In this episode, I take a look at why the media seems so confused about why Pierre Polyev is so popular in Canada, and why it comes as a surprise that he won a seat in the House of Commons with such a large margin of victory.
00:00:00.000Every once in a while on social media, I'll see someone repeat the old adage that they likely got from the legacy media that Canada is a fundamentally left-wing country politically, that on average, the typical Canadian has center-left political sensibilities, and that's why so many liberal governments have been elected over time in Canada, that Canadians like that bigger government vision for the country, they like more benefits, they like more government intervention in the market, they like their public health care, and all that sort of thing.
00:00:28.280And so, so many legacy media journalists seem absolutely baffled that Pierre Polyev is as popular as he is. Pierre Polyev seems to be a very fundamentalist conservative leader, very orthodox in his views of wanting smaller government, tougher on crime laws, and doesn't actually think that government-supplied benefits are the way to actually bring prosperity to the country.
00:00:49.640And one journalist I want to pick on today, not because I have any personal vendetta against him, I think he just lays out the sort of media's confusion about conservatism very well, is this article by CTV News op-ed writer Don Martin, which it was titled,
00:01:05.580Don Martin, Pierre Polyev's road to apparent victory will soon start getting rougher, in which he starts it off by saying he may be peaking too soon.
00:01:13.180I'm going to get back to reading a little bit of that article, but it doesn't even really make sense on its face when you look through Canadian history, and I'm not talking about the founding of the country where we had a conservative government for multiple terms with John A. Macdonald.
00:01:26.080I'm thinking of just going back to the mayor race with Rob Ford in Toronto. Supposedly Toronto is the receptacle of all liberalism in Canada, that that is where the liberals get the large portion of their seats in government, yet how did we ever get Rob Ford being the mayor of Toronto, the better of the Ford brothers?
00:01:44.980He was an actual real taxpayer-focused conservative who tried to cut as much spending as he could in the city of Toronto and give back money to taxpayers, and he was wildly popular.
00:01:55.200He was cutting programs, he was cutting supposed benefits that Torontonians relied on, and yet people really liked him.
00:02:02.860And I think it's that the reason why conservatism hasn't been as popular in Canada over time is that Canadians really have never been served up conservatism in its more pure form.
00:02:13.220It's always been in the form of an Aaron O'Toole or a Doug Ford or a Jason Kenney, where they aren't really free market conservatives, they're just people who effectively run a liberal agenda with a little bit more fiscal responsibility, the efficiency of the programs and the spending is better, they don't create as many new benefit programs, and so they're conservative, but only relative to the liberals are they conservative.
00:02:39.040And that's why the media seems very sort of confused and befuddled by people like Daniel Smith and Blaine Higgs and Pierre Polyev.
00:02:47.960They're more orthodox conservatives or libertarians, but I will criticize Daniel Smith because the budget was not nearly as good as it should have been.
00:02:55.120She should have cut taxes, but that's another rabbit hole for me to go down on another day.
00:02:59.000But Pierre Polyev, because he actually is sharing a small government vision, which the media keeps accusing him of not having a vision for the country, but really they're just fundamentally missing the point that his vision is smaller government and that is actually appealing to Canadians.
00:03:13.260The media thinks that if you don't come out with a bloated program that you don't have an agenda to push, like, no, no, he does, it just requires a lot of cutting to be done, because the whole point is that there's too much government, and so getting rid of government is in fact a plan, because it actually will have the biggest impact on our problems.
00:03:30.040The government thinks that, or at least the liberals who, like the liberal government, think that unless you do, like, the Canada Prosperity Act in which you give a bunch of money to people, then you haven't done anything.
00:03:40.720But I want to get to this article by Don Martin, because I think his confusion is quite, you know, telling about how many people in the Toronto media bubble think.
00:04:48.300But Don Martin then goes on to try and cool the jets of conservatives and basically throw some cold water on the idea that they're going to win an easy majority.
00:06:23.400The problem for Polyev is that he needs an election now to capitalize on his party's strong popularity.
00:06:29.540Having negotiated a Pharmacare package with the tag-along NDP,
00:06:33.020the liberals should be able to retain power until the scheduled vote in October 2025.
00:06:36.860And that's a long time to hold for the conservatives a commanding lead.
00:06:40.860So far, it's easy for Polyev to merely oppose everything, particularly this government where it's a fish, me, and gun in a barrel.
00:06:48.400But the need to propose a future conservative course in government is where the rock lies for his breezy sale to victory.
00:06:55.540While the liberals have failed to hire judges, to hire judges, buy back, ban firearms, refined, medically assisted death,
00:07:03.180and fallen down in a multitude of other areas where they promise action in delivering foot dragging,
00:07:08.100they have introduced some popular big ticket programs, which will be hard to unwind.
00:07:12.860And there's basically goes on to basically say, well,
00:07:15.460they're going to provide all these medical services and different drugs for Canadians through the Pharmacare program.
00:07:20.680And so Don Martin later on the article says, repealing a new Pharmacare program will be unpopular for women who will soon have free contraceptives.
00:07:29.360And anyone needing diabetes prescriptions will be hard to scrap free dental care for.
00:07:34.120Lower income Canadians, subsidized daycare is impossible to take away now.
00:07:38.720Polyev can't cut military spending, an underfunded embarrassment on the world stage.
00:07:45.860Healthcare transfers are untouchable, as are the huge indigenous reconciliation budgets.
00:07:51.180The justice system would seem immune from cost cutting, given the conservatives' law and order focus.
00:07:55.980And while there may be strong support to axe the carbon tax,
00:07:59.240Canadians still demand efforts to fight climate change, which won't be cheap.
00:08:02.720Honestly, Canadians are not asking for that.
00:08:05.080But he keeps going on acting like the conservatives couldn't possibly find something to cut,
00:08:09.740because he still thinks that conservatives are the Aaron O'Toole conservatives,
00:08:14.200who think that government programs, if they have even slight popularity with Canadians, are untouchable.
00:08:20.480Polyev has made it very clear that cutting, like, popular programs is totally on the chopping block.
00:08:26.960Pharmacare is too expensive, and it's not going to actually provide that many people with drugs that they couldn't already purchase themselves.
00:08:33.400Most people already had coverage for pharmaceuticals.
00:08:35.740And so getting rid of the pharmacare program will probably save more people tax,
00:08:40.340more people money than it will actually cost people in pharmaceutical, you know, pharmaceutical costs.
00:08:46.400It's one of those things where, yes, there's people who are going to like the benefits,
00:08:51.200but that is the fundamental error in Canadian politics,
00:08:54.360that just because people like a benefit that the government is giving them
00:08:57.880does not mean that the taxpayer can afford it.
00:09:00.640And that's where Don Martin doesn't understand the typical Canadian.
00:09:03.700I think most Canadians understand the spending is too high,
00:09:07.340and they are going to probably give a lot of license for the conservatives to cut spending.
00:09:12.060The budget since Harper's last term has gone up by 66%.
00:09:16.020I don't think that many Canadians are going to lose sleep by cutting that down significantly,
00:09:21.160because they know that they're not benefiting 66% since the budget has gone up.
00:09:26.080Their service quality has not gotten 66% better.
00:09:29.080You know, all of the public health care system has not gotten 66% faster.
00:09:33.660It's been a complete disaster across the country.
00:09:37.560The liberals' money, like the liberals' increase in the budget,
00:09:41.580has mostly just gone to more public employees doing fake jobs that they get paid way too much money for.
00:09:47.280And most Canadians are not going to be sympathetic with them
00:09:49.680when they start protesting a polio government for cutting these jobs.
00:09:53.360Anyways, that should be it for me today.
00:09:55.360I just wanted to comment on the fact that these people still don't seem to understand
00:09:59.020that Canadians are not really glamoured by the big government sort of vision of the liberals anymore,
00:10:05.820and they actually do want to return to some, a small government, you know, role in Canadians' lives.
00:10:11.680Anyways, but you guys can, if you live in my ride in Calgary Signal Hill,
00:10:15.080buy a Conservative Party membership, visit my website, whyclaypool.com.
00:10:18.300And if you don't live in my riding, you can still donate to the campaign through the website,
00:10:23.260or you can donate to the legal fundraiser for myself, the National Telegraph.
00:10:27.240We have a billionaire developer suing us for effectively nothing.
00:10:30.780We reported on things that were already reported about him a year and a half ago by far larger publications,
00:10:35.920and he is trying to basically bully us into giving a fake apology
00:10:39.040so he can pretend everyone who's ever said something negative about him is just lying or whatever.
00:10:44.320But anyways, that should be it for me today, guys.