The Candice Malcolm Show - True North’s Candice Malcolm to moderate first Conservative Debate on May 5th

00:00:00.000 What does it mean to be a Conservative in Canada, and what do Conservatives need to do to win?

00:00:04.840 Plus, yours truly will be moderating the very first Conservative Party of Canada debate

00:00:08.600 in Ottawa. I'm Candice Malcolm, and this is The Candice Malcolm Show.

00:00:22.880 Everyone, thank you so much for tuning in. So a bit of housekeeping, a little announcement

00:00:26.520 off the top of the show here. There is a Conservative debate happening on May 5th in Ottawa.

00:00:32.700 It's being hosted by the Canada Strong and Free Network. They'll be hosting that debate.

00:00:37.240 So far, there are six registered candidates that are going to be there, and the debate

00:00:41.000 will be moderated by Jamil Javani, as well as myself. So I'm very excited and pleased to be

00:00:45.880 able to be a part of that. And joining me on the podcast today to discuss the debate and

00:00:51.300 the broader conference and the broader Conservative movement in Canada is Troy Lanigan.

00:00:56.520 So Troy is the president of the Canada Strong and Free Network, who was previously known

00:01:00.740 as the Manning Centre, and it was built to support Canada's Conservative movement by connecting

00:01:06.200 Conservatives across the country and sharing best practices pertaining to limited government,

00:01:10.380 free enterprise, and individual responsibility. Troy is also the founder and part-time CEO of

00:01:15.260 a new think tank called SecondStreet.org. They do really excellent work. They examine public

00:01:20.220 policy through stories told about families and entrepreneurs and how they are impacted negatively,

00:01:25.580 usually, by government policy. Troy also previously served as the president of the

00:01:30.500 Canadian Taxpayers Federation. He was over there for 10 years, and he is the chairman of the World

00:01:35.320 Taxpayers Association, which is a group that creates networking and best practices to support

00:01:42.080 lower taxes, fairer taxes all over the world. So, Troy, it's great to have you on the podcast.

00:01:47.200 Thank you for joining us.

00:01:48.340 Well, it's my pleasure to be here, Candice. I'm a big fan, and I appreciate the opportunity to talk

00:01:53.060 about our event. Well, let's talk about the event. So, I was very pleased when you reached out and

00:01:58.940 asked me if I wanted to be involved in the debate. I think it's a great opportunity, and really the

00:02:04.200 first opportunity that we have to look at these candidates, to have them on the stage side by

00:02:08.480 side. So, before we talk about the broader conference, let's talk a little bit about the

00:02:12.700 debate and what is planned for that evening. Right. So, we're kicking it off on Thursday

00:02:18.760 evening. That's May the 5th, and the opening night event will be a debate. The first opportunity to

00:02:26.740 see the leadership candidates square off against each other. And what's great, too, is it's not just

00:02:33.180 a party audience, but it's a movement audience. This conference, and we'll talk more about it, is very

00:02:38.420 much activists, leaders of think tanks, advocacy groups, bloggers, people in the media, you name it.

00:02:46.200 So, it's going to be a discussion, and Candace, I know you're moderating, so you'll be talking a lot

00:02:52.180 about this. Talking about the movement itself and the connection points between a lot of these

00:02:57.820 candidates and the movements will be, I think, an important and unique contribution of this debate

00:03:02.760 that we're going to have on the opening night. And then, of course, we'll be able to get into some

00:03:06.760 of the policy distinctions amongst the candidates, too, both on the domestic and international front.

00:03:11.580 But a really exciting way to kick this off, we've been out for two full years now. The last time we

00:03:18.480 all got together at this event, it was called the Manning Networking Conference. We had over 700

00:03:23.520 folks, and we had to take the last two years, cancelled in 2020, and then in 2021, we were online.

00:03:30.920 So, I can tell you the enthusiasm for this event has been tremendous. And I think, in particular,

00:03:36.140 kicking it off with a leadership debate like this is going to be a really exciting start to the

00:03:42.860 proceedings for the two days that we'll be holding this event.

00:03:46.780 Well, and it's also just a great opportunity for conservatives to ask questions of conservative

00:03:52.440 leaders, because we've seen so many times in the past with the way that the media cover and treat

00:03:58.020 the conservative candidates. They focus on two or three niche issues, which are the issues that the

00:04:03.020 journalists care about. They're not the issues that Canadians care about, and they're certainly not

00:04:06.440 the issues that conservative members care about. So, I think that having us, I'm very pleased that

00:04:12.420 you reached out to Jamil and myself, because, you know, tapping into people who are part of this

00:04:16.900 sort of small C conservative network, and who will come from the independent media side, I think

00:04:22.600 hopefully we'll get, you know, more into the debates that our viewers and people who follow True

00:04:28.560 North that they care about. So, that's what I'm hoping, hoping from it all.

00:04:33.860 And it's not just the issues that we'll talk about, but I also think it's important to build

00:04:38.740 relationships too, right? That this sort of whole relationship between big C and small C often

00:04:44.440 breaks down. And sometimes these two sides get mad at each other, sometimes deservedly so. But I think

00:04:50.660 the hope too is in bringing the event together like this, that there can be a lot of those conversations

00:04:54.980 and a lot of friendships and relationships and exchanges struck up that I think are important

00:05:02.060 to get a lot of people on the same page and moving forward on this. So, yeah, I think it's,

00:05:10.200 everyone's looking forward to it. It's going to be exciting. And again, it's a unique audience,

00:05:15.340 and one that I think is important in getting this current debate, this decision on who the next leader

00:05:23.080 of the party will be a very important venue for that whole discussion to start off.

00:05:29.680 Well, so, and so that's happening on the Thursday night, kicking off the weekend of the conference.

00:05:33.500 I know that we have a whole bunch of our reporters from True North, myself, Andrew Lawton, several of

00:05:39.060 there will be there on the ground at the conference. Why don't you tell us a little bit more about what

00:05:43.520 you have on the agenda for the conference? Give a little pitch to our viewers, especially people who

00:05:49.220 live in and around Ottawa or anywhere around Ontario who want to go for a little road trip

00:05:53.620 and check out the sort of leading conservative, small C conservative policy conference in the

00:06:00.160 country. I'll do a pitch at the front end and the back end, but CanadaStrongandFree.network is our

00:06:05.680 website. And there's actually two events, Candice. The first on Thursday during the day before the

00:06:10.920 grand event starts off Thursday evening with the debate is a best practices forum. And it used to be that

00:06:17.220 this conference would always have a session or two for practitioners, how to improve coalition

00:06:22.020 building or improve our presence on social media and the like. And so when I came aboard a few years

00:06:27.080 ago, we wanted to set up a dedicated day just to exchanges of best practices. And so the best

00:06:34.120 practices forum is a separate event that takes place on the Thursday for the day before the debate

00:06:40.760 starts. And that information is also on the website. And, you know, we'll be talking,

00:06:45.520 there's a Facebook and Instagram are sending a team up from the states to do a workshop on that

00:06:51.120 day. We'll be having a discussion about this traditional media matter anymore. Andrew Lawton

00:06:57.100 is one of the featured speakers in that discussion. We'll have a session on planning for success,

00:07:02.320 addressing donor chill. This has been a big issue for a lot of organizations in the movement post the

00:07:07.760 emergencies act. So that's a really important discussion we have on the Thursday. We talked about

00:07:12.680 the debate Thursday night, and then into Friday, we'll have a number of issue discussions.

00:07:17.060 Some of the big ones will be on healthcare, what's happening in our cities, education reform,

00:07:23.880 we'll have a session on market solutions to emission reductions, the future of work,

00:07:30.160 we have a debate we're featuring this year on big tech regulation, hotspots around the world,

00:07:36.960 the growing cost of living crisis. These are all issues that you're talking about,

00:07:41.160 Candice, a lot of the movement in the country, ordinary folks are dealing with, as well as some

00:07:46.700 keynote speakers we're excited about. Our keynote on the Saturday morning is going to be Yanomi Park,

00:07:53.560 who's a defector from North Korea and an activist. I had the opportunity to be down in Florida last

00:08:00.800 December at a conference and hear her speak. She absolutely lit up the room, an incredibly powerful

00:08:06.760 story and a great speaker. And so we've got a full agenda of really relevant topics to the movement,

00:08:14.040 but I think the country as a whole. And we hope to blossom some ideas out of this. Obviously,

00:08:19.420 we always try and get these conferences to take action steps as to what people can do and how they

00:08:26.120 can advance these issues that are important to building a free or more prosperous society always.

00:08:30.880 That's great. And we have a special discount code for True North for anyone who wants to register for

00:08:38.060 the conference. I don't know exactly what the discount is, but you get a little bit of a discount

00:08:41.980 from the registration fee. So you can use the code. It's TNMFRIEND22. So the letter TNM and then the word

00:08:52.740 FRIEND22. And that will give you a discount, which we appreciate that. 15% off the registration fee.

00:08:58.400 Oh, that's great. That's wonderful. Great. Well, I hope listeners will head on over and sign up

00:09:05.000 because it's going to be a really fun weekend, really engaging. I always leave these conferences,

00:09:08.780 Troy, feeling really motivated and inspired and excited because so often as a conservative in

00:09:14.380 Canada, you feel lonely or you feel like everyone is up against you or that the principles that you

00:09:21.760 care about and believe in are being abandoned and not just being abandoned, but being mocked and

00:09:26.460 being disregarded and going to an event like that where you hear passionate speeches and you hear

00:09:32.860 people who are really doing things to take concrete steps, new ideas, fresh ideas, plus the networking

00:09:41.760 side, the friendship side. There's so much to gain and to benefit from these conferences.

00:09:48.040 And one thing I wanted to add, too, is we have an exhibitor hall. We have 25 people that are signed

00:09:52.900 up as exhibitors this year. So as you make your way through the hallway in between the lunchroom

00:09:59.000 and the various sessions and the breakouts and everything else that's going on, you'll have an

00:10:04.120 opportunity to interact with 25 exhibitors, think tanks, advocacy groups, some industry groups come in.

00:10:12.820 And it's just a great opportunity to make some new connections. We have a lot of new exhibitors this

00:10:17.900 year. We have some new sponsors. And, you know, it's interesting whenever we run surveys on this

00:10:23.980 afterwards, Candace, we find that a third of the people and we have we've had as many as 700 at this

00:10:29.440 are attending for the first time. So that's exciting, too. And then those people, I think, as you say,

00:10:34.840 get motivated and excited. And it hopefully, you know, encourages them to to do things in the

00:10:42.000 movement that contribute to to the issues and those things that we hold near and dear.

00:10:47.580 Well, I want you to tell us a little bit about your new organization, your other organization,

00:10:51.680 Second Street, because for viewers and listeners who aren't familiar with it, you sort of take a

00:10:57.220 different approach to public policy than a traditional think tank. So can you tell us a

00:11:01.240 little bit about that project? Well, yeah, we some time ago, born with a friend of mine,

00:11:07.980 some people know Mark Milkey in Calgary, and we'd go to conferences, we'd always hear these

00:11:13.540 sessions at conferences, especially when we went down to the United States that the conservative

00:11:18.060 movement needed to tell more stories. And of course, we knew this to be true. But then we'd

00:11:22.520 immediately go back and you'd start talking in numbers and statistics. And we came up with the

00:11:27.020 idea, what if we set up a think tank that, you know, is it statement of purpose was to tell stories

00:11:31.720 of how public policy intersects in people's lives. And so that's really the concept of

00:11:39.760 secondstreet.org. So I'll give you a really good example. One of the biggest issues that we focus on

00:11:45.080 is healthcare reform. And we know as, you know, Fraser Institute, for example, has just done tremendous

00:11:53.120 work on measuring healthcare wait lists. It's 13.2 weeks longer than doctors recommend from the time

00:11:59.880 you see your your general doctor to you see your specialist, and then there's another time frame

00:12:04.760 until you get a procedure done. But instead of talking about these numbers, and statistics like

00:12:09.860 that, which are very important, we try to compliment it, we've gone out and interviewed a lot of people,

00:12:14.820 for example, that are sitting on wait lists and in pain and suffering and tell their stories about how

00:12:19.380 the system, how that public policy has served them. And it's not very good. We we've had,

00:12:25.040 we interviewed one woman in Ontario, Candace. She's lost not one, but two daughters. Can you

00:12:33.380 imagine this two daughters died on waiting lists, we have some of the worst wait lists in the

00:12:38.760 industrialized world, we've got to address this, we've got to talk about it. And you know, I'll say

00:12:43.340 to this effect that one of the top panels that we're doing this year at the conference will be

00:12:47.900 on healthcare reform. We've got to start having a mature conversation about healthcare reform in

00:12:54.600 this conversation. And challenging this idea that only government can provide a monopoly and ration

00:13:01.400 care, this is people's lives, this is serious. The practice in Canada is like nowhere else in the world.

00:13:09.020 And it's time we start to confront important issues like this and go on the offensive, frankly,

00:13:14.980 to a policy of rationing that has not served people well. So Second Street tells those very real

00:13:21.840 stories and uses that as a tool, hopefully, to motivate and get the attention of policymakers to

00:13:26.920 make important public policy changes in this regard. Well, that story you told, Troy, is so awful. And

00:13:33.140 you just hate to hear those kind of things. But you're right that conservatives tend to sort of shy

00:13:39.000 away from debates on healthcare. I was always told it was the third rail of Canadian politics. And

00:13:44.260 that talking about it, you know, will just derail any political campaign. And we sort of saw that

00:13:49.920 with Aaron O'Toole in the last election, that he sort of, you know, proposed pretty modest changes to

00:13:56.480 improve the system. And the liberals came drumming out that he was trying to privatize and Americanize

00:14:00.900 the healthcare system. The media were all too happy to jump up and start using those talking points

00:14:06.460 to accuse him of trying to privatize healthcare. I actually think that there was a clip that the

00:14:12.120 finance minister, Christy Freeland, shared that was from one of your events, where Aaron O'Toole made a

00:14:16.680 comment that Twitter slapped a manipulated media thing on the video because she had taken it out of 0.81

00:14:22.900 context or whatever. But, you know, to me, I think that COVID gives a huge opportunity to have this

00:14:29.160 conversation because so many people, so many people like our healthcare system in theory. But then,

00:14:34.340 you know, as soon as they have to interact with it, they realize how bad it is. Like,

00:14:37.680 I have a friend who had a baby in Toronto, and she doesn't even know who the doctor was who

00:14:42.340 delivered the baby because the doctor ran in, ran out, no idea who it was, like, can't even tell the

00:14:48.040 story of, like, the doctor who delivered the baby. It's like, you know, that kind of thing. It's like,

00:14:53.720 it's so dehumanizing, so impersonal that something's, you know, such an important moment in someone's

00:14:58.500 life and you don't even have any kind of care. You know, what do you envision for a change to

00:15:04.120 Canada's healthcare system and how can conservatives really lead that conversation?

00:15:08.200 We have a supply problem in healthcare is that there's more demand than there is supply available.

00:15:14.340 And the way to do that is to allow profit and not-for-profit alternatives for people to have

00:15:21.620 choice in the system. Take away the, yes, have a universal system that's government provided,

00:15:27.240 but don't deny the right of people to pay out of their pockets or have alternatives other than that

00:15:32.940 single system. And everyone likes to compare it to the United States. It's a ridiculous comparison.

00:15:38.240 Every other country on earth, I think, except for Canada, North Korea, and Cuba, don't allow 0.99

00:15:44.380 alternatives for people. So quit talking about the American system. We need to talk about the French 0.99

00:15:49.460 system. We need to talk about the Norwegian system, the Australian system, the Kiwi system. I mean,

00:15:55.000 every other country offers people choice. And what's frustrating is that wealthy people,

00:15:59.960 of course, can get onto a plane and fly down to a clinic in the United States or Bangkok.

00:16:04.620 Medical tourism is a huge industry now all over the world. The wealthy can afford that, but those in

00:16:09.600 the middle and lower class have to sit in these wait lines. That's extremely debilitating for them.

00:16:15.620 And it hurts the economy. It hurts their families, everybody. So to provide those alternatives to,

00:16:20.500 to have a lever off the monopoly system so that there can be more supply and more provision.

00:16:26.960 And I want to say, too, you mentioned COVID. That COVID has laid bare the problems in our healthcare

00:16:32.600 system. And what's interesting is if you go to our website on secondstreet.org, you'll see we've

00:16:38.540 done some polling. And in the last year, we've seen a six to 7% increase. I don't have it in front of

00:16:43.700 me right now in support for private alternatives. The public, Candace, is ahead of the politicians on

00:16:49.760 this issue. The public increasingly understands that rationing something as important as people's

00:16:55.900 healthcare is wrong. It's got to change. We understand that, you know, the private sector

00:17:00.960 provides groceries, right? We seem to be feeding ourselves. No one would suggest that maybe the

00:17:08.080 government should ration our food or our grocery supplies in the same way they shouldn't be doing

00:17:14.120 it for healthcare. So I think common sense is coming to this. And I'm excited about the conference

00:17:20.140 in that sense that this panel is going to, we're having former Liberal Premier Gordon Campbell from

00:17:26.040 my home province in British Columbia. We're having former NDP Premier from Nova Scotia,

00:17:31.540 Daryl Dexter, is going to be speaking on this conference. We have someone coming on from the UK.

00:17:35.400 Hey, this is going to be a very unique panel. And that's why we're featuring it right up front and

00:17:40.540 up top, because we think it's one of the most important public policy issues. And you know what,

00:17:45.160 it's a real opportunity for conservatives and conservative politicians to not just play the

00:17:50.300 fiddle of the status quo, but stand out and be bold, stand up for people's right to have choice in the

00:17:57.000 healthcare system, reduce these lists by improving supply and increasing supply in the system,

00:18:02.080 long overdue. And so I hope when we get a diverse panel like that, that's speaking relatively from

00:18:09.180 the same hymn book, that that's going to be a powerful news item, I hope that that that panel

00:18:14.940 has and again, getting that conversation moving forward as the polls are indicating that more and

00:18:20.200 more people in Canada are ready to accept this kind of change. I think I think that's great timing.

00:18:26.500 And I'm really looking forward to that panel in particular, Troy, I'm going to be a little bit

00:18:30.500 pessimistic with my next question for you here. You know, there was a time where there was some

00:18:35.600 excitement with something called the resistance, there was a group of conservative premiers that

00:18:40.860 were pushing back against Justin Trudeau's radical progressive agenda. And it was sort of like,

00:18:45.460 you know, these guys were holding the line, they were going to push conservatism,

00:18:48.640 conservative politicians were doing great in the provinces. And so you had almost across the board,

00:18:54.020 right center right or right leaning premiers. And yet, at the same time, here we are in 2022. And

00:19:03.020 it seems like every single province is governed by a conservative is not doesn't look like it's

00:19:09.140 being governed by a conservative is pushing out some of the most radical left wing policies. I'm

00:19:13.620 talking about things like critical race theory, and sort of race based policies in Ontario schools,

00:19:19.160 extreme lockdowns, and and I'll say right out persecution of Christian pastors in Alberta,

00:19:26.440 they don't really feel like they're being governed by conservatives. And it seems like such a missed

00:19:32.340 opportunity. And sometimes they get really down on this idea that, you know, you have you have these

00:19:37.540 premiers, they win elections, they get elected, they're in office, now's their chance, now's their

00:19:42.100 opportunity. The provincial level is where you can do so much in terms of education, health care,

00:19:47.020 social spending, all that kind of stuff. And yet, you know, we have these, these leaders,

00:19:51.360 these governments led by people who kind of, kind of abandoned conservative principles,

00:19:55.700 they don't have the thoughtful policy leaders in their offices, they don't have the courage to stand

00:20:00.560 up to the media environment, they're constantly taking the knee, they're constantly apologizing

00:20:04.800 for conservatism. If for you, Troy, someone who comes from the movement side, someone who's been

00:20:09.460 working your whole career and building up the infrastructure, the sort of, you know, grassroots

00:20:13.940 conservative movement, making sure that policy people are connected with people who are more

00:20:18.260 politically inclined and connecting the small C and big C worlds. Do you share my pessimism? And

00:20:23.680 why do you think that? Why don't conservatives have more courage? Why don't they take pride in the

00:20:29.560 fact that our ideas are better? We have great ideas, we have, you know, all these opportunities now

00:20:34.120 that we have provincial leaders in these capitals, and yet, it doesn't really feel like we're getting

00:20:38.840 ahead. Yeah, well, I certainly share your frustration. It is really frustrating when you

00:20:43.520 see a lot of conservatives that don't always behave as conservatives. My theory of change,

00:20:49.040 though, and I'm wearing my movement hat is, is that politicians tend to be more followers than they

00:20:54.640 are leaders. I think this is what's been proven time over time. In my book, I wrote some time ago in

00:21:00.700 2015, the 25th anniversary of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. One of my favorite chapters,

00:21:06.720 one of my favorite times in public policy change was the 1990s, because we didn't have a lot of

00:21:11.820 conservative leaders in provincial capitals at the time. But what we had done is we had changed

00:21:17.360 that we had really changed the course of the conversation about debts and deficits in this

00:21:21.120 country. I remember Jason Kenney and I, young Troy and the young Jason Kenney were with the Taxpayers

00:21:28.160 Federation taking this debt clock across the country, province by province. And we'd follow Paul Martin

00:21:33.260 around during his consultations and set up this debt clock and made ourselves available to media.

00:21:38.800 And, you know, we just, we just worked and worked and worked. Think tanks worked. Advocacy groups

00:21:44.680 worked. Commentators in the media. We changed the channel in Canada. And what happened is it didn't

00:21:50.560 matter what partisan label a lot of these politicians have, whether it was Roy Romano at the time in

00:21:55.860 Saskatchewan that closed hospitals and, and, and really cut back on spending. If it was Mike Harris

00:22:03.200 in Ontario, there was a sea change in the country that regardless of what label you are under,

00:22:08.340 that we couldn't live on borrowed time and borrowed money anymore. So we are able to have really

00:22:13.440 meaningful change regardless of what party. So you see, I think it always has to come down. This is why

00:22:19.160 the movement infrastructure is even more important than the parties in my view, Candace.

00:22:23.720 We've got to have those, those conversations. We have to have that, that movement infrastructure

00:22:29.420 that continues to move the agenda, move the discussion, right? We just talked about healthcare.

00:22:35.240 That's a perfect example. Politicians aren't going to take up that position of reforming healthcare

00:22:40.580 until they feel they have the political space to do so. And how do they get that political space?

00:22:46.020 Because people like yourself that are having these conversations, advocacy groups and think tanks

00:22:51.320 like Second Street are out working on the ground, creating the space that politicians understand

00:22:57.180 that it's a winning formula to take on that, that position. I mean, Ralph Klein back in his, his day

00:23:03.080 took a, ran on a campaign of cutting spending aggressively. I mean, could you imagine that today?

00:23:09.160 No, because I don't think the ground is there, has been tilled enough by the movement and leaders

00:23:15.200 in the movement to create the kind of room that's necessary for that. So yes, we do get disappointed

00:23:21.260 by politicians, big C, but also understand that, you know, we're losing some of these public battles

00:23:28.500 too. And that's also a responsibility in all of us that are, that need to till the ground, so to speak,

00:23:34.000 with the general public to create space for these folks. It's what the environmental movement's done so

00:23:40.840 well, you know, and I mean, there's a lot of examples on the other side too, that are extremely

00:23:44.500 frustrating, but they've, they've taken control of the agenda in ways. And so we all have a

00:23:49.980 responsibility. I get frustrated with conservative politicians, but I don't blame them all the time,

00:23:54.920 because I know, I've seen it, and I've lived it. We worked our asses off in the 1990s to change

00:24:00.140 the conversation in this country about managing our finances. And we won, we won, we, we balanced

00:24:06.900 budgets, we ran surpluses, we were able to lower taxes in the early 2000s.

00:24:10.640 That was a golden era of fiscal policy in this country. And boy, it's gone. It's gone for a

00:24:15.740 wreck since, but I understand what ingredients it took to achieve those things.

00:24:21.260 Well, you know, you say that there's no appetite for what Ralph Klein was pitching back then. I mean,

00:24:26.720 I'm looking at some of the very gloomy financial outlooks and seeing, you know, six plus percent

00:24:32.500 inflation, interest rates starting to go up. I mean, we might be back in a situation like that,

00:24:38.560 before we know it, just given how out of control the spending has been, Troy. And yet at the same

00:24:43.460 time, I don't know if you caught this, but the way that the media was covering the legacy media was

00:24:48.040 covering the budget, you know, they called it a conservative budget, they called it a spend that

00:24:53.880 it was cautious and moderate and prudent. It was, it was pretty wild to see journalists calling,

00:25:01.920 you know, 50 plus billion dollar deficit, a modest, prudent budget. But I guess that's the power of

00:25:08.460 Trudeau bucks going to journalists and the, the changing attitude there. Final question for you,

00:25:16.300 Troy, what do you think the future holds for conservatives in Canada? Generally speaking,

00:25:20.960 are you optimistic? Do you think that we have the groundwork in place to really, you know,

00:25:26.960 win some of these culture battles and, and, and get a conservative prime minister back in office?

00:25:31.400 Or do you think we still have a ways to go? Oh, I always want to be optimistic. I've dedicated my

00:25:37.440 life to these fights. So of course I want to be optimistic. I think some of this stuff is coming

00:25:42.420 out of necessity. When we talk about the growing crisis in healthcare, when you just talk about

00:25:47.300 the growing crisis and absolute horrific financial management of our country and our country's

00:25:52.080 affairs, all of these things begin to necessitate a change of policy. I mean, the market is reckoning,

00:25:57.880 right? What happened in the 1990s was, is that we started to get downgrades and we were unable to

00:26:02.100 borrow in the way that, that we had been up to that point. Unfortunately, sometimes it does take

00:26:06.360 a crisis for everything to get together. But I do think when you look at some of the signs that are

00:26:10.800 coming up, especially on the economic front, we are certainly coming to a reckoning and we have that

00:26:14.500 opportunity. So we, as a movement and certainly politicians need to be in a place to,

00:26:20.240 to take up that role of leadership. And so I want to be optimistic. It can be really frustrating and

00:26:29.860 sometimes it is frustrating, but we keep pushing, we keep having these conversations, we keep working

00:26:35.600 and moving forward. And I, and I think that's, that's all we can hope for. You know, in the early

00:26:41.500 going, I'd like to use this analogy of the nineties, but you know, there was a time in the early nineties,

00:26:46.460 I really believed I'd never lived to see the day of a balanced budget in this country. Like you just

00:26:51.000 think, Oh my God, like this is the permanent state of things, but it wasn't, it did change and we did

00:26:56.480 start to create momentum. So, as I say, I I've seen what it's like to be on the, on the winning side in

00:27:02.040 a public policy sense. And I hope that there's obviously, I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't

00:27:08.120 believe that there could be another Renaissance of our ideas of a, um, of more limited responsible

00:27:14.160 government. Uh, and let's, we got to continue to build that, that big coalition of people that

00:27:19.880 want to want to work with us. I, I like to think it's, it's, um, a movement of the people that just

00:27:25.260 want to be left alone. We want, we want government out of our lives and we want to have more decision

00:27:30.300 making authority to ourselves. Some are tapping into that right now. And, and, um, hopefully that

00:27:35.580 momentum continues. Well, I don't know your specific views on the trucker convoy, but that's what I

00:27:41.740 saw it as a, as a groundswell of sort of just regular everyday people who weren't political,

00:27:46.600 who weren't organized, who weren't part of a network. They were just fed up and they went to

00:27:51.940 Ottawa to tell the government basically to leave them alone. And, uh, that, that, that gave me hope

00:27:56.120 that there's still some, uh, common sense out there amongst everyday Canadians who are sort of more

00:28:01.660 apolitical. Uh, well, Troy, I really appreciate your time. I'm very excited about the upcoming

00:28:07.160 conference. So again, we encourage everyone to go over to what, what's the, what's the website

00:28:12.100 where they can register for the conference? Canada, Canada strong and free.network. We'll

00:28:15.940 have information both on the best practices and on the main networking conference itself.

00:28:21.420 Great. All right. Well, thank you so much to you, Troy. Thanks for your time. And we look forward

00:28:26.200 to seeing you soon. Thank you, Candice, to you and to True North for giving the opportunity to promote

00:28:31.480 and talk about these conferences and events. Thank you. All right. I'm Candice Malcolm,

00:28:35.920 and this is the Candice Malcolm show.

The Candice Malcolm Show - May 03, 2022

True North’s Candice Malcolm to moderate first Conservative Debate on May 5th

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