Poilievre under attack： Media and Activists trying to trip him up in Alberta byelection
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Summary
Pierre Polyev is running in the upcoming Battle River-Crowfoot by-election, and the media and activists are trying to destroy his chances of winning. I break down why this is a bad idea, and why he needs to stay home.
Transcript
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Hey guys, Wyatt Claypool here. Have you noticed the really dishonest thing the media and activists
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are currently attempting to do to Federal Conservative Party leader Pierre Polyev?
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Well, I'm going to break it down for you guys today. So if you didn't already know,
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Pierre Polyev is currently running in the by-election for Battle River Crowfoot.
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Damian Couric, a Conservative MP, stepped down so Polyev could run for the riding and get back
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into Parliament after losing his own riding of Carleton during the general election.
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And I'll just say right off the bat, Polyev cannot lose this riding. Damian Couric won it with 86%
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of the vote during the general, so it would be nearly impossible for a candidate to actually
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beat Polyev in the by-election. I know Polyev lost in Carleton, and I actually thought it was almost
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impossible for him to lose in Carleton, but with 2020 hindsight, you would notice like I do now
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that he only ever really won the riding with 10% of the vote. The NDP would usually get about 10%,
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and that the NDP vote collapsed, and the fact the riding has become more heavily populated with
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government workers and retired people who tend to vote liberal, it was a stronger possibility than I
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think most people recognize that Polyev could lose. Plus, Polyev also wasn't able to doorknock at all
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in Carleton because, you know, he's touring the country as a leader, and that was a riding I'd heard
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over time. He'd usually doorknock the entire thing twice before Election Day, and so with him not being
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able to do any work of his own on the ground and having a lot of votes consolidate behind the liberal
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naturally meant he was more vulnerable than we thought. But now we're going to be talking about
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Battle River Crowfoot because the median activists are trying to promote small candidates
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or attack Polyev or basically create a bunch of election issues in order to undermine his vote
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percentage. Because remember, Damian Couric got 86% of the vote. So in order to hurt Polyev, they don't
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need Polyev to lose the by-election. If Polyev lost the by-election, his political career would basically
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be over because that's insane, but it's just not going to happen. I just cannot see anyone actually
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dropping and riding where the conservatives get the vast majority of the vote. And of course,
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conservatives have a big campaign on the ground. But what the median activists just have to do
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is have his percentage of the vote fall below 70%, which isn't even that bad. It's a by-election.
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Naturally, the sort of people who show up to vote in a by-election are not always the same people who
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show up in a general. You will have more motivated liberal voters showing up to try and hurt Polyev.
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You will have people knowing it's a default conservative riding who vote conservative just
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stay home. And so what the media wants to do is play up a narrative that it's because of pushback
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Polyev is getting because he's not that popular of a guy when you really think about it. And I want to
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jump into some posts in just a second here showing you what's going on right now. But first, I just want
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to remind you guys, hey, if you like the channel, make sure to leave a like on this video, subscribe if
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you are not yet a subscriber, and leave a comment on what you think about this whole situation.
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So I want to start off with the separatists. And I'm just going to use one example of a prominent
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separatist in the riding. I know separatists don't like being called separatists, pro-independence
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people. It just doesn't roll off the tongue as well. I'm not throwing shade at you guys.
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Do what you want. That's fine. I don't hate you. But we have had separatists attacking Polyev for
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running in Battle River Crowfoot, as if this is an affront to them, because it is supposedly a very
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pro-separatist part of Alberta. So why would Polyev, a federalist, be running in Battle River Crowfoot?
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Forgetting the fact that Damien Couric is a federalist, and pretty much anyone who is in
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federal politics is going to be a federalist. We had this post the other day, which reflects a lot of
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other posts from independence people, attacking Polyev or not affirming their separatist views.
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Jeff Rath here, who works with the Alberta Prosperity Project, a very prominent pro-independence
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organization, says, every CPC voter in Battle River Crowfoot needs to stay home. Just say no to
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federalism, hashtag Alberta independence. And then watch, Polyev categorically rejects Western
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independence. To which I say, why wouldn't he reject it? He's the leader of a national party.
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I have already broken this down in a short video I did. Jeff Rath, I think, is just completely off
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the reservation with this attack. It's bad for his movement, and it's bad for conservatives in general.
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It's bad for federal conservatives, and maybe he doesn't care about them. But if he cares about his
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own movement, maybe don't start a stupid fight with the federal conservatives by telling people to
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stay home if they support Western independence, voting for Polyev doesn't undermine your own
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movement. But for some reason, they believe so. But there's lots of federal conservatives telling,
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or like independent people, telling federal conservatives to stay home. You can't vote
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for Polyev because it would be very non-pro-independence of you to do, even though these are two completely
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different levels of government, and the federal level has nothing to do with your independence
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referendo. So that's been going around. There are independence candidates running against Polyev to
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try and siphon off some of the conservative vote, who I guess could be maybe shamed into voting for
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them because they're the independence person and Polyev is not. But now I want to move on to some of
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the other stuff that's going on. So we have, of course, the longest ballot committee also targeting
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this riding. Now again, will the longest ballot committee substantially change the macro result
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of the election? No. Polyev is going to win. This is not going to hurt him that bad. It's not like,
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it's not going to like cause it to become close. But right now, the longest ballot committee is
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attempting to get more than 120 people of their own on the ballot, combined with the candidates from
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the actual parties and other independents who were legitimately wanting to run aside from what the
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longest ballot committee is doing. Now again, Polyev, rightfully so, is calling this out as effectively
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a scam as he should. That was his recent quote saying that the longest ballot committee, what they
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are doing is an election scam. They are basically defrauding the system in order to basically do
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activism. The longest ballot committee doesn't even make sense. They're apparently in favor of proportional
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representation, which somehow getting a bunch of random people on a ballot is going to promote.
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It doesn't. I think they're really just trying to be jokesters at this point. But they've targeted
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Polyev now twice, first in Carlton, and now in Bell River Crowfoot. Did Polyev lose because of the
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longest ballot committee in Carlton? No, he did not. But in a by-election where people are already not
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super motivated to vote because he's going to win anyways, it's another reason for a normal
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conservative voter, you know, the person who's a default conservative voter who's not like hyper-motivated
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to not show up if the ballot is going to look as clownish as this. I'm just going to bring it up
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on screen. This is just stupid. Is any, I can't even get the whole thing on screen. This is the
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Carlton ballot. Is this normal? Is this legitimate to anybody? And they could fix this. And this is what
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Polyev is calling for. They could fix this in a second. All you have to do is basically make it
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that the exact same person cannot act as the official agent for an unlimited amount of candidates.
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And then what you would then do as a secondary fix is that making it so that candidates cannot be
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the official agents for other candidates in case they try to find a loophole where one guy is the
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official candidate for one guy. And then it just keeps going down the list of everyone signing each
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other's papers. This isn't real democracy. None of these people are attempting to win.
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They aren't even really making a point. I think they're just being involved in the joke. Many of
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these people don't even live in the province. Do I really care that much if someone from out of
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province runs in a riding? Not really. But when you're doing it just to make election workers' lives
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harder and to make it so that older people may not want to figure out how to vote. Like think about
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disabled people who may have a bit of a harder time either moving or being able to see. Now having to
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look through 120 names in order to find the guy that they actually want to vote for. It's stupid.
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And again, if they can damage turnout, I think they are perfectly happy to see Polyev's potential vote
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margin come down further. And again, being able to generate the narrative that Polyev ain't that
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popular of a guy. Maybe the Conservatives should swap him out with Doug Ford. Not that Doug Ford is
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behind this stuff. But if you were to find the person who benefits most from it, it's probably the red
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Tories like Doug Ford who would like to see Polyev go. And this isn't even to say that I don't have
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any criticisms of Polyev and the campaign. And I'm just here to basically be like, no one do anything
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to Polyev. Keep him in place. He has to prove himself every single day. And I will call balls
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and strikes. A really big strike was him not firing Jenny Byrne. She's apparently staying on. Really
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stupid thing to do. The lady who lost the 2015 and now 2025 federal elections as the national campaign
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director who just gets to stick around. Why? It's dumb. So just clarifying, I'm perfectly okay with saying
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whether or not he's making mistakes or not. I thought J.J. McCullough had a really good take on this. And he
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says, this continues to be the stupid trolling bad faith nonsense. And it's an outrage to the
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Elections Canada that continues to put up with it. It's not a quote unquote protest. It's not quote
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unquote activism. It's just dumb people trying to do what they can to sabotage a politician they don't
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like. Absolutely. I think a lot of these people who are signing up just dislike pure Polyev and they
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simply want to turn the entire by-election into a circus. But now I want to get to somebody that the
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media is promoting in this by-election and who I have no ill will towards. I assume that she's a
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genuine candidate, a genuine person wanting to put her name on the ballot in order to represent
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the riding. And she doesn't like Polyev as representative. And I am not saying that because
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like she has a chip on her shoulder. I'm saying that because naturally he is considered the person
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to beat. She doesn't think he's the right person. So she's running herself. But when else does the
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media promote small independent candidates against party leaders running for an election? They never
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do. They are simply spinning against Polyev. So check out this interview with David Cochran
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and the CBC with this candidate. Bonnie Critchley is running as an independent candidate in the
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upcoming by-election in Battle River Crowfoot. And she joins me now. Bonnie Critchley, it's good to
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meet you. Thank you for joining us on the show today. Good morning. Well, at least it's morning
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here right now. So how are you doing today? I'm very good. How are you doing? Tell us why you've
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decided to run in this by-election, run against the conservative leader, Pierre Polyev in seat.
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It really boils down to my slogan, which isn't a slogan. It's simply the truth. It's,
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this is our home. This is our riding. We just had an election and we spent all that money and we
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elected the candidate of our choice who promptly turned around and said, no, I don't want that
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mandate I asked you for. And we're spending another $2 million to vote in the guy from, angry guy from
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Ottawa, who doesn't know jack about this area. He may have been born in Calgary, but he's from Ottawa.
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Okay. Now I'm not going to be rude to her. She's a military veteran. Thank you for your service, Bonnie.
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Not undermining that at all. I think this is just a, she's making a massive category error about what
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politics are about. In a lot, or in a large sense, I don't care if the person representing my riding is
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from Montreal. If they vote the right way, they're doing the right things. The thing is that people
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in Battle River Crowfoot want somebody who is conservative and small government. Bonnie Critchie,
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from what I've seen from her, the fact that she's going on very far left podcasts like Laura Babcock
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doesn't mean she's far left, but I would assume she's a little more liberal. Now, I don't really
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care if Polyev knows all the parks in my riding. If he knows he's visited every single town, although
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Polyev is visiting every single place he can find. Polyev also grew up in Calgary. I'm pretty sure
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he's familiar with Drumheller and a lot of these other areas that are in Battle River Crowfoot.
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But the idea that like, oh, I'm running because he doesn't understand the place enough. He doesn't
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know Jack and he's a guy from Ottawa. He's from Calgary. He just happened to become an MP for
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Ottawa because of like, you know, just the way the history works, the course of history. He was a
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staffer in Ottawa and decided to run for riding nobody else really wanted as a conservative candidate
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and it ended up winning despite not being from there. But her reasoning here doesn't really strike
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me as like television worthy. Probably a really nice person. Again, great military service. But why
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is David Cochran having her on on power and politics to talk about her independent run based on something
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that's kind of a generic reason to run as an independent? Oh, this guy's not from here. He
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doesn't understand us. Well, does she understand people in her own riding if she holds very liberal
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values? Again, I don't exactly know what she's running on here. But again, the people she
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associates with and the show she goes on feel more center left. She is the odd woman out in her
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riding. She represents potentially what is only 14% of the riding, like considering the general
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election results. And so I kind of find this a little, again, I'm not trying to be rude, but it just
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feels a little bit dishonest the way that this is being done from the media's perspective. This person is
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being propped up as, well, they're the real, you know, the real daughter of the soil that people
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should be voting for, and trying to get people to turn out to vote for Bonnie or vote for anybody
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else because Polioff's not from here. Wow, who could have guessed he's not from here? He's having
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to run in a by-election because he didn't win Carleton. And by the way, who cares if Damien Kirk got the
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mandate? The thing is that we want Parliament to function. And to function properly, you kind of want the
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leaders to be able to actually operate within Parliament, because it is really difficult to
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have a leader basically playing mafia telephone by having to say something to some MP to then go
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into the House of Commons to basically relay his message. And all he can do is do like a press
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conference once in a while. It heavily undermines our political system to not have the leader in
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Parliament. He hasn't been here. He hasn't lived here. And even if he had stayed in Calgary,
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this is a very different area than the urban centres he's used to.
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So you're mad. You don't like what Damien Couric has done. You don't like what Pierre
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Polyev has done, even though there is a long tradition in Canadian politics of backbenchers
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giving up their seat for the leader. You don't like this one bit.
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Well, yeah, I would agree. Normally, yes. But this unseated leader didn't, it's not that he didn't
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have a seat. It's that he didn't bother to show up for his constituents. So they fired him.
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What is she talking about? He didn't show up for his constituents. He was reelected every single,
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he was elected in 2004, and was reelected every single time up until 2025. Now, in a certain sense,
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he lost because he wasn't able to show up because he's a party leader doing a national tour,
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and wasn't able to hit every single door and is riding twice like he used to do,
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in order to keep that 10% margin. That actually demonstrated he did show up. It's a very
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not super safe riding over time that he made what seemingly was a safe riding by the time
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he was running for prime minister in 2025. But I love David Cochran was kind of like setting her
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up there like, okay, well, here's some flags on the field people may throw down on because on your
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narrative that this actually happens all the time. And she's like, well, I don't care because he
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already had a riding. Like, well, William Lyon McKenzie King lost twice in local ridings and
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then had to run by elections. And he was like, our longest serving prime minister ever. And that
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guy lost two local elections at one point. It just doesn't really matter. But again, the whole point
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of this is raising the profile of an independent, so that maybe you can get a lot of locals to be
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like, oh, I like the local narrative. This is a local person. Well, what are her values? If they're
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not super conservative, then she actually doesn't represent the riding. And now he just assumes
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we're going to vote him in when he lived in the same town as his constituents. We're 3,000
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kilometers west. You think he's going to show up here ever? So you don't buy it that he's running
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to represent this riding, to be the voice of Battle River Crowfoot in Parliament. Do you think
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this is just a path back to the House of Commons so we can get back into question period and those
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things? Absolutely. We are being used, and myself and my neighbors.
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But where was Bonnie Crickley? This is where I get a little bit annoyed. Where is Bonnie Crickley
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when Mark Carney was running for prime minister in a country where he didn't even have a residence?
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When were the media on him? When were the media interviewing tons of people saying,
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we don't even know if this guy even holds a residence within Canada still?
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When were they, did they ever really go after Carney for running in Nepean and literally telling
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the current MP candidate there to just basically screw off so then he could take it? That happened.
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The media wasn't there. They didn't have locals showing up and being like, he hasn't lived here
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for so long. He doesn't even know what's in and outside of the boundaries of the riding because he
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kept messing up whether or not certain parks were in it or not that were actually like 30 kilometers
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away. The thing, they're only doing this now because they want to hurt Polyev. It's about
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reducing Polyev's voting margin of victory in order so that they can spin ahead of the federal
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conservative AGM that he's on a downward trend and he's a loser and he can't win the next election.
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So conservatives better kick him out and throw someone, even someone worse in like Doug Ford.
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But now I just want to jump over to another clip. I think I have it queued up, but it's not super
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important. I'm just demonstrating what I mean by having Bonnie Crickley go on left-wing media.
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Again, I don't think that she genuinely is somebody who represents the views of the riding. You can
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know where every fence post is in your riding, but it doesn't mean that if you're like, and I'm not
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saying she is this, I'm just using hyperbolic example. If you're a communist in Battle River Crowfoot,
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do you represent the riding better than Polyev would because you know the riding? Well, not
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really. Your values are completely opposite to the riding. You can be a local son or daughter of the
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soil, but not understand people in your riding at all. And again, I don't think she served in the
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military. I'm going to keep clarifying that, but that doesn't really matter when it's partisan
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electoral politics where people don't care how often you mention specific niche details about the
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riding in Parliament. You really can't do anything about it. That's why you have city
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councillors and provincial representatives who can actually, you know, touch on the pothole issues
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and can go over a lot of the agricultural policy or and regulations and land use requirements and
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whatnot that are hurting the riding potentially or helping it. That federal politics is very up in
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the air. It's very, like, more abstract issues people are taking on. It's just general taxes.
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It's foreign policy, stuff like that, that doesn't really require you to know Drumheller,
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like frontward and backward. But here is Laura Babcock promoting her, having her on her show. Again,
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Laura Babcock is this extremely left-wing liberal that Bonnie is going on the show of, which again,
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kind of indicates to me she's probably not the typical Damien Kirk voter in the last general election.
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We don't like being used, and that's exactly what we are. It's not about him. It is not about
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Monsieur Poeliev. It's not about me. It is about my neighbors. It is about maintaining a voice for my
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neighbors in Battle River Crowfoot. I was enjoying my retirement. I don't want to do this. I wanted to do
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this about as much as I wanted to go to Afghanistan and get shot at every day. But I can't sit idle. It's just
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not in my nature to sit idle while I see injustices. And it's just not right for a guy to not just...
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Here's the thing, and this is where there's a naivete. Do you think in federal politics,
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MPs just say whatever they want? They really don't. One of my least favorite things about
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politics in Canada is how leader-centric it all is. If you don't agree, if the leader doesn't agree
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with your opinion, you usually can't say it. You know, they usually don't want you sounding off
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about your local issues because it doesn't make for great clips to play online. Yeah, a lot of times,
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like MPs do, like, shout out people in their riding and they do highlight some local issues,
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but it's usually attaching local issues to national issues, which everyone can already
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identify. It's not like, you know, supply management for Alberta. Like, it's not like our provincial
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politicians don't understand the problem unless they live in an area where those farmers have been
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cut out of the system. You can understand it even if you live in, like, downtown Toronto. Even if you
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live up in the Yukon, you can understand issues in other parts of the country. So I always, again,
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it's silly when it's just like, oh, we need a local voice. Local voice? Go to the United States.
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That's where you're actually going to have politicians who have far more of an ability
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to give you a local voice. In Canadian politics, there's almost borderline no local voice because,
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again, it is leader-centric and you are told what to say and what to do. And I think if a party wants
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to win, actually, one day, they should become more local. They should become more like that. But what?
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You're running because why didn't you run in previous elections? That's just not how Canadian
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politics works. Why didn't you run because the candidates were not local enough in how they
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advocated for the riding? Because it's not like, did she identify that Damien Kirk was doing a
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fantastic job? I really doubt she was even voting for him. So I think this is all kind of dishonest.
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It's a little bit bad faith running when all of her complaints that she is saying now could have been
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made in any previous election based on the way the Canadian political system works.
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This is only coming up now because it's Polly. Let's be honest. The only reason the media is
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pushing her is because it's a by-election with Polly. If this was a by-election where, you know,
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naturally somebody retired or someone had passed away and they were filling the seat
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and a conservative was running who lived, you know, in Calgary, running in Balor over Crowfoot,
00:23:17.760
would she be stepping up? Because, oh my goodness, the conservative guys from Calgary,
00:23:20.600
no, she wouldn't. She wouldn't care. It's because it's Polly. Anyways, so that should be it for me
00:23:26.860
today, guys. Again, make sure to like this video, subscribe to the channel, leave a comment, do all
00:23:31.660
that fantastic stuff. It really helps us in the algorithm. And also, I am going to be linking
00:23:36.920
one of my videos from Juno News in the description as well as pinned at the top of the comments of this
00:23:42.920
video. If you haven't seen that, I am also now doing a show for Juno News. Make sure to go check that
00:23:48.920
out as well as just check out their other content. They do a very good job. And with that being said,