David Eby destroyed the BC NDP in less than a year (ft. Angelo Isidorou)
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Summary
It was just three months ago that the BC NDP were going to easily cruise to a re-election victory, and now it looks like they re actually having to play catch up with the BC Conservatives. I wanted to have on Premier David Eby to discuss how he was able to destroy his own party in less than a year, but obviously that was never going to happen. So I found the next best thing, Angelo Isidoro from the BC Tories, who I am glad to have come on today to marvel at just how strange Eby s leadership of the party has been, and just how fast this decline has happened.
Transcript
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In my opinion, one of the most interesting provinces to follow right now politically
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is British Columbia. It was just three months ago that the BC NDP were going to easily cruise
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to a re-election victory, and now it looks like they're the ones actually having to play
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catch up with the BC Conservatives. I wanted to have on Premier David Eby to discuss with me how
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he was able to destroy his own party in less than a year, but obviously that was never going to
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happen. So I found the next best thing, Angelo Isidoro from the BC Conservatives, who I am glad
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to have on today, to just marvel at just how strange Eby's leadership of the party has been
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and just how fast this decline has happened, because I don't think either of us could actually
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find a time in Canadian politics where a party went from so high up to so far down in such a short
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period of time. Maybe Kim Campbell, but even then I think that was more of the slow death of the BC
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party. Well, thanks for coming on, Angelo. Thanks for having me, Wyatt. Absolutely. And so
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of course, since you're the executive director of the BC Conservatives, you have a really good inside
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look at how the party's doing, how you guys are able to appeal to BC residents. But this is at least
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my impression. You can say if I'm wrong or not, but I think that your guys' greatest asset right now
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as a party is simply being able to run against David Eby. Not that you guys don't have ideas.
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Obviously, the best ideas you have are just reversing everything the current BC and DP are
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doing. But I'm sort of in shock watching how David Eby keeps ending up stepping in it in a certain
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sense, not able to actually appeal again to middle class voters, constantly doubling down on the most
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radical policies. And even when he's trying to correct himself, he's not even really doing anything
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to correct bad policies, merely trying to put patches on the damage he's done.
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Yeah. Oh, absolutely. I mean, look, the NDP in this province has enjoyed a pretty popular majority
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for some time. They've been a popular party. But that was under John Horgan. And John Horgan was a
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premier that even a lot of conservatives liked. He struck you as a guy that you want to have a beer
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with. He was a hockey dad. David Eby is no John Horgan. David Eby is an ideological guy, right? As a
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lawyer, I think he wrote some sort of guide or a book on how to sue the police if you get caught with
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drugs, right? He is an ideologue first. So that is something that is beginning to reveal itself. He
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became premier through a leadership vote. He's not an elected premier. He is a chosen premier. And for such
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a long time, he enjoyed, as did John Horgan, but David Eby certainly enjoyed an opposition that was
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feckless, right? He enjoyed an opposition that stood and applauded all their woke agenda items.
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And for the past year now, our party has been in the legislature as an official party.
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And we're actually being an aggressive opposition, right? The first day we were in the legislature,
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David Eby did an interview saying that the culture in the legislature has changed. Things have gotten so
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negative as a result of the conservatives being there. And it's like, well, yeah, you're not used
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to having an opposition. And now we're going to relentlessly hold you accountable for these radical
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policies that are making life for British Columbians worse and worse. And now here we are, right? The
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crack's begun to show over the past few months with, you know, the rampant anti-Semitism within the
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BCNDP, his expulsion of Selena Robinson, a Jewish MLA who wasn't on board with a radical agenda. And then,
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of course, the MNP scandal, which basically revealed that, you know, we have this big bloated
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bureaucracy in British Columbia that picks winners and losers. And now finally, decriminalization,
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where he passed this radical policy that was supported by BC United. And life has never been
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worse for addicts here. More people are dying, less people are safe, violence is up. And now he's
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crawled all the way to Ottawa to beg Trudeau to undo it, which now today, at the time of this
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recording, we found has been done. So, you know, we're seeing him moderate himself.
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I was going to say, that's such a weak policy, too. I talked about this in previous videos,
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as well as my interview with Brian Berguet. Effectively, what they're saying is that you
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cannot use illicit drugs on maybe 2% of land in British Columbia. You can't use it in public parks,
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in front of schools, and other public places. But they've never enforced camping laws in these
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public parks. They've never enforced any other, like, drug laws when it comes to using illicit drugs
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in on private property and other places like that. And do you think they're actually going to even
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enforce in public property? You know, it's bad when the liberals right now are trying to now play the
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blame game with the BCNDP, because the federal liberals have some blame for this, because they were
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the ones stupid enough to let David Eby push this decriminalization plan forward. But when even
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Trudeau's liberals will not embrace you because they see you as a liability, that's when I think
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everything's falling apart a little bit for you. And watching BC conservative politics and the way
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that the BC conservatives have expanded, it reminds me a lot of the way that the conservative party
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federally has greatly increased in the polls since Pierre Polyev became the leader. It's that people
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got really tired of conservative leaders or, you know, supposedly big tent leaders like Kevin Falcon
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and other, you know, people like Christy Clark, barely actually even opposing the radical ideas of
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the left, that you can't just be nice and hope that voters are going to put you into power. You
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actually need to show that I am angry like you at what the current government is doing. And that's where
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I think that John Rustad is a man who probably not a lot of people even knew two years ago are
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gravitating to him, not because of a massive amount of personal magnetism. I think it would be the same
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thing with Pierre Polyev. It's that somebody is demonstrating that they actually get it, and that
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you aren't crazy for thinking that these policies are crazy. I think the most valuable currency in 2024 for
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a politician is authenticity. I think it used to be expertise, right? I think we used to buy into
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technocracy. We used to want people and leaders who were experts in a field. But I think as a result
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of COVID, and as a result of so-called experts being wrong about many things, including how to live our
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lives, people have gravitated away from this yearning towards, you know, is he credited? Does he have
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expertise? And more towards, is this a genuine person? Is this an authentic person? What you see
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is what you get. And that's certainly the case with John. John is an open book. He has an incredible
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heart. He has an incredible love for this province. He would be a monumental premier. And I think
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conservatives, but not just conservatives, like ordinary British Columbians are seeing that,
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and they're seeing the other options, David Eby and Ideologue, and Kevin Falcon, who's just not really
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an authentic person at all, right? It's not exactly clear what they stand for. So we're enjoying,
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you know, we're enjoying this boost, I think, as a result of people having the opportunity
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to see a leader who is very accessible, right? Like he's the type of guy who, you know, we finish an
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event and he wants to take the SkyTrain to the next place. And I say, no, John, like you got to be
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driven there, but he's just such an ordinary guy that he's open to doing that. So I think that's
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playing a role. The elitism of BC United is not palpable to people.
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Yeah, and what I would define what's happening in both British Columbia and federally speaking
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is kind of like a middle class revolt. It's kind of the revolt of normal people kind of wanting
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policies to be what you remembered policies used to kind of be like in 2005, a year where nothing
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crazy was going on. It's not that we were shooting towards the stars in terms of prosperity,
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but just that the government left you alone and let you kind of do it on your own. Because
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the funny thing is whenever the government ends up trying to help you, they end up just needing
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more programs and more government solutions in order to cover up the sort of issues that
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they've caused. And this is where I'll just bring it up on screen quickly. Like you can even see
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not that long ago in BC polling, you would have the BC NDP sometimes leading by 28%,
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21%, 18 points. It's crazy how far above all the other parties there were. But now what we see in
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this New York Phil poll, and we've seen it in Main Street polls and liaison, is that the conservatives
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are either a little bit behind, tied, or even in front of the NDP. And what I'm getting from that is
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all of the NDP's past support was just political inertia. This is the party that leads us, it is the
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default, and there's nobody else. And as soon as something else actually, other came along,
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the fact that people jumped to it so fast, demonstrated that there was a need for it.
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We've seen other provinces where maybe the government wasn't that great. And it was hard
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to get alternatives off the ground, because there's there wasn't that fever pitch feeling that we're
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actually voting on the survival of the province at this point. And I don't think that's even hyperbolic
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to say that if David Eby was given another four years in office, and that's pretty much the only
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option, because it's either going to be conservatives or NDP, given another four years in office with all
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these programs getting more sort of dug into the BC government, you're never going to be able to get
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rid of the stuff, or at least the damage that mass addiction is going to cause is going to basically
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make the province feel fairly broken for the next few decades. But I think that what was really
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exciting with this poll that showed the BC conservatives up by a couple points is that
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it also showed in the seat projections that you guys would be able to pull together a majority
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government. And this is with still several months before the provincial election, a lot more time
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to grow. But what have you guys maybe been seeing, hearing from BC voters and how quickly has the sort
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of movement towards the BC conservatives been, even in spite of, frankly, you guys not having as much
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money until recently than the BC United did? Yeah, well, first, what I'll say, and this is
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obligatory, the only poll that matters is election day, right? Like, obviously, we're not going to hate
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the fact that that we're polling well. But you can't rest on your laurels. And too often conservatives
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rest on their laurels, they get ahead. And then they think, okay, we have this in the bag, it's important
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not to underestimate your enemies, right? The NDP is a very savvy party, they're a very savvy
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organization, they're probably the most effective NDP party in the country. So it's certainly not
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over. You know, our vote is less efficient. So in order for us to form a government, we do need
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significantly higher polling, or maybe not significantly, but certainly higher. But the
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trajectory has been great. And I think that what we've noticed anecdotally, that is now being
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validated by this polling is that people show up, you know, we host these events, we hosted an
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event in Cowichan Valley, with our candidate there, John Corey, 450 people showed up to
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it. That's a lot, Cowichan Valley, Cowichan Valley is an NDP rider, right? We have an event
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happening in North Island, North Vancouver Island, we're expecting six, 700 people going
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to that. So for provincial politics, that's a lot, especially in BC, because people for too
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long have been apathetic in this province, the NDP has enjoyed, you know, higher polling in
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the past, as a result of what I call soft support, in the sense that people kind of vote park,
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they just park their vote with the NDP, they say, Well, I don't really see an alternative.
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So I guess the NDP, that's what when they're asked, right? That's not a dedicated voter,
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that's a very soft voter. So, you know, I've always believed and we've always believed the
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NDP's league has been a house built on sand. And we're trying to build something with a solid
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foundation. And I think it's, it'll pay in dividends. But like I said, it's not over
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until it's over. We have a lot of work to do. And certainly, you know, fundraising is a key
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component of it, that it's getting better, but we need more donations. But the good thing is our
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dollars go further, you know, in the Langford by-election, where, you know, John Horgan's old
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riding. We came in second behind the NDP. We got 20% second place, and we spent $10,000 in that race.
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BC United spent $76,000 and came in fourth with 6%. So our dollars go further, our dollars go further
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because the brand goes further and because we have volunteers, right? We have amazing volunteers that
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believe in a message. We have a brand that is honest. We have a team and a policy handbook that is,
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again, authentic. It speaks to people. You know, we're going to scrap the carbon tax.
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We're not going to write out a complicated reason why we shouldn't do it. We're going to scrap the
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carbon tax. We're going to hire back the healthcare workers that got fired over their private medical
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decision. We're going to end the so-called safe supply program that's just killing more people.
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Yeah, that was the one that really sort of threw me for a loop upon hearing about it,
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that the BC medical system is currently falling apart. And it's not because of an inherited issue
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that the NDP or the province of British Columbia is having been having to deal with for like a
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decade or something. It was just self-created. And every once in a while, whenever you make a
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criticism of an incumbent left-wing government who's incompetent, you'll get people saying,
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well, they're trying their best. It's a difficult issue, and they're making it better. And if they
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weren't doing what they're doing, everything would be so much worse.
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But basically on every single issue that is defining this election, I think you'd agree
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it's crime, drugs, healthcare, cost of living, the staple issues, that all of it is self-imposed.
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It's all, every single issue basically mostly comes back to a piece of public policy that the
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Yeah, it's ideology, right? This is what happens when you pass legislation based on ideology instead
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of common sense. You have the only jurisdiction in North America, British Columbia is the only
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jurisdiction in North America that has not hired back the nurses and doctors.
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What was the figure on how many doctors and nurses are still not back to work?
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Right? Many of them, many of them in rural areas. So when you see these horror stories of people dying
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in waiting rooms or, you know, people not being able to see a doctor, you have 6,000 people who
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are fully trained, who are not allowed to go back to work. Many of whom now are moving away.
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They're going to Alberta. We probably already lost them. But the reality is these are fully
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trained individuals who were fired because of their own private medical decisions. And they're
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not being hired back while every other jurisdiction, every other state, everywhere else in North America,
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they've been hired back except here. That's not science. That's not common sense. That's ideology.
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That is ideology that tells Bonnie Henry and David Eby, no, we need to punish these people.
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They ultimately want to punish them, right? They want, it's a cult. They want to punish these people
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as a result of not falling in line. And who gets hurt in the end? British Columbians.
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Let's also point out, it's not like the BC NDP have also lowered the amount of spending on the
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healthcare system. They're now still somehow spending as much, if not more, while operating
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a medical system with fewer actual employees. This is honestly one of the big problems we have
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in Alberta. We spend so much money for actually very little delivery. And the BC NDP are now trying
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to beat Alberta by spending even more per capita than Alberta and somehow having even longer wait times.
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And maybe to jump over to the drugs issue too, I couldn't imagine that many progressives even
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are blind to the fact that decriminalization has failed. So like, especially in, I would assume,
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the Vancouver area and the suburbs around there, has that kind of been the major thing that if you guys
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scrap decriminalization altogether, that's what people want? Because I think, frankly,
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David Eby has chosen this to be the referendum on the carbon tax and drugs.
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I'm not sure if he actually has witnessed the single issue polling on each of those.
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Yeah, I think suburban voters want to be safe, right? So suburban voters want to be able to take
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their kids to the playground and not have people shooting up. Suburban voters, you know, women want
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to be able to walk down the sidewalk without getting randomly attacked. That's, you know, our policy is
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fairly straightforward. People are on drugs, like fentanyl, that have a severe effect on the human mind,
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right? Like, we have this huge scandal over Oxycontin and Purdue Pharmacy and Purdue Pharma and all these issues.
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Some of these drugs are 30, 40 times stronger than Oxycontin. So these people need help. These people need
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to treatment. These people need to follow, you know, a lot of what you guys are doing in Alberta with the
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Alberta model, where we spend the money to open up facilities and send them to the facility so they
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can get their life back. I get so frustrated when, you know, I debate. I'm sometimes on these radio
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shows and I'm debating the NDP and they clutch their pearls and they say, oh, I just feel so terrible
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for, you know, the people struggling and we need to give them more drugs. And I just, I shun at it
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because I feel like if it were their children on the street, they would be getting them into private
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medical facilities for treatment. They wouldn't say, here, sweetie, here's your safe supply of drugs.
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What I've compared safe supply to is pretending that we've solved the problem of drugs because we've
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given people safer drugs. That's the equivalent of saying that we have ended the problem of drive-by
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shootings because we have mandated that gang members can only use 22 caliber firearms. It makes
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it so less people are, like, it's less likely, like, people are less likely to die. That's ludicrous.
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Really what the NDP's plan is doing, and it demonstrates that you can make any terrible policy
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look good on paper with warping the statistics and the metrics that you used, is that they are taking
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the numerator for how many overdoses it requires until someone dies, when that's pretty much
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inevitable. If someone starts overdosing multiple times in a month, this is not going to be somebody
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who's just going to decide to get off drugs. But they're, like, throwing it from maybe three or four
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overdoses before somebody might pass away tragically from, like, ingesting very, very powerful drugs.
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And they're increasing the numerator, pretending like that's making everything better, when the
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denominator of overdoses that are happening is going up by 10, 20 times over the past 15 years.
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That when you can make something feel safer, but in reality, you're not actually making it safer,
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because there's no safe way of using meth or fentanyl or crack. But the NDP being a little bit
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too, or not a little bit too, that's being very nice, being stuck in the university mindset that
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progressive policies are inherently good, and they just need to be made to work, is not really working
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for actual people who have to live around these problems. Because there's parts of Vancouver that
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I think that wouldn't be wrong to describe as no-go zones at this point.
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Human beings are not guinea pigs. We're not guinea pigs. The people of British Columbia are not guinea
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pigs, and these addicts are not guinea pigs for a radical experiment. And that's how Bonnie Henry and
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these bureaucrats and these elected politicians are treating people, as guinea pigs. So when you look at these
00:19:53.840
issues, the reality is addicts are addicted to drugs like fentanyl. It's not that drugs are getting
00:20:00.580
laced. I'm sure that's happening to some degree. But the notion of safe supply, that we are going to
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get taxpayer-funded drugs and give them hydromorphone, we know that these users don't
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want those drugs. They don't want those lighter drugs. They'll take hydromorphone. They'll take
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Dilauden. And they'll sell it so they can go buy fentanyl. And they'll sell it to high school kids.
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That's happening all over the place. We have, you know, Adam Zeebo has done great work on it.
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I was lucky enough to be a producer in a documentary called Vancouver is Dying.
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Like this issue is very important to me. It's very close to me and my personal background.
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So when Bonnie Henry goes out and says, if you're an alcoholic, we can get you treatment and you can
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overcome it. But if you're addicted to hard drugs like opioids, the best we can do is safe supply.
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What message does that send? Like putting all politics aside, what message does that send to a
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human being struggling? To a human being who thinks, wow, I'm such a broken person that I need,
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you know, I need to be medicated for the rest of my life. I can't get help. I can't get better. I
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can't get back on my feet. It's just, to me, it is a dark statement and it's giving up on the human
00:21:13.280
spirit. And that's not what we should be about. We should never give up on the human spirit.
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In the sequel documentary to Vancouver is Dying, Canada's Dying, Aaron Gunn did a fantastic job
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directing those. I would recommend people go and watch both. In that documentary, he interviews
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Marshall Smith, who's now a chief advisor, chief of staff to Daniel Smith, Premier Daniel
00:21:33.060
Smith in Alberta, that he had an experience having lived in East Vancouver, being a drug
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addict and that he got off of it. And that was through almost sheer willpower and the grace
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of God, he was able to get off of hard drugs. But for Bonnie Henry to basically say that the
00:21:51.240
best most people can actually expect is basically a slow poisoning, because that's what it is.
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You're not making people safer. It's not that if you keep taking this, you'll be able to survive
00:22:01.180
into your 80s. No, if you take these safe drugs, you might be able to survive to your mid 40s
00:22:05.720
before you've basically poisoned yourself and your organs are shutting down. You cannot
00:22:09.400
use this stuff in the long run. This is where voting in this election is not simply saying,
00:22:15.140
I want a different flavor of politics. It's basically saying we need to actually save people
00:22:19.040
rather than letting them die. And we have to make sure that the economy doesn't absolutely fall
00:22:23.620
apart. Because not to be offensive to BC residents as somebody living here in Alberta,
00:22:27.660
Alberta. But BC, under the NDP, has effectively, in my mind, become the meth lab of Canada in more
00:22:34.700
ways than one. You, one, get the hard drugs that the BC government is creating and distributing,
00:22:40.400
and they're actually leeching into the rest of the country. These safe supply drugs are being
00:22:43.860
smuggled into other provinces. But all of the worst ideas have been coming from British Columbia.
00:22:50.520
And it's not BC residents' fault. The NDP basically hoodwink people say that they're going to help
00:22:55.660
people out and they use very positive, flowery language. And then they end up just hurting
00:22:59.380
people and then running for re-election on how they're going to fix it. And the way that they
00:23:02.280
fix it is just doubling down. Yeah. You know, I have a lot of friends across the country in Alberta
00:23:08.020
that tell me, you know, we have a lot riding on you guys, right? No pressure, but we have a lot
00:23:12.520
riding on British Columbia. And that is the case. British Columbia can either be, you know,
00:23:17.140
the net importer of these hard drugs through the Western border, or it could be the prosperity
00:23:24.580
gateway for Canada, right? A conservative government in British Columbia means more energy development,
00:23:31.120
right? It means we're going to build more energy. We're going to build more resources. We're going
00:23:35.160
to, we could help the rest of Canada with prosperity. It's, it's why it's so critical. It's why so many
00:23:40.940
people are watching this election because the conservative government in British Columbia will just be so
00:23:45.440
amazing for the rest of Canada. And, and, you know, you mentioned Marshall Smith, who I know well,
00:23:50.720
I mean, what a story, right? To go from drug addicted on the street to recovery to now the chief of staff
00:23:58.140
to the premier of Alberta. Like, that's a great story. And I've spoken to a lot of people when we
00:24:03.640
were making the documentary, you know, and even now as executive director for the conservative party
00:24:08.380
who say, you know, I'm now clean. If I was offered safe supply, I'd be dead, right?
00:24:15.440
I, but I was drug addicted. I reached my rock bottom and I got clean. So many people have told
00:24:20.440
us that, that, you know, I don't want to sound negative. I don't want to sound like, oh, you just
00:24:27.140
need to pull yourself up from your bootstraps. I'm not, you know, I'm not negating the difficulties
00:24:31.540
of addiction. I know them. But what I am saying is that what we're doing isn't working. It's killing
00:24:36.900
people. It's based on ideology. It's not based on common sense and it's not compassion. It is
00:24:42.660
a religious ideology, uh, that seeks to turn people into Guinea pigs and zombies. So the
00:24:49.580
conservative party, you know, is going to put forward policy that, you know, recriminalizes
00:24:55.800
drugs, which in itself isn't necessarily even saying enough because when drugs were criminalized,
00:25:01.540
they were still not being enforced. So it's recriminalizing drugs, but we need to change the
00:25:05.380
culture, right? So it's no more safe supply, no more so-called safe supply. It's, it's killing
00:25:12.200
people. It's not helping and prioritizing treatment. We need to open up facilities. I
00:25:17.180
don't think taxpayers are necessarily against the investment. There's this notion that as
00:25:22.100
conservatives, we hate spending money, right? I don't think it's that. I think conservatives
00:25:28.640
don't like wasting money. I think many conservatives, if you speak to many British Columbians who
00:25:34.120
consider themselves supporters, they'll say that they're open to their tax dollars being
00:25:39.040
used in ways that are appropriate in ways that make life better for people, right? If you were
00:25:43.940
to ask people, would you be okay with your tax dollars being used to, to open up a facility
00:25:49.040
where people can get back on their feet? They would say yes. And then if we're being completely
00:25:53.760
shrewd and talking about the economical benefits of that, well, you have taxpayer, you have
00:25:58.620
new taxpayers, you have people going back to work, you have people.
00:26:01.060
This is actually what I have my master's degree researching for my, for public policy is that it's
00:26:06.780
not in fact poverty that drives crime. It's crime that drives poverty. East Vancouver is a great
00:26:13.200
example. It wasn't a poor area that then drug addiction and other sorts of crime moved into.
00:26:19.540
It's an area that they put all the drug addiction and crime into that they didn't enforce the law in
00:26:24.440
that area. And that has dried up business. That is what has caused convenience stores to shut down
00:26:30.500
or have to have like three locks on the door to make sure it can only lend people who aren't going
00:26:34.920
to steal or attack the staff. This is what happens when you think in purely material terms. And this
00:26:40.940
is how David Eby is falling out, right? He thinks that the only important things in life are those
00:26:44.700
tactile objects. It's material wealth and stuff like that. So he simply is trying to redistribute the
00:26:51.060
gains of BC and then solve every single problem with some socialistic material solution rather
00:26:57.160
than a actual hard solution. That is a, that is more philosophical and cultural based. That's
00:27:03.860
actually about trying to do good things rather than just trying to provide quote unquote safe
00:27:08.800
and good things. Cause at the end of the day, people have to do it for themselves and the government
00:27:12.020
can't do it for you. That's where you're right. It's not being uncompassionate saying that you might
00:27:16.800
have to be pushed off of drug addiction. Hard solutions are what you kind of need to hard,
00:27:22.780
difficult problems. It's the whole adage that weak men create hard times and obviously weak solutions,
00:27:28.400
weak men's solutions cannot then dig you out of the hole that you're in.
00:27:33.200
Yeah. I mean, you said it well, the reality is that some people need to be saved. Some people are
00:27:38.780
begging, save me, right? Without necessarily saying if they're so addicted, they're too far gone
00:27:45.900
and they need us to basically say, you need help. We're going to help you get clean and get a clear
00:27:51.020
mind, right? That's why we would use the notwithstanding clause to, to get addicts into the
00:27:56.940
treatment they need. It's not, it's not that complicated to us. And, and again, it's not a
00:28:02.520
perfect model, right? A lot of people will say, well, you know, abstaining doesn't work and it's
00:28:07.380
failed in the past. What, what this comes down to is the fact that what we've done so far has not
00:28:12.840
worked. More people are dying, more people are addicted, and their solution is to do it more.
00:28:18.420
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result.
00:28:22.700
I think the reason why we're doing so well is because people are waking up to that lunacy.
00:28:27.620
And I'll point out in 2005, because I did a study on crime in all of Canada and mostly Toronto, in
00:28:34.180
the early 2000s, 2005 to nine, the era before we had safe injection sites and safe supply and all that
00:28:41.280
stuff, we had almost no drug deaths per year. It was nothing. We had no crime. Everything was
00:28:46.540
prosperous. And guess what we did? We had drug abstinence type policy. We actually locked up
00:28:53.320
criminals because incarceration is not bad if someone is violating the rights of other people.
00:28:58.300
And we actually taught kids moral virtue in schools. We didn't teach moral relativism, which
00:29:04.880
is effectively what SOGI is on specific areas, like topic areas, especially when it comes to the
00:29:11.960
sex ed curriculum that SOGI puts forward. It teaches just complete relativism in the school system.
00:29:17.580
Then you wonder how it ends up negatively affecting the way kids see the world. But have you guys heard a
00:29:23.880
lot when it comes to SOGI 123 as something that is driving a lot of votes? Because obviously, a lot
00:29:28.600
of the other issues are very hot blooded in terms of, you know, drug addiction, crime, crazy high taxes,
00:29:35.280
but is SOGI still getting a lot of play when it comes to voters at the doors?
00:29:40.620
I would say it is with parents. I mean, SOGI 123, for those unaware, is a curriculum program
00:29:46.380
in British Columbia. And if you Google it, you'll see that it's an anti-bullying module. But in reality,
00:29:52.980
the way it's been implemented has been very ideological. And it's been teaching inappropriate
00:29:58.820
content to small children. I mean, Bruce Bandman, our MLA from Abbotsford South, took a book from
00:30:06.260
school that they have in elementary schools. They have like seven-year-olds reading this book.
00:30:09.940
And he took it into the legislature during question period and read it out loud. And the entire room just
00:30:15.620
gasped. He had to be stopped from the speaker because these words were so inappropriate.
00:30:20.260
And it begs the question, if he can't say that in the legislature, why can small children say it in
00:30:24.660
the classroom? Why can they read it? So there's significant issues with our education system and
00:30:31.220
what's being taught to children. What we've heard from parents in every community, the Chinese community,
00:30:36.980
the Sikh community, the Hindu community, the Muslim community even, they're very concerned about it.
00:30:42.580
It's a policy that was brought in by the BC Liberals. It's gotten worse under BC NDP. And again,
00:30:48.500
it goes back to the top of our conversation, which is ideology over common sense.
00:30:53.940
And it's something where it pretends that it's like a flowery and nice solution to an issue that
00:31:03.140
everyone cares about. Bullying in school, obviously bad. But when you introduce a very vague box in order
00:31:09.940
to solve the solution, SOGI is effectively a vaguely worded, nice sounding box of solutions.
00:31:18.740
But if you actually take a look at that, they can fill it up with whatever they want. So then they end
00:31:22.180
up using this anti-bullying program as a front for being able to push gender theory in the classroom and
00:31:29.380
a lot of other sorts of radically left-wing types of curriculums under the guise that if you don't want
00:31:36.740
this, then you're somehow pro-bullying, which is the greatest insult to parents who actually care
00:31:41.220
about the health and wellbeing of their children. But to transition to one more topic before we end
00:31:46.900
off here, I just want to talk about, because I've talked about David Eby a lot in this video,
00:31:51.540
obviously. Awful bleeder, doesn't understand what the actual voters in BC want. But the person I'm
00:32:00.020
almost even more confused by is Kevin Falcon. I don't know what the NDP are doing. Even their videos,
00:32:05.620
I've made fun of in the past, like this one where it looks like he's a hero who has given up. I don't
00:32:11.300
know what's going on with the United. Who are they appealing to? What's their plan? I'm just
00:32:18.260
confused and I need you to explain this to me. I think that indifference is not a virtue. And I think
00:32:25.220
right now everyone's indifferent towards them. I think Kevin Falcon, for those unaware, was a fairly
00:32:30.820
prominent politician for a long time in British Columbia. And in 2013, he quit and he went to
00:32:37.140
the private sector. And I think what happened is when he quit in 2013, he became frozen in amber
00:32:44.180
politically, right? In terms of the zeitgeist. He just didn't participate in politics for over a decade.
00:32:49.940
And I think as a result, he's now come back and effectively his strategy is to campaign like it's
00:32:56.340
2013. And if we remember politics before 2016, it looked very different. 2016 was a Rubicon moment.
00:33:04.980
So he thinks that the way to win over votes is to be as moderate and middle of the road as possible.
00:33:13.620
Be as vague as possible. Try to appeal to as many people as possible. Talk on both sides of your mouth,
00:33:20.020
basically. And that's not really popular anymore. I think this notion of a quote unquote coalition
00:33:27.700
party between federal conservatives and federal liberals does not work anymore. In 2013 or earlier,
00:33:35.860
when I think of a Paul Martin liberal and a Stephen Harper conservative, I think of two people who can
00:33:41.780
have some pretty serious disagreements with each other. But ultimately, they're both Canadians. They both
00:33:48.580
believe we're a great country. They both believe we have a good history. They both believe in the basic
00:33:53.860
tenets of what Canada is. Now you don't share that commonality. We become too polarized. Now you're
00:34:02.420
either on the side that wants to freeze bank accounts or you're on the side that doesn't want to freeze
00:34:06.980
bank accounts. We've become a very existentially divided society. So to that end, this notion that you're
00:34:15.620
going to have a party that's half Trudeau liberals and half pure poly conservatives won't work.
00:34:21.380
And then what you end up with is a very vague platform that appeals to nobody, basically. And
00:34:28.020
you have the liberals mad at you for not being liberal enough and the conservatives mad at you
00:34:31.620
for not being conservative enough. They flee your party. Federal liberals in this province vote for the
00:34:35.620
NDP. And the conservatives come to us. And now, you know, they've bottomed out. So Kevin Falcon is an
00:34:43.380
inauthentic leader. He is someone who will say anything to get elected. And I think the era
00:34:49.940
of that leader, that politician, has come to an end. The era of I will say anything to get elected.
00:34:56.820
At least David Eby. Say what you want about David Eby. He believes in all the crazy stuff he believes in,
00:35:01.780
right? He's an ideologue. Kevin Falcon doesn't actually believe in any of it. So I think we saw what
00:35:07.780
happened to federal conservative leaders that were like that. Yeah. Here's the thing that you that
00:35:12.980
both is actually negatively affecting both Kevin Falcon and David Eby is that even now, while the
00:35:18.980
polling is starting to move in decisively in the favor of the BC conservatives in terms of momentum,
00:35:25.220
David Eby and Kevin Falcon are still having to rely on a lot of federal conservative crossover votes
00:35:30.900
for, in terms of the United, about 30%, 40% of their voters. And for the NDP, they're having to
00:35:37.380
still rely on, oddly enough, about 13% to 15% of conservative federal voters who are still saying
00:35:42.740
default Eby because he's the only guy who's going to win. So I guess NDP. So that's where these guys
00:35:48.020
could fall apart. But the thing that baffled me about United was just the name change. That is the
00:35:55.140
biggest tell that it is a party populated by consultants, people who, because when you look
00:36:00.820
at their convention, somehow they were able to raise still a decent amount of money in the first
00:36:05.700
quarter of 2024. But you look at their policy convention, and nobody is there. And everything
00:36:10.580
they're doing is, it's almost like playing to the type of person who really values the opinions of focus
00:36:17.540
groups, who really values the opinions of polls, where they're trying to find the issues that every
00:36:23.700
single person can agree on. But those issues tend to be also the issues that are not actually driving
00:36:29.860
people's votes. Because if everyone agrees on something, it's probably a very neutrally toned
00:36:34.260
issue that nobody actually cares about that much. And now the United, like they're kind of voting with
00:36:39.860
you guys, the BC conservatives on some issues, but then they're like trying to say that you guys are
00:36:44.180
still too extreme, and we're going to, we're the moderate voice that people want. But it's like,
00:36:48.580
but if there's a hole in the boat right now, which is what is happening with BC, it's not
00:36:54.740
moderate to say we should half fill in the hole that's worked where we're taking on water and only
00:36:59.700
bail out half of the water that's currently inside the boat. Eventually, the moderate position is to
00:37:05.620
reverse everything that's happening. Being half crazy is not exactly sane.
00:37:09.700
No, not not at all. I think you said it accurately that it is it's a party of focus groups and
00:37:17.140
consultants, right? I mean, even the branding itself, the logo costs $300,000 for a logo,
00:37:23.540
our logo was, you know, created by my wife for free. So, you know, we're, that's the difference.
00:37:30.100
And the thing is, and I've worked in politics for a long time, you know, after I was in media,
00:37:35.300
and something happens to people when they work in this industry for too long, where they get into
00:37:39.060
these echo chambers with other consultants, and they don't think like normal people, they're not
00:37:44.980
shaking hands with normal people, they're not sitting around a coffee table, you know, in a
00:37:49.700
restaurant, saying, gosh, have you seen these prices? This is out of control. Like, they're not
00:37:54.980
in touch with the common man and woman of this province or country. That's what it's about. That's
00:37:59.940
what Pierre Paulio has done so well. And that's what John Rustad has done so well, is he'll go into a
00:38:04.420
room, he'll go into a restaurant and shake hands with every single person and say, what's going on in your
00:38:08.900
life? And, you know, you might have consultants saying, Oh, no, we have focus groups saying otherwise.
00:38:15.540
You know, the reality, I just think nothing trumps reality, nothing trumps real human
00:38:19.780
interactions. And, and if we have people saying, Look, I'm really struggling to afford groceries
00:38:24.660
because of the carbon tax. That means something that means we could be ahead of things, right? A lot
00:38:29.700
of the issues that we took a stand on, that we got attacked so relentlessly over six months ago,
00:38:35.460
are now popular in polling. But it's like, we noticed that before the polling, right? Soji being
00:38:40.580
a great example, where our first day in the legislature, John got up and gave this impassioned
00:38:45.460
speech about how parents need to be involved in their children's education. And of course, Evie
00:38:50.500
attacked us calling us bigots. His caucus stands up to applaud him. And then BC United's entire caucus
00:38:57.300
stands up to applaud him. So every single member of the legislature, except our leader, stood up
00:39:05.060
to applaud Premier Evie. And John just stood there and said, Wow, this shows that it's a uniparty,
00:39:14.420
I think that's the difference between a lot of experience in politics, and then actually having
00:39:19.460
real political wisdom. Because if you can't walk around a neighborhood and talk to people and get the
00:39:24.820
feeling of what people care about, then you're just politically useless, because nobody and nobody
00:39:29.620
can rely even if you say the right things, if you because like the polling shows it, that only shows
00:39:36.100
that the only way to get something done is to just release, like hundreds of thousands of dollars worth
00:39:41.940
of polling to be able to convince them. And at that point, it's a worthless politician, because it takes
00:39:48.020
far more work than anybody even has time to do in order to get them to do the right thing.
00:39:53.780
We're so it's like United, if you somehow had United government, and this is not happening,
00:39:57.380
if you look at the polls, they're dying, that if you had a United government, you would have to be
00:40:02.420
a pollster willing to call people all day long to prove that common sense policies are common sense,
00:40:07.460
because they're far too in their bubble, like this is an aside sort of story right before we wrap up
00:40:12.420
here. But I was trying to advise a guy running for Mississauga's mayorship in their by election
00:40:19.780
that are having in Mississauga right now since Bonnie Crombie stepped down as mayor to become
00:40:23.540
the Ontario Liberal leader. And this this guy's campaign actually told me when I said that your
00:40:29.140
slogan, the entire by election should just be cut taxes cut crime. That's it. And they said, well,
00:40:34.660
you know, people don't like hearing about crime. And it's not really a big issue. In our opinion,
00:40:39.940
I think it's overblown. And I'm like car thefts are up 45% year over year. And you're going to then
00:40:45.700
tell me that, well, if you're making a bit more of a big deal, but then it really is that that is
00:40:51.140
the consultant mentality that I cannot I hate the idea that, well, I in my high rise don't bump
00:40:56.820
into this. So it's not really an issue. People care about bike lanes. No, they do not. People
00:41:01.700
actually tend to care about the things that put their lives at risk, rather than the slight
00:41:06.100
annoyances that they experience not having a bike lane.
00:41:09.220
Yeah, well, exactly. Right. Like in my capacity as executive director, it's not common for executive
00:41:17.300
directors to go door knocking, but I like to do it. Because in going door knocking with my candidates,
00:41:23.380
you get to meet real people and get to ask them, what's your top issue? What are you worried about?
00:41:27.140
What's going on? And I can tell you that Tom in Coquitlam is worried about inflation. He's worried
00:41:32.260
about the carbon tax, right? Hannah in South Vancouver is worried about Soji, right?
00:41:38.500
We hold these events and these town halls where people can come and voice their concerns. And to
00:41:42.260
me, that's what's authentic. And that I think is why we are where we're at. And again, the only
00:41:48.980
poll that matters is election day. We're not resting on our laurels, but it certainly reflects what we're
00:41:55.300
seeing in the common man and woman of British Columbia. And I think John would be an amazing
00:42:00.660
premier and it's my absolute honor to be in the position I'm in to help him actualize that.
00:42:07.140
Yeah. And you guys are doing really good work, especially since this party basically didn't
00:42:11.940
exist a year and a half ago. The BC Conservatives were like unnamed. So it's not like you inherited
00:42:16.340
and you and John just inherited a great vehicle to be able to oust the NDP with. This is something
00:42:22.100
that literally basically had to be built past just being a registered name that somebody happened to
00:42:28.420
keep in their possession. This is something that actually has had to be built from scratch. And even
00:42:34.420
without you having to say it, guys, if you live in British Columbia, you have to volunteer, you have
00:42:40.180
to donate. You have to do one of those two things. If you really don't want David Eby to be reelected as
00:42:45.700
the premier of your province, there's no, well, I can't do that. I don't want to do that. It will
00:42:51.620
literally be worth its weight in gold to be able to have a different government in British Columbia.
00:42:56.820
And as an Albertan, I salute you if you help the BC Conservatives end up winning the legislature,
00:43:03.220
because this is a issue that in the province, David Eby is something that is affecting the rest
00:43:08.980
of the country. And you can already see it spreading decolonization is going to Toronto,
00:43:12.900
it's going to go to other cities after that. And it's because of the advocacy work, the toxic advocacy
00:43:17.940
work of people like David Eby. So Angelo, tell people like us where they can go and look up
00:43:23.380
information about the BC Conservatives, how they can help you out and what you guys want from people,
00:43:28.180
I guess. ConservativeBC.ca. You know, if you're a resident of British Columbia, you can donate.
00:43:35.860
All donations are eligible for tax credits. So you get some money back. Like I said earlier,
00:43:41.780
our dollars go far, right? The money is not being wasted on consultants. It goes very far. It helps us
00:43:47.460
a lot to get the message out. Because like you said, the party, we have to build this, right? This party
00:43:52.740
was basically in a zombie state for 100 years. So we had to redesign the logo, like I said, and
00:43:59.460
rebuild and create this brand. And it's the probably the fastest growing political party in Canadian
00:44:04.820
history at this rate, right? We were a year ago, I think we were at like 7%. And now we're at 39 or 37.
00:44:12.340
So it's a rapidly exploding political party, anything helps. Yeah, any donation helps. And if you can't
00:44:19.220
donate, then volunteer. Our candidates need door knockers. It goes so far. You'd be amazed how far
00:44:24.980
it goes to go and knock on a door and leave a flyer and say hi to someone. And people have to
00:44:28.980
realize if you feel nervous with just the idea of door knocking, I almost like vomited the first time
00:44:34.740
I tried to go door knocking for myself in Calgary. You're just going and chatting with people. You just
00:44:40.020
have to realize you're talking to people and they actually want to talk to you, especially if you're a BC
00:44:43.620
conservative volunteer, you are effectively represent the solution to a lot of problems
00:44:48.820
in this province. People want to talk to you and you just need to get them the information to be
00:44:52.820
able to show up on election day this fall in British Columbia. So thanks for coming on, Angela. I'll
00:44:58.420
definitely put all the plugs and all the links that you want in the description below so people
00:45:03.140
can go check all this stuff out. Thanks for coming on the show. And thanks for fighting for
00:45:07.220
actual freedom and condiment sense in British Columbia. Thanks for having me, Wyatt.