The Ontario Progressive Conservative leader says that if he becomes premier, he ll tie post-secondary funding to free speech, and as casual viewers of our campus on mass segments know full well, free speech is increasingly under attack on campus by censor-happy leftist loonies.
00:12:10.780And also, as we well know, conservatives are held to a way higher standard than liberals ever have been.
00:12:17.860And we've seen all kinds of appalling behavior over the years.
00:12:21.980Lately, it's the whole Me Too movement.
00:12:23.720And we've seen people in every party nailed with that.
00:12:26.640And yet it seems when it happens to be a conservative, it occupies the headlines for a lot longer than even more egregious acts committed by, say, liberals or NDP or whoever.
00:12:36.600So it isn't fair, but it does seem to be the way of the world.
00:12:41.180And if you want to be elected in this day and age, I think you have to be careful.
00:12:45.080I'm sure Andrew Lawton's coming out relatively recently was a preemptive strike because he undoubtedly realized there was some stuff on the record that wouldn't necessarily, you know, look too good.
00:12:58.000But, again, in our world where we all get nitpicked to death for every little perceived slight, even if it isn't really a slight, I just think if you want to be in public office, you've got to play by the wacky rules that are there.
00:13:12.140But, you know, and speaking of Andrew Lawton, Catherine, I mean, Andrew Lawton's a good man.
00:13:22.040And yet I think in a way it was a disservice what he did when he was basically putting a blanket condemnation on comments he made over an eight-year period, subscribing it to the mental illness struggles that he was going through, which were legitimate, by the way.
00:13:39.300But it was almost like he's giving a gift to the opposition and the media party that, hey, if you have conservative values, you know what?
00:13:50.860Well, frankly, given the importance of the whole mental illness issue and the priority it's been deservedly given more recently than it has in the past and by all political parties, I think they'd have a real hard time doing that.
00:14:05.860Because they would look like hypocrites, on the one hand, saying you shouldn't be ashamed of having a bout of mental illness, on the other hand, saying it's despicable if you do.
00:14:14.840So, but again, this is the world we live in.
00:14:21.400But to pretend it doesn't exist is foolishness.
00:14:24.860And, again, as a conservative, you've got to know the microscope is going to be focused on you much more closely.
00:14:32.080And I think in Doug Ford's case, I mean, what I hope, because I do believe personally, and I haven't always voted conservative, just for the record.
00:14:38.800I've been in a few different places over the years.
00:14:42.860But I do believe, under the current circumstances, that the Conservative Party is the best choice for Ontario.
00:15:32.360Well, for the second time in my life, I might have to, indeed, decline my ballot.
00:15:37.400But, you know, I don't think I'm the, you know, the statistical anomaly just today, Catherine.
00:15:42.060An Ipsos poll came out, and get a load of this, 74% of Ontarians say they wish there were different party leaders than the ones currently on the ballot.
00:16:36.420I don't know the answer to it, but why aren't really quality people coming out for politics in so many, you know, so many situations?
00:16:46.040Maybe it just seems, perhaps it's the attacks they face by the media party, especially in this day and age where your past, every element of your past is being dredged up, and you're being crucified on it.
00:17:14.300He did 11 appointees, and some of those appointees out of nepotism, and some of those appointees, hardcore liberals.
00:17:21.860Then he got rid of Tanya Granik-Allen, and so on and so forth.
00:17:25.820I just think that you are, of course, a fiscal conservative, but how can one believe they're going to go through with the fiscal promises?
00:17:33.920If this is the track record, I harken back to Paul Martin, who was a pretty good finance minister, but once he became prime minister, his flip-flopping earned him the nickname Mr. Dithers.
00:17:44.860And once you have that as a nickname, it's over.
00:17:50.800Obviously, my crystal ball is no clearer than anyone else's, but I tend to try to look at facts.
00:17:59.660And the facts would suggest to me that a re-election of this liberal government would be a total fiasco for the province in every respect, fiscally, socially, and humanly,
00:18:09.120because people are not thriving under the liberal government by a long stretch, except for liberal insiders, naturally.
00:18:15.720And when I look at that NDP platform and think of other NDP governments over the years in Canada, I can't go that way either.
00:18:22.360So I think, again, you're right, nobody's perfect.
00:19:56.600Let's rewind to 2007, where she ran against Bob Ray for a Liberal candidate in Toronto Centre.
00:20:03.900Well, Cartwright made news for all the wrong reasons when it came out that she actually hired actors to rally at the Ontario leaders' debate on Monday.
00:20:14.840But there's more to Cartwright's past than that.
00:20:17.720And joining me now to discuss this is Toronto Sun columnist Joe Warmington, the squarler.
00:21:13.860And she did her first dirty trick, if you will, whether it was on purpose or not.
00:21:18.520I mean, you know, you couldn't pay someone to do something more damning to a campaign than to go and hire people and pretend, you know, make sure everyone knows, nudge, nudge, wink, wink.
00:21:29.160This is a secret, but here it is out on social media.
00:21:31.800So that's what she's there to do, and that's what others are there to do.
00:21:35.220So if I interpret what you're saying, you think she's a fifth columnist then?
00:21:39.120Well, you know, I don't know whether she is or she isn't because, you know, we don't want to end up, she's a lawyer, I think, and she has lots of lawyer friends,
00:21:46.220and we don't want to end up spending the rest of our days having to have that name Cartwright coming in on your email.
00:21:51.660But I will say this, that I did reach out to her and to hear her side of it, and she can certainly come on the show with you.
00:22:00.460It would be fun because she's running with Doug Ford, but what I'm seeing so far is just either somebody that's so naive or somebody that just, you know,
00:22:10.140I personally think someone behind it, I'm not saying her, was playing a really tricky game.
00:22:16.920I did get to interview her outside the City TV studios on Monday, and I was astonished, actually, you know, political partner, you know, political affiliation aside, how shallow this woman was.
00:22:33.000I mean, for example, she is a human rights lawyer, and I asked her her opinion on the human rights commissions and tribunals, and she said she had no opinion.
00:22:41.280And I liken that to a fisherman having no opinion about fish.
00:22:44.700You should get one of the actors to prepare some lines.
00:22:54.320This one's on Doug, and on Dean French, Corey T'Nike.
00:22:58.320People like that, they know better, and they're not fooling us that, you know, they knew that she wasn't a conservative.
00:23:03.880I mean, if only they would treat the conservatives as well as they're treating the liberals.
00:23:08.200You know, under Patrick Brown, it was like that, and under Doug Ford, it seems to be like that.
00:23:12.360But, and, you know, Tanya Granik-Allen will back me up on that.
00:23:16.140Yeah, and, you know, before we get to Tanya, I mean, she has now, this is Cartwright, deleted her Twitter account, Joe, but not before we were able to save it.
00:24:11.720Yeah, and so she called him, you know, a ball of goo and different things like that.
00:24:15.700But you mentioned Caroline Mulroney, because that's what the game is for some people, and I'm not saying for her, but for some people, is that they want Doug to fail in this election.
00:24:25.740They want a minority government situation, and then they want Caroline Mulroney to emerge as the leader.
00:24:30.800And that's what all this sort of fifth column stuff is.
00:25:11.000You know, Joe, I'm on the same wavelength as you, and I know a lot of detractors will say, uh-oh, here we go into conspiracy-ville.
00:25:19.920But I'm sorry, we saw how fast this party turned on Patrick Brown.
00:25:25.000Well, they're liberals, and it's the only way they can beat them.
00:25:27.680I mean, I don't blame the names I mentioned before.
00:25:30.440I mean, I don't believe that Corey and people like that are in on it.
00:25:32.760But they have to be smarter because the liberal people that will do this, they have to do it.
00:25:38.980And so don't forget that what's happened here, if you look at that after the first debate, what happened was that all the support that would normally go to California went where?
00:25:47.140It went over to the NDP and Andrea Horwath.
00:25:49.760Well, Andrea Horwath did nothing in that debate but try to get into the debate.
00:26:45.680But, I mean, a lot of stuff was happening, and luckily he's caught on.
00:26:49.780And when you say flip-flops, for example, one of the most recent ones was the partial development of the green belt, which he did an immediate flip-flop on.
00:27:02.840But the thing is, in addition to the flip-flops, it's the double standards.
00:27:07.220And I want to bring this back to Tanya Granik-Allen.
00:27:09.340Like I said, no Tanya Granik-Allen, no Doug Ford as leader of the PC party.
00:27:13.400It's Christine Elliott, which the elites would rather have had.
00:27:17.920You have a candidate in Carlton, as I mentioned in my monologue, Goldie Gamere, a.k.a. the Persian cat, who has stated that Stephen Harper is a national embarrassment.
00:28:03.780And then, you know, all these people like Jonathan Goldsby and that are tweeting out about that's the shun and shame game.
00:28:10.100And so if you're going to cower to that or your bosses are going to cower to that, then we're going to have no freedom of speech.
00:28:15.480And that's why Doug should have stuck up for Tanya Granik-Allen and shout down some of these people that we saw during Patrick Brown's era that really don't belong there, that are liberals or whatever.
00:28:27.700And it's not putting them down as people.
00:28:30.180But Tanya's a good lady and Andrew Lawton's a good lady.
00:29:10.960Why can Donald Trump shrug off these nattering nabobs of negativity and Doug Ford or his handlers or both feel that they are beholden to appeasing these people?
00:29:22.560And no matter how much you appease them, they're never going to be on your side.
00:29:26.700If they win the election, then, you know, basically they're going to say that they were right.
00:29:32.120But winning the election for me is a majority government.
00:31:02.200You want to be premier, you've got to be your own man.
00:31:05.300And you've got to weed out whoever shouldn't be there, keep the people there, and talk directly to the people and say, look, I'm a small counselor from Ward 2.
00:32:30.040No, I'm saying that a lot of the support will go-
00:32:33.540This is the plan they have to go back to Kathleen Wynne since, you know, Doug is really nothing more than a liberal anyway.
00:32:40.020Plus, he's got the latest bombshell that they've dropped on him, the dirty game, the only way they can really beat him.
00:32:46.080And then, you know, assuming that Andrea Horwath doesn't show that she can be premier, she'll have the baton for a while, and she'll be test-driven, and maybe she's good for it, like Bob Ray was.
00:32:57.920You know, Bob Ray had been around a long time in 1990.
00:33:12.040But if you look really at the NDP, I think in light of the fact that we had the Bob Ray government, and we've been through that experiment, and Alberta and other places, BC, have been through it.
00:33:21.480So I think that it's really, for me, I believe, is between Doug and Kathleen Wynne.
00:33:26.560If Doug can hang on, get rid of the people that don't want him to do it, and talk directly to Ontario, he'll be the next premier.
00:33:32.300If he doesn't, he's going to be back on this show, and maybe they'll do a Ford show right here.
00:33:37.800Well, we're going to have to wrap it there.
00:33:38.820All I'm going to say, Joe, is that given the economic damage these Wynne Liberals have done to this province, it makes the Bob Ray New Democrats look like fiscal conservatives.
00:34:47.700That would be runner-up Natalia Kusendova,
00:34:50.860who finished a distant second to Tanya at the nomination meeting.
00:34:54.780But does Miss Kusendova have a skeleton in her closet, too?
00:35:00.400Well, I interviewed Kusendova at last month's nomination meeting in Mississauga.
00:35:04.980She's a registered nurse who supposedly brings an insider's viewpoint to Ontario's sickly health care system.
00:35:12.820So I asked her, how would she fix our broken health care system?
00:35:16.780Well, as a registered nurse, I see every day the overcrowding, the hallway medicine and the unacceptably long wait times in the emergency rooms.
00:35:27.040And I think there are some solutions that a strong progressive conservative government can offer to Ontarians to solve these issues.
00:35:35.200Those are not the standards of care we expect in our beautiful country of Canada.
00:35:39.960You know, we are known around the world for our universal health care system.
00:35:44.640But when we go to hospitals today, I don't, I'm not sure if that standard is reflected.
00:35:49.180Regardless, we now seem to reside in an age in which any perceived sins of the past result in automatic disqualification in the present.