Leslyn Lewis is a candidate for the Conservative Party in Canada at the federal level, and although this is a podcast with an international audience, the leadership race in Canada on the Conservative front turns out to be something of some surprising international significance. Not least, because our Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, is a real poster boy for the globalist utopians who are busily attempting to make this planet far worse. And so the best challenge to Trudeau on the political front in Canada will definitely come from the conservative party, who have been the historical alternatives to Canada s Liberals. And Dr. Lewis is an signally important participant in that Conservative leadership process. She s more, I think, on the socially conservative front, but a very interesting person. In this episode, we talk about her background, her journey into politics, and her vision of a strong, united, and prosperous nation. She finished in third place in the race, winning the popular vote ahead of eventual winner Erin O'Toole and party co-founder Peter McKay. She and her family are residents of the town of Dunville, where she serves her community as a Member of Parliament for Haldeman Norfolk. It s a great pleasure to be here, and I m honoured to have the opportunity to engage in these long-form discussions on a political front. Thank you very much for making time, and it s a pleasure to have you here! Dr. Jordan B. Peterson, PhD, M.A. (Political Science, Sociology, Business, and Economic Development) - The Daily Wire Plus - Episode 1 - Episode 2 - Episode 3 - Episode 4 - Episode 5 - Episode 6 - Episode 7 - Episode 8 - Episode 9 - Episode 10 - Episode 12 - Episode 13 - Episode 14 - Episode 11 - and Episode 15 - Episode 16 - Episode 17 - Episode 15 - "The Good Life" - Episode 20 - The Good Life - The Good Thing? - Thank you for listening to this Podcast? Thank you so much for listening, Dr. Leslyn Lewis, I really appreciate your support and your support, I appreciate you, I m looking forward to seeing you in the next episode of Dailywire Plus. - Dr. J.B. Peterson - J. B. Lewis, J. M. Lewis - I hope you're having a good day! - JJ & J. C. Chae - P. R. Chaney -
00:00:00.960Hey everyone, real quick before you skip, I want to talk to you about something serious and important.
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00:00:57.420Hello everyone. I'm pleased today to be talking to Dr. Leslyn Lewis.
00:01:14.000Dr. Lewis is a candidate for the leadership of the Conservative Party in Canada at the federal level.
00:01:21.180And although this is a podcast with an international audience, the leadership race in Canada on the Conservative front turns out to be something of some surprising international significance.
00:01:35.020Not least, I think, because our Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, who I'm not a fan of, for those of you who don't know, is a real poster boy for the globalist utopians who are busily attempting to make this planet far worse.
00:01:51.520And so the best challenge to Trudeau on the political front in Canada will definitely come from the Conservative Party, who have been the historical alternatives to Canada's Liberals.
00:02:04.100And Dr. Lewis is a signally important participant in that Conservative leadership process.
00:02:14.720She's more, I think it's fair to say, on the socially Conservative front, but a very interesting person.
00:02:19.900And so she's agreed to talk to me today, which I also think is a good thing.
00:02:25.720I've talked to Pierre Polyev, who's the frontrunner in the race, and Roman Barber.
00:02:31.840So that'll be three, including Dr. Lewis, that'll be three of the five candidates.
00:02:36.320I reached out to Jean Charest, who used to be Premier of Quebec, but his team felt that speaking to a ripper bait such as myself was probably not in his interest.
00:02:45.560And there's another candidate, Aitchison, who I haven't yet talked with and perhaps still might if time makes that possible.
00:02:55.620So, Leslyn Lewis graduated with a bachelor's degree from the University of Toronto, Trinity College, graduating magna cum laude.
00:03:05.980She has a master's degree in environmental studies from York University, with a concentration in business and environment from the Schulich School of Business,
00:03:13.860and a jurist doctor from Osgoode Hall Law School, and a PhD in law from Osgoode Hall Law School.
00:03:20.440She and her family are residents of the town of Dunville, where she serves her community as Member of Parliament for Haldeman Norfolk.
00:03:30.360Leslyn exploded onto the national political scene when she ran previously for the leadership of the Conservative Party in 2020.
00:03:39.120Despite having no pre-established political network and coming from relative obscurity,
00:03:43.620her vision of a strong, united, and prosperous nation resonated with Canadians right across the country.
00:03:50.440She finished in third place in the race, winning the popular vote ahead of eventual winner Erin O'Toole and party co-founder Peter McKay.
00:04:00.200Dr. Lewis is currently running for the second time in the current battle for the Canadian Conservative federal leadership.
00:04:46.560And then also, you're very well educated, and then you made a foray into politics.
00:04:51.000Let's walk through that a little bit so that we can place you in everyone's imagination before we move to the policy side of things.
00:04:58.620Well, as you said, I reside in a small community called Dunville.
00:05:03.620It's in the riding of Haldeman Norfolk, which is in the Niagara area, south of Hamilton, for those of you who are familiar with southern Ontario.
00:05:14.740And as you said, I've recently just emerged into politics, and I felt a calling on my life to really serve, use my skills that I have honed over the last few decades in education, in law, in just practical business experience.
00:05:34.660Use that to better my country, because right now I see that our country is at a precipice, and I'm concerned about the future of our country.
00:05:43.900I'm concerned about my children and the future that they will have, and the dreams that I've had in this country, and that I've been able to realize, I'm very concerned that they won't be there for future generations.
00:05:55.600When we look at the $1.3 trillion that we have in debt, and the fact that every day, just to service that debt, we're paying over $140 million a day, just in interest payments, just to service that debt.
00:06:09.700And the fact that my children will owe $45,000 is their share of the national debt.
00:06:17.420And so there are so many things that are happening in this world that are having influences on whether or not we will survive as a sovereign nation.
00:06:27.380And so I think that my experience, lending my experience to this cause, is one of the most noble things that I feel that I've done in my life.
00:06:34.860So when you were in university, you spent a lot of time in university.
00:06:42.200Let's walk through your education background.
00:06:46.720That didn't used to be a problem, although it's become one.
00:06:50.460Let's walk through your university career, and then tell me about your developing interest in politics.
00:06:55.320So, your first degree was at the University of Toronto.
00:07:00.640Yes, it's actually in sociology, African studies, with a minor in women's studies and philosophy.
00:07:06.540So, as you can see, I am well versed in the social sciences, and I understand the language of many things that are transpiring now.
00:07:17.320So, I went through the education system, and throughout my education, I often felt that I was in an environment that they were trying to mold me.
00:07:29.180But in the earlier years at the University of Toronto, I had the ability to at least, I knew where the limits were, but I also had the ability to challenge.
00:07:39.820Whereas, I found in my later stages that things, there was more conformity in education, and there was less diversity of thought, which was very, very concerning to me.
00:07:51.580And even in my later days of teaching, I almost felt like an undercover agent, because I couldn't really necessarily reveal that I was conservative.
00:08:03.540Although it came out later on, because I was asked to help out the party in 2015, at the end of my PhD.
00:08:10.580And to run in an election, in a riding that there was a scandal in, and so I had to step in last minute.
00:08:18.000So, at the end, it was revealed, but I don't think that many people were really cognizant of how much of a conservative I was,
00:08:26.900because that's not something that's really, really celebrated in university.
00:08:31.140And that sounds, like, really ironic that one would say that, that in an institution of higher learning, that you would not be able to celebrate diversity of thought.
00:08:43.640But that's what the end of my university career was like, and that's really unfortunate.
00:08:49.520What years were you studying sociology and women's studies at the University of Toronto?
00:08:54.000Oh, in the 90s. In the early 90s, I completed my first degree.
00:09:01.420Okay, so that's a very, both sociology and women's studies are very left-leaning, certainly now, but they were back in the early 1990s, too.
00:09:11.460There was kind of a little initial peak of political correctness in the universities in the early 1990s.
00:09:19.200Why did you decide to go into sociology and women's studies, and were you conservative in your orientation then?
00:09:27.460And if so, how did you bridge that gap?
00:09:34.140Well, actually, my family came here as immigrants, and the Liberal Party was the party that they felt most at home in.
00:09:42.280And so, although I grew up in an ultra, ultra-conservative family, religious-wise, economically, fiscally conservatives, just a traditional immigrant family that comes to Canada and has the foundations of strong family values, believing in strong faith values, and a strong faith in your community and contributing to that community.
00:10:10.600So, I would consider myself as growing up in a conservative family, although it was a politically liberal family.
00:10:17.900And when I went to school, I didn't even think about politics at all.
00:10:23.300And I was concerned about some of the social dilemmas because I was very active in my church, doing prison ministry, working with at-risk youth.
00:10:34.200And so, I was very concerned about the social dilemmas, and so sociology was a natural fit.
00:10:41.380And sociology really was about understanding the theoretical underpinnings of what society was comprised of.
00:10:54.560And so, I didn't really find that it was left-leaning.
00:10:57.780Women's studies, of course, that was my minor, and that was more so left-leaning, but it was still very theoretical back then.
00:11:05.760Now, what I'm finding is a lot of the theories have become dogma and have seeped into the mainstream narrative and have become the norm rather than just a theory.
00:11:17.920And so, that's the difference between what I went to school in the 90s and what's studied now.
00:11:22.140And you could have alternative positions back then, whereas now I find that you're demonized for having critical thought abilities.
00:11:32.300Okay, so the advantage of that would have been to have gone through that four-year initial period would have been that you became conversant, very conversant, say, with the progressive views.
00:11:43.720Because the downside would have been, well, the tension that you would have experienced, I presume, between your beliefs and the beliefs that were being promoted.
00:11:53.720Why weren't you convinced by the more progressive doctrines of the sociologists and the women's studies teachers?
00:12:15.700Even though you have that conservative foundation, that education does impact on you.
00:12:21.720Because there are things that I had bought into that I'm just even now recognizing that may not have been all-encompassing or may not have been ideally where I would have been had I not had that education.
00:12:37.620So there was a notion that my success was really based on what I could materially get from society or my educational pursuits.
00:12:53.180And there was a lot of friction there with also raising a family and having a successful marriage, etc.
00:13:01.820So many of that, I think, may have even undermined some of the traditional values that I had.
00:13:10.460And I don't know whether that's a good or a bad thing because I was able to reconcile it.
00:13:15.380And even in university, I joined the Reform Party because I saw that Preston Manning, his values were very much in line with what I believed.
00:13:25.580And there were questions that I had through my education that weren't being adequately answered.
00:13:33.620And so I just naturally gravitated towards my upbringing.
00:13:38.500And I found that he, as a leader, was somebody who I believed was a very dignified and upstanding person.
00:13:47.420And I saw the values that he had for and the desires that he had for this country.
00:13:53.720And so I aligned myself with that party very early on.
00:13:57.900So do you think, having been educated on the progressive front, do you think that you developed a deeper appreciation for the perspective that's being put forward there?
00:14:10.980I mean, the progressive argument is something like people who have authority and status often benefit from unfair privilege and opportunity and capitalize on power, let's say, at the expense of people who are less fortunately situated in the hierarchical structure of society.
00:14:35.480You know, and there's some truth to that, obviously, because power corrupts every human institution and we have to keep an eye out on it.
00:14:44.000Why do you think you were unconvinced by the more radical stream of the progressive doctrine, especially given that you were immersed in it for four years and subject to a fair bit, I imagine, both of conceptual and peer pressure?
00:15:01.320Well, as I said, from a theoretical perspective, a lot of it doesn't make sense.
00:15:06.640The problem that I'm having now is that it's almost being inversed.
00:15:12.220So we know that privilege is relative.
00:15:16.220Oftentimes, I've walked into a room and people would say to me, oh, you're a lawyer.
00:15:23.900Perhaps by the way I speak, by the way I carry myself.
00:15:26.960So there is relative privilege in different aspects of your social ranking.
00:15:33.600And that's something that we've always had in society.
00:15:37.460The reason why I speak about an inversion is because what I'm seeing is that they will often make your identity your master status.
00:15:50.240And so that's what I push back on right now because we were able to critically analyze why that is not good for society.
00:15:59.880But I even find myself right now, even in the conservative race, as someone who has the only track record of someone running a conservative leadership race and winning the popular vote as an outsider,
00:16:14.040I still will not get media coverage and attention, primarily because I don't fit their narrative.
00:16:22.340And their narrative is that the conservative party is a white racist party.
00:16:27.440And so to have me potentially highlight me would go against the media and the social narrative.
00:16:35.560So much to the point that in 2020, Kamala Harris was featured over 8,800 times more than I was, even though she was not running in our country.
00:16:47.780And even though her position was an appointment and I was running to earn my position as a leadership candidate, as a leader of the conservative party.
00:16:57.240So those things, it shows you largely how the left kind of, they've reversed even what their beliefs are to the point that when you don't fit their narrative, they come after you and they attack you very, very viciously.
00:17:15.300Going online without ExpressVPN is like not paying attention to the safety demonstration on a flight.
00:17:20.420Most of the time, you'll probably be fine, but what if one day that weird yellow mask drops down from overhead and you have no idea what to do?
00:17:28.660In our hyper-connected world, your digital privacy isn't just a luxury, it's a fundamental right.
00:17:33.780Every time you connect to an unsecured network in a cafe, hotel, or airport, you're essentially broadcasting your personal information to anyone with a technical know-how to intercept it.
00:17:43.080And let's be clear, it doesn't take a genius hacker to do this.
00:17:45.980With some off-the-shelf hardware, even a tech-savvy teenager could potentially access your passwords, bank logins, and credit card details.
00:17:53.740Now, you might think, what's the big deal? Who'd want my data anyway?
00:17:57.360Well, on the dark web, your personal information could fetch up to $1,000.
00:18:01.960That's right, there's a whole underground economy built on stolen identities.
00:27:40.180Yeah, you brought up a bunch of issues there.
00:27:42.120One issue, I would say, is the idea that somehow we have to make life difficult for impoverished people so that the environment will improve.
00:27:56.920You talked about the injunction to cease deforestation and the consequent generation of hunger.
00:28:04.080The first thing that I think conservatives and intelligent liberals could agree upon and insist upon is that there's no pathway to environmental sustainability
00:28:17.080that involves making already poor people more miserable.
00:28:21.700First of all, because we shouldn't be making them more miserable.
00:28:26.220And second, because people can't care about broader environmental concerns when they're so desperate they're worried about tonight's shelter and the next meal.
00:28:37.760And so the idea that we have to accept arbitrary limits to growth, economic growth, which are mostly going to hurt poor people,
00:28:44.240and higher energy prices and higher food prices, which are mostly going to hurt poor people,
00:28:48.640and that that's going to help on the environmental sustainability front,
00:28:51.940that's just, it's not only nonsense and a lie, it's an anti-truth.
00:28:59.060You couldn't say anything farther from the truth than that.
00:29:03.380I completely agree with you, Dr. Peterson, in that it's actually, and I'll tell you a story that happened to me during my math,