or someone on the right that's denied the opportunity

00:30:50.520 to run a nomination or leadership. People are tired of it, and they're tired of the establishment.

00:30:54.760 And that's what I'm hearing on the ground. We're tired of the establishment that are not giving a

00:30:59.320 choice to us, that are not defending the taxpayer, that do not see a pro-growth economic agenda for

00:31:06.920 our country, and are not willing to stand up for conservative values. And we're constantly being

00:31:11.640 persecuted because we have Christians in our party. But if you believe in Sharia law or Sharia

00:31:17.720 banking, no one from the mainstream media is attacking those type of positions and saying

00:31:23.640 they're inconsistent with Canadian values. So there's a whole host of issues, and I'm releasing

00:31:29.080 platform commitments every week. You got a couple out of me today that I didn't really want to jump

00:31:33.880 out of the gate on the Max Bernier question, but good for you. There's a lot of important questions

00:31:38.840 on how we unite conservatives across the country to defeat Justin Trudeau.

00:31:44.920 So what are the dates again? You cut off, you said, March 25th?

00:31:48.360 March 25th.

00:31:49.160 That's for the dough.

00:31:50.120 That's right.

00:31:51.000 And then what are the other milestones after that?

00:31:52.760 That's it. And then we go right on the ballot. So if I'm on the ballot, it's going to be a

00:31:57.400 different race with me, Peter McCain, Aaron O'Toole.

00:31:59.560 And how is the voting conducted? Is it by mail? Is it online? Is it in person? How does the voting...

00:32:05.000 You know, they haven't disclosed that yet, but typically in the Conservative Party races,

00:32:10.040 we vote by mail. I certainly hope they don't go to an online version like the Ontario PC

00:32:15.960 Party did, which was a disaster. People couldn't get pins if you didn't have an email.

00:32:21.240 Yeah, just awful. So yeah, I think it will be by mail, I assume, but I don't know. I don't know

00:32:26.280 those details yet. I think people are not concentrating on the race because they don't know who's going to

00:32:31.240 be on the final ballot. And this $300,000 threshold is a shame. It really is a shame,

00:32:36.680 because we've got eight candidates in the race. We should have had nine. And it could end up that

00:32:42.360 only Aaron O'Toole and Peter McKay raised the 300 grand. Can you imagine the outrage from

00:32:46.840 grassroots Conservatives that see eight candidates right now, and then on the ballot, there's only

00:32:51.240 two? I don't think it would be outrage. I think it would be disconnecting and saying,

00:32:55.400 I'm- Devastating for the party. And we see politicians like Patrick Brown that run on one

00:33:03.640 platform when they're running for leader, and then they flip after they become leader. Aaron

00:33:08.200 O'Toole's copying the same playbook. This concerns me because if someone like Peter McKay wins a

00:33:15.240 leadership as a red Tory, and we know who he is, Conservatives will say, I should have got more

00:33:21.000 involved. I should have tried harder. If they are blocked out of the political process because of

00:33:27.000 some egregious rules, if they have a leader like Aaron O'Toole pretending to be blue, and then he's

00:33:32.600 going to govern as a red, people throw up their hands and say, I'm done with politics. That concerns

00:33:37.400 me tremendously for the Conservative movement, because we need more people involved. That's the only way to

00:33:41.800 beat Justin Trudeau is a movement that turns, that funnels into a party, and that beats Justin Trudeau.

00:33:49.160 Well, it's very interesting, and I am frustrated by the entire process. I am worried that what I see

00:34:00.280 so far, no disrespect, suggests that we're going to have Justin Trudeau as our Prime Minister for

00:34:05.480 another two to six years, and that's too long by me. Well, don't lose hope. That's why I'm in this race,

00:34:12.200 Ezra. If people want me in this race, they can donate. What's your website?

00:34:15.880 JimCarolios.ca. I know it's a long one. We'll put that on the screen so people can

00:34:19.560 see how to spell that. You can always Google it, or even if you Google

00:34:23.480 Jim Axe the Carbon Tax, it'll come up as a top search item. If I get in the ballot,

00:34:28.120 I believe the sky's the limit, and I'm going to win with a pro-Western message,

00:34:31.960 with getting out of the Paris Accord, with fighting the establishment, and we're going to win.

00:34:37.000 But the hurdle is the $300,000, and when I see Aaron O'Toole working with candidates like Leslie

00:34:42.120 and Lewis, a donation of the Lewis campaign or the Derek Sloan campaign is a vote for Aaron O'Toole.

00:34:48.200 A donation for Jim Carholios is a vote for Jim Carholios.

00:34:50.760 You're talking about Aaron O'Toole, and I think that maybe it's because

00:34:53.240 Waleed Solomon is the overlap between Patrick Brown and him. I assumed that Peter McKay was in the poll

00:35:01.720 position. Am I wrong? Well, that's what the media will tell you. What else do I know? I don't know

00:35:07.080 what I know. No, they'll release these junk polls in the mainstream media where they take a poll of 0.79

00:35:12.760 every Canadian. You know, we've seen this when Christine Elliott was running against Doug Ford.

00:35:17.640 They do these polls and they ask everybody, who do you think? And the person that has name-wreck,

00:35:23.400 because they've been a cabinet minister because they're the son of... How about sitting MPs or senators?

00:35:27.560 Yeah, they're not registering in these polls either. But the voting, the decision makers and

00:35:33.080 the leadership are the card-carrying members of a party. And so I don't believe...

00:35:37.640 Do you have any support? What I mean is, do you have any support in the caucus?

00:35:40.600 Are there any MPs or senators who are supportive of him?

00:35:43.080 I'm getting... Caucus predominantly is endorsing Peter McKay at this point, but not the majority.

00:35:50.280 The vast majority of caucus hasn't endorsed anyone. I think Aaron's got one caucus endorsement in Garnett,

00:35:55.800 Genoist. I have no idea why Garnett would endorse a red Tory. Peter McKay has more. Most of caucus

00:36:02.120 I'm hearing from riding presidents are waiting to see who's on the ballot past March 25th.

00:36:06.280 So I think you're asking some questions that are early, because when the final ballot on March 26th

00:36:13.480 is set, we'll see. And you know what's interesting? A lot of times people should pay attention to

00:36:19.320 the members of caucus that don't endorse anyone. Because when you're running an anti-establishment

00:36:27.240 campaign like me, getting a caucus endorsement is very difficult. But I can tell you from riding

00:36:33.160 presidents I hear that tell me they're caucus members not endorsing Peter and Aaron. I think

00:36:37.640 that is a nod to, I hope Jim gets on the ballot on March 25th and we have a good solid conservative

00:36:44.280 running. Well we'll have to leave it there. What we're doing for all the leadership candidates

00:36:50.600 who come on the show, and we did this for Les Lewis and Derek Sloan, is that we're taking this

00:36:56.520 interview that we normally just put on the paywall for our premium subscribers. We're going to put it

00:37:00.840 on YouTube and we're going to email it out to all our supporters across the country. There's obviously

00:37:06.440 not a total overlap between our viewers and the conservative party. But in the Venn diagram,

00:37:11.320 I'd say there's quite a bit of overlap. And in the email we'll also have a link to your website,

00:37:16.760 because I view this as a sort of service for us to talk to as many of the leadership candidates who

00:37:22.760 will come on and to make it really easy for people to click. We have extended invitations to McKay and

00:37:30.760 Erin O'Toole and I will make sure that we refresh that invitation today to let them know that they

00:37:36.680 should come on and answer my best questions. And as a reward, if that's the right phrase,

00:37:46.840 we would send that video to every one of our people and say, if you like this guy, click here.

00:37:52.520 I don't know if they will accept, because I wonder if my questions would be too prickly to them.

00:37:58.200 But surely if my question, if they can't face my questions, how could they face tougher questions

00:38:05.240 in the campaign? So I hope Erin O'Toole and Peter McKay come on. I think it would be

00:38:11.160 taken very well by our viewers. And like I say, if you can't take on Rebel News,

00:38:17.720 how are you going to beat Justin Trudeau? If you want to see a more conservative party,

00:38:20.920 you should join the conservative party. So if your viewers on the Venn diagram are not

00:38:24.520 conservative party members, they should take out a membership for $15 to vote in this race. If

00:38:29.400 they can afford a donation, they should do that. Because the opposition party in this country is

00:38:34.680 a conservative party of Canada, and we have a chance in this leadership to make it a true conservative

00:38:38.520 party that stands up for conservative principles. So thank you for all your work, Ezra, and for this

00:38:44.520 interview. Well, it's nice to see you. You too. There you have it, Jim Karahelios. And we'll send this

00:38:49.720 video out to all our people. What do you think? Send me an email with your thoughts to ezra

00:38:55.400 at rebelnews.com. That's it for today. On behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters,

00:39:00.280 to you at home, good night, and keep fighting for freedom.

Rebel News Podcast - March 06, 2020

CPC leadership candidate Jim Karahalios： The Party establishment is out of touch with the grassroots

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