The Candice Malcolm Show - October 20, 2021


Bringing common sense back to politics (Ft. Aaron Gunn)

Topics
common sense platform B.C. Liberal leadership race
Hosted by
Candice Malcolm
Guests
Aaron Gunn
Mentioned
Gordon Campbell Trudeau Michael Lewis Michael Lee Ferry Creek Chrétien Martin Trio
The “Let’s go Brandon” meme comes to Canada Trudeau’s disastrous visit to Tk’emlúps First Nation

Episode Stats


Length

20 minutes

Words per minute

186.45

Word count

3,787

Sentence count

213

Harmful content

Misogyny

3

sentences flagged


Summary

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

Aaron Gunn is running to become the next leader of the British Columbia Liberal Party. He's a well-known and well-loved social media pundit and independent journalist, who has built a huge audience and a brand as a common sense advocate. In this episode, we talk about why he decided to jump into politics, why he chose the Liberal Party, and why he thinks it's possible to bring common sense back to politics.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 Is it possible to bring common sense back to politics?
00:00:03.040 My guest today is trying. I'm Candice Malcolm and this is The Candice Malcolm Show.
00:00:10.940 Canadian politics has become so robotic.
00:00:14.020 Every candidate sounds exactly the same.
00:00:16.260 They talk in sound bites and rehearsed talking points.
00:00:19.440 They don't say what they mean, they don't say what they believe in,
00:00:21.920 or what they believe is possible.
00:00:23.800 Instead, they repeat poll-tested phrases and safe topics,
00:00:27.480 talk about safe topics where they think everyone agrees with them.
00:00:30.480 This was painfully obvious in the last federal election.
00:00:33.880 There were hardly any differences between the main candidates who were running for prime minister.
00:00:38.160 They all fundamentally believed the same thing.
00:00:40.440 They believed in the status quo when it came to big government,
00:00:43.540 government knows best, government can spend forever without any consequences on policy positions,
00:00:48.420 and then when it came to social issues,
00:00:50.200 they all believed the same woke, socially leftist ideas and beliefs.
00:00:55.420 My guest today is different though.
00:00:57.060 He is a familiar face because he has a very large following on social media out in Victoria.
00:01:02.940 He's built a huge audience and a brand as a common sense pundit,
00:01:06.580 as well as an independent journalist.
00:01:08.300 In fact, he is a member of the Independent Press Gallery of Canada.
00:01:12.380 He's been a guest on the show before,
00:01:13.820 and I'm really excited to have him on today and to talk about his latest venture
00:01:17.700 and the latest thing that he is up to now.
00:01:20.220 So joining me today is Aaron Gunn, who is running for leader of the British Columbia Liberal Party.
00:01:26.840 Yeah, that's right, the Liberal Party.
00:01:28.700 Aaron, thank you so much for joining us today.
00:01:31.540 Thank you for having me, Candice.
00:01:33.060 And I might add the hopefully soon-to-be-renamed B.C. Liberal Party.
00:01:38.300 Well, it's interesting because I'm from B.C. as well,
00:01:40.860 and my first job in politics, my first experience on a political campaign was with the B.C. Liberals.
00:01:47.300 I'm dating myself a little bit, but it was back in 2005,
00:01:50.160 and I was working in the constituency office of Gordon Campbell, who was the premier at the time.
00:01:55.900 And I didn't know much about the partisan politics and left and right
00:01:59.500 and the differences between the liberal and conservative parties,
00:02:03.260 but I definitely understood that it was sort of a coalition party,
00:02:07.060 and I think that Gordon Campbell was more on the conservative side,
00:02:10.140 whereas it seems like the people that are running the party today
00:02:12.640 have pulled the party much more to the left
00:02:14.700 and are maybe perhaps more aligned with the federal liberals.
00:02:18.320 But before we get into the sort of nuances of the Liberal Party,
00:02:22.400 tell us first, Aaron, why did you decide to go into politics?
00:02:25.520 You know, you have a great career.
00:02:27.780 You have a huge following on social media.
00:02:30.780 You produce great videos.
00:02:32.240 You have an entire series.
00:02:33.200 So why did you decide to take the jump into partisan politics?
00:02:38.320 Well, I think it goes back to the last provincial election.
00:02:42.240 I was sitting there like lots of British Columbians watching the debate on my television screen,
00:02:47.120 and it just became so obvious to me, you mentioned the recent federal election,
00:02:51.480 that there weren't any true alternatives being articulated to voters.
00:02:55.340 There wasn't real options being placed before them,
00:02:58.560 and I think you saw that reflected in the historically low voter turnout
00:03:02.460 in the last British Columbian election,
00:03:04.320 and a lot of conservatives specifically just stayed home
00:03:07.240 or even voted for kind of this Mickey Mouse BC Conservative Party
00:03:11.320 that's basically run out of someone's garage.
00:03:14.300 So I think there was a lot of frustration,
00:03:17.380 and to me that's a kind of democratic deficit
00:03:20.180 where you don't have real choices,
00:03:22.280 and voters feel that everybody is kind of the same.
00:03:25.040 So with the large platform that I had built up,
00:03:27.520 obviously I saw an opportunity to present something different,
00:03:30.100 to give people a different choice,
00:03:32.220 and to actually articulate a different vision
00:03:36.320 that doesn't try to paper over our differences with the NDP and the left,
00:03:41.140 but actually provides a different way of doing things
00:03:45.380 and giving voters that option.
00:03:47.580 That's great.
00:03:48.180 And so tell us then why did you choose the Liberal Party?
00:03:51.180 We talked a little bit about how, you know,
00:03:53.280 you might change the name and how the Liberal Party
00:03:56.920 historically wasn't part of the federal liberal brand,
00:04:00.160 but nowadays they're sort of aligned more.
00:04:02.920 So, you know, why would you decide to join the Liberal Party
00:04:05.520 instead of, say, you know, create your own independent party,
00:04:09.180 do something more independent,
00:04:10.900 like what we've seen from Max St. Bernier
00:04:12.880 or the Maverick Party in Alberta?
00:04:14.500 Why did you decide to go to this establishment political party?
00:04:17.720 I think because, well, political parties to me are just vehicles at the end of the day.
00:04:23.440 They're vehicles for ideas, they're vehicles for principles and for visions.
00:04:28.380 It's a lot easier to use and come into an existing political party
00:04:34.160 than starting one from scratch in our first past the post.
00:04:36.900 You mentioned some upstart parties on the federal scene,
00:04:39.580 and obviously they've had varying degrees of success.
00:04:43.060 But as far as reflected in seats and political power,
00:04:46.300 it's definitely an uphill battle, to say the least.
00:04:49.860 So the BC Liberals, you know, since the collapse of the social credit in the 1990s,
00:04:53.880 they've been the main anti-NDP alternative.
00:04:57.020 The majority of people voting for them are actually federal conservative voters.
00:05:01.240 And because of that, I think, and they're the official opposition.
00:05:04.520 And because of all those reasons, I think it is a great opportunity to come in and present
00:05:09.740 those members, the majority of whom are conservatives, with that different vision.
00:05:15.320 And you kind of mentioned that they're drifting towards more of a Trudeau liberal brand.
00:05:20.340 But I don't think the membership is.
00:05:22.040 I don't think the voters are that vote for that party.
00:05:24.240 There's a couple people at the top of the party where that's what would likely drag it. 0.80
00:05:27.320 And they're allowed to think that.
00:05:28.880 And that's why we have a leadership race. 0.55
00:05:30.360 And I'm presenting an alternative saying that I don't think so.
00:05:33.500 I think we need to go in the opposite direction and actually provide a real alternative instead
00:05:37.280 of just becoming NDP-like.
00:05:39.660 And so you mentioned that there's a couple people at the top that they're the ones that
00:05:44.020 have sort of shifted the party, but the base is different.
00:05:46.580 So can you tell us a little bit about the Liberal Party and its culture?
00:05:50.980 Like, what do they stand for?
00:05:53.060 What are their beliefs?
00:05:54.120 Are they the common sense party in British Columbia?
00:05:56.360 And, you know, why do you think that you can do a better job leading it than anyone else?
00:06:00.900 Well, the answer was almost within your question there, Candace.
00:06:05.500 I think one of the biggest problems right now with the B.C. Liberal Party is they have no identity.
00:06:09.580 They don't know what they stand for.
00:06:10.940 They were created in the late 1990s where there was a different issue set.
00:06:15.160 There were different political fault lines.
00:06:17.620 And there was a different political zeitgeist around which issues were important and which
00:06:22.720 issues you had to speak to.
00:06:24.100 Since then, things have changed dramatically.
00:06:26.900 The federal liberals have changed dramatically.
00:06:28.900 Obviously, you see Trio's policies now.
00:06:32.140 You can't even recognize the kind of the governments of Chrétien and Martin in the past.
00:06:36.840 So because of there's been so much political movement.
00:06:40.000 Meanwhile, the B.C. Liberals are this unstable coalition that was notionally built between
00:06:44.260 federal liberals and federal conservatives.
00:06:46.260 And what I think needs to happen is instead it needs to be a coalition centered around principles.
00:06:51.840 And that kind of foundational principle is common sense.
00:06:55.580 I think that the B.C.
00:06:57.400 Liberals have a lot to be proud of on their economic record when they were in power as far as limiting the size of government and keeping taxes down.
00:07:05.700 But there's also a lot of things, whether it's like the cost of living, whether it's the carbon tax, whether it's kind of the disaster with the opioid epidemic, that their policy needs to change on.
00:07:21.420 And that's why I'm putting forward alternatives in this leadership race.
00:07:24.340 And so your tagline is bring back common sense.
00:07:28.800 So can you give us a couple of examples of what an airing gun common sense platform will look like?
00:07:35.280 Yeah, yeah, for sure.
00:07:36.280 So as far as we're concerned, I'm the only one that's even released a platform, which is odd because I was the last one into the race.
00:07:42.000 But it starts with cost of living.
00:07:44.320 It starts with scrapping the regressive and job killing carbon tax that does nothing for the environment.
00:07:49.980 We're the only candidate that's talking about that issue.
00:07:53.020 There's an insurance monopoly here in B.C. that has to go.
00:07:56.960 And, you know, so many other things supporting natural resource development here, whether it's forestry, whether it's oil, whether it's natural gas.
00:08:05.800 I think we also need to have a serious conversation about fundamental health care reform.
00:08:12.620 And then there's just other things, whether it's education.
00:08:15.020 Look, if you're a university and you're taking taxpayer dollars, if you don't protect free speech and free expression, you need to lose your funding 100 percent.
00:08:24.040 And that needs to be a red line that that that's just clear for everybody to see.
00:08:29.620 So there's lots of different issues about bringing back common sense.
00:08:35.780 But and, you know, also just getting people back to work.
00:08:38.700 So I think whether it's on the economic side, whether it's on supporting resource development, whether it's the opioid epidemic, we've got a common sense platform that we hope British Columbians of all political stripes can get behind.
00:08:51.760 That's that's exciting. That's great. Those are, again, issues that I don't really hear from political parties.
00:08:57.900 I don't really hear anyone addressing the opioid crisis.
00:09:00.380 The sort of general consensus is just like, let's ignore it and kind of let the activists and the people on the ground who, you know, support this idea of safe injection sites are giving, you know, they call it a harm reduction strategy.
00:09:15.580 But what they really do is just put more drugs on the streets and enable people who are dangerously addicted to get more sick.
00:09:23.000 And to me, it shows a total lack of dignity and a lack of care for these people in their lives.
00:09:28.940 And for anyone who's lived in a city and had to interact with people like that, it's clearly not a strategy that cares about these people.
00:09:37.440 It doesn't put dignity first. It puts sort of trendy political ideas about, you know, extreme freedom in a sense that people can just literally do whatever they want.
00:09:49.160 And the externalities of that, you know, don't matter. They don't impact communities. It's wrong.
00:09:54.460 And it's refreshing to hear someone talk about it.
00:09:57.880 I'm trying to understand a little bit about this leadership race.
00:10:00.960 So can you tell us about, you know, the other candidates who's running?
00:10:04.960 What is the leadership race? What does it entail?
00:10:07.840 And when when is the vote? When when will we learn who's who's the leader, the next leader of this party?
00:10:13.660 Well, the first thing I'd say is a lot of people come up to me, people that aren't that involved in politics during elections.
00:10:19.560 And they say, how did we end up with these people on the stage right now?
00:10:23.740 Why? How are these our choices?
00:10:25.600 And the answer is because the political parties chose those leaders during leadership races.
00:10:30.740 So this is the time when if you want to get involved in politics and really help shape the future of your province, your country, this is the way to do it.
00:10:37.840 Less than one percent of Canadians pooled memberships in political parties, I believe, which really by joining gives you a lot of political power.
00:10:46.960 So what's happening is the B.C. Liberals are picking their leader.
00:10:50.840 The to vote in that leadership race, you need to have a membership which costs ten dollars and that gives you the right to vote.
00:10:58.780 You have to become a member by December 17th and the vote is online during the first week of February.
00:11:05.240 February, I'll be joining six other candidates that I mean, we could give a run through.
00:11:13.120 There's there's a whole bunch. There's some I think that are that are better than others.
00:11:17.360 But we have current MLAs and former MLAs, some that are coming from the business world.
00:11:23.400 So a pretty wide selection of candidates competing for this spot.
00:11:27.080 But from my perspective, everybody else is speaking in those platitudes.
00:11:32.260 Everybody else is kind of buying into that that woke narrative pushed by the mainstream media.
00:11:36.480 And we're happy to be the only candidate that's offering a true alternative.
00:11:41.620 I saw on social media that some of the other candidates or at least one was was opposing your nomination,
00:11:47.320 that he didn't think that you should even be allowed to run as a B.C. Liberal.
00:11:51.320 So what do you what do you say to that kind of contention and what do you say to those sort of in the in the upper echelons of the liberal party who don't want you or someone who's an outsider,
00:12:05.660 someone who's independent minded running for leadership of this party?
00:12:08.760 Look, I understand if you're if you're an outsider coming to a party and you're bringing in a lot of people, you're bringing in a lot of energy.
00:12:15.320 That's a threat to people on the inside who are who are established, who have that political power and have kind of, you know, carved out their little little enclave of influence.
00:12:25.520 So there's obviously been a lot of pushback because of that within the party, within certain people.
00:12:30.880 The particular politician you're talking about is Michael Lee, who's someone else who's running,
00:12:35.160 who I met at a hockey game, funny enough, and we chatted for 15 minutes.
00:12:39.360 And he was talking about how excited he was to have me in the race and the energy that I would bring to the debates.
00:12:43.960 And then one week later, he throws out this kind of ridiculous tweet that says that I shouldn't be allowed to run because of my, quote, unquote, intolerant views.
00:12:52.820 And then despite about 200 people asking him on Twitter what he's even talking about, he failed to even respond or articulate exactly what are intolerant views he was talking about.
00:13:03.440 So I think, look, I think that's just an example of one of these same old politicians who say one thing and do another that people are tired, that are tired of.
00:13:14.860 And I think what they're looking for is they're looking for authenticity.
00:13:17.760 They're looking for people that actually have the courage of their convictions.
00:13:21.440 And I think we have enough Michael Lees in the party and we need we need some fresh blood.
00:13:26.400 So it's such a typical politician move, I guess.
00:13:29.740 One thing one thing behind closed doors and one thing in the public.
00:13:33.520 So what is your strategy?
00:13:35.300 And do you think you can actually win this thing?
00:13:37.700 Yeah, 100 percent we do.
00:13:39.000 I mean, at the end of the day, it it comes down to whoever can get the most votes.
00:13:43.300 And the number one way you normally win these leadership races is by signing up new members.
00:13:48.620 We have by far the largest following of any of the other candidates.
00:13:52.800 I dare to say we've been drumming up the most interest as well.
00:13:56.440 So what we're going to try to do is reach out to all the supporters and people who have watched my videos and supported my videos throughout British Columbia over the past couple of years.
00:14:05.580 And say, if you agree with me on these big issues, if you're tired of the way things have been going, tired of the NDP, tired of Trudeau and want to see a fundamental change in direction.
00:14:16.020 This is your chance.
00:14:17.000 It's just ten dollars.
00:14:18.380 It gives you the right to vote in the leadership race and also gives you the chance to help be a part of history.
00:14:23.860 So that's what we're trying to do.
00:14:25.600 And more than anything, we want to shake up the political system in B.C. and start talking about issues that the media and and the NDP have tried to say are off limits now and refuse to talk about.
00:14:37.300 So we're looking to expand that Overton window and have a real debate and a real discussion about the issues that matter to people.
00:14:43.880 That's great, Aaron.
00:14:45.240 And so what is your what is your vision for the province?
00:14:47.860 What what would British Columbia look like five years from now if you were successful in leading this party and leading the government?
00:14:55.140 What what would British Columbia look like five, ten years from now?
00:15:00.120 Well, I think we would have dramatic change.
00:15:02.080 I think obviously it starts with getting the cost of living under control and people back to work.
00:15:06.160 It's it's it starts with supporting our resource industries, whether it's oil, natural gas, getting our pipelines built, supporting forestry, having dramatic health care reform that brings in more choice, more competition.
00:15:18.880 I think it includes an education, taking the ideology out of the classroom, out of the curriculum, supporting free speech on university campuses.
00:15:27.560 And and and when it comes to some of these increases in crime we've seen in Victorian Vancouver, clamping down on the anarchy, supporting our police, ending kind of this lawlessness.
00:15:39.300 You see a place is like like like Ferry Creek and these illegal blockades and bring a fundamentally different approach to the opioid crisis, where we talk about prioritizing rehabilitation rather than just handing out heroin like candy, like it's candy on Halloween, which is what the NDP wants to do.
00:15:58.240 So but all that aside, I will say the other thing is to put an end to some of this ridiculous attacks on British Columbia and Canada's history, to stop playing identity politics and pitting different groups against each other, to stop going around and and and self-flagellating ourselves with with how racist we are and all these other things.
00:16:21.420 When the truth of the matter is, when the truth of the matter is British Columbia and Canada is among, if not the most welcoming place in the entire world, we have a history that's not perfect, but it's one that we can be proud of, that's for sure.
00:16:33.060 And we and we should be we should be singing that, singing that tune every single day.
00:16:37.900 And I think I think really, if you think about it, the average person who lives in Canada, whether they arrived here two minutes ago or or 100 years ago or 10,000 years ago, all know that to be fundamentally true.
00:16:51.880 So that's a message that I want to put that I want to push.
00:16:55.460 And we already have two political we already have two woke political parties in B.C. 0.90
00:17:00.340 I don't think we need a third.
00:17:01.380 Well, it sounds great, Aaron, and good for you, because so many politicians in the center and on the right are afraid to say what you just said, because they don't want to be canceled.
00:17:10.860 They don't want to upset the sort of, you know, gatekeepers or the cultural gatekeepers who push really, really, you know, woke nonsense that is so offside with the general public that people just shake their heads in disbelief at some of the things you hear.
00:17:27.240 I'll give you an example. I read a couple of weeks ago about B.C. council or city councilors petitioning to change the name of British Columbia.
00:17:35.020 I can't imagine a more unpopular notion among British Columbians to change the name of the province, you know, for something that people are so proud of.
00:17:44.780 And it's been a part of the history and a part of the culture, a part of who you are as a British Columbian.
00:17:51.660 And it's right there in the name. And to say that we should change that is just so off-putting to so many people.
00:17:57.580 I think they shake their head and they almost want to disengage from politics.
00:18:00.980 So good for you for standing up for this sort of common sense idea, standing against what I hope more politicians learn from you, Aaron, and see that, you know, you don't have to cower.
00:18:11.920 You don't have to pretend to be something you're not. And articulating the ideas that are probably firmly held beliefs of most Canadians, most British Columbians, shouldn't be something that disqualifies you from politics.
00:18:25.800 What do you think your candidacy and you running, what does it mean for outsiders and people who might consider getting into politics but don't want to?
00:18:36.240 What do you think it means for establishment political parties in Canada?
00:18:41.040 Well, we'll see how it goes. But I think there's lots of people on the outside who are watching this race very closely, who are watching my candidacy very closely.
00:18:51.080 Because, I mean, you kind of identified it right there. It's a challenge to the political establishment from the growing body of people who are outside that establishment but have built large followings.
00:19:02.180 And I think it's a test case to see what I view as democracy in action.
00:19:09.320 Look, I have a lot of faith in everyday people.
00:19:13.540 And people are at the core of what politics is all about.
00:19:16.900 And I think that people haven't been served well by our current crop of political choices.
00:19:22.100 So if you believe that and you have a following to do something about it, it's time to put that theory to the test.
00:19:28.560 So that's what I'm doing.
00:19:29.880 And I do think if we are successful, it will be a wake-up call to establishment politicians and establishment political parties all across the country that they're vulnerable.
00:19:39.320 And hopefully a rallying cry to those on the outside who want to make a difference, that it's time to step up in various jurisdictions and start turning things around in this country.
00:19:53.380 Well, Aaron Gunn, we will be watching this race very closely.
00:19:57.340 It's really exciting to see someone like yourself involved in the process.
00:20:01.540 And we will certainly be following this throughout the campaign.
00:20:05.680 Thank you so much for joining the show.
00:20:06.960 Thank you so much for having me, Candace.
00:20:09.880 All right.
00:20:10.520 We'll talk to you again hopefully soon.
00:20:13.560 Aaron Gunn running for leader of the British Columbia Liberal Party.
00:20:16.860 I'm Candace Malcolm, and this is The Candace Malcolm Show.