TRIGGERnometry - The Elite have Betrayed the People - Canada’s Opposition Leader, Pierre Poilievre

00:00:01.000 The biggest phenomenon in the Western world over the last decade or two has been the total betrayal of the working class. 0.98

00:00:08.000 The people who make stuff, fix stuff, move stuff, and build stuff.

00:00:14.000 Their opportunities are absolutely destroyed by massive government interventions that have concentrated wealth among a very small group of well-connected insiders.

00:00:28.000 You're focusing on the narrow economic part of it, but I think what Francis is alluding to is there's a...

00:00:33.000 It's the same thing.

00:00:34.000 Well, is it though, because there's a cultural and ideological dimension to this as well, because, say, the policy of net zero, which is just economic suicide.

00:00:42.000 Same thing.

00:00:43.000 It's the same thing, tell us.

00:00:44.000 Exactly the same thing, because it's being used as a pretext to concentrate money and power in the hands of the state.

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00:01:38.000 Before we start, a very quick recommendation.

00:01:41.000 We know our audience, and every so often something comes along that we think you'll genuinely want to see.

00:01:47.000 October 8th is a documentary you can watch today on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, or YouTube Premium.

00:01:52.000 It looks at the explosion of anti-Semitism on college campuses and across social media in the aftermath of the October 7th attacks,

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00:02:15.000 If you care about what's happening in our culture right now, this film is worth your time.

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00:03:19.000 Pierre Poliev, welcome to Trigonometry.

00:03:21.000 Great to be with you.

00:03:22.000 Thanks for having me.

00:03:23.000 It's great to have you.

00:03:24.000 You were obviously very close to becoming the Prime Minister of Canada.

00:03:28.000 That didn't happen in very interesting and challenging circumstances.

00:03:32.000 We'll talk about that, but it's great to have you.

00:03:34.000 It's great to have you.

00:03:35.000 And the first thing we actually want to do is just to hear your perspective very broadly on what you see happening in the Western world geopolitically today.

00:03:43.000 There's obviously a huge realignment going on.

00:03:46.000 What do you see?

00:03:47.000 What do you think?

00:03:48.000 Well, listen, I think that the biggest phenomenon in the Western world over the last decade or two has been the total betrayal of the working class. 0.69

00:03:56.000 The people who make stuff, fix stuff, move stuff, and build stuff.

00:04:02.000 The younger people who are entering the job market and trying to start a life, who have seen their opportunities absolutely destroyed by massive government interventions that have concentrated wealth among a very small group of well-connected insiders.

00:04:21.000 And that, I think, has caused enormous amounts of political instability.

00:04:27.000 It has caused a resurgence of both socialism and of protectionism.

00:04:34.000 And now is a time, I think, for us to push back against that betrayal and give people back control of their lives.

00:04:43.000 And that is true right across the Western world.

00:04:45.000 It's especially true in Canada.

00:04:47.000 We need to restore homeownership, bring back sound money, allow people to actually benefit from their hard work, and basically restore meritocracy, which was the very principle, the driving principle of Western economics for two and a half centuries.

00:05:05.000 So I think that's really the big question of whether or not the Western world is going to reinstate meritocratic free enterprise or whether it's going to continue to concentrate undeserved benefits through state capitalism and big government.

00:05:19.000 Well, on the cultural level as well, a lot of things seem to have happened.

00:05:22.000 I mean, you talk about free enterprise, but what about just people being free to speak their mind, to make their own decisions?

00:05:30.000 One of the things that we were, frankly, truly horrified by, even given that COVID restrictions in this country were pretty stringent, is some of the things that happened, you know, people who were protesting against things in Canada having their bank accounts taken away.

00:05:43.000 We had supporters of our show writing in going, like, please, can you cover this? Is there something about Canada that made, you know, the Canadian psyche that made you guys more susceptible to this? Is it just you had a particular leader at that time who was more thorough? Like, what was that about?

00:05:58.000 It was the government itself. It wasn't broadly the people. You know, the truckers in question, they were just looking to be heard. Most of these people had never protested anything in their lives.

00:06:10.000 Through the early COVID days, they were considered the heroes because they were literally driving on lonely highways across international borders, often for weeks away from their families in total isolation, bringing us the things to our homes that we could not live without.

00:06:27.000 And then when the time came for them to be heard, the government robbed them of their liberties. And by the way, this is no longer a controversial view. The federal court now has ruled that the use of the Emergency Act to crack down on the protest was a violation of Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

00:06:49.000 So it has even been accepted by the judiciary that that was wrong. And it's a reminder of why we need to, the government has to treat itself as the servant and not the master.

00:06:59.920 And we need to to give a bigger voice to the working people of our country who, in this case, we're simply looking for the right to speak to the freedom of mobility and bodily autonomy.

00:07:11.420 And you say, you know, it wasn't the people. But we have to be honest, Pierre. I mean, Trudeau did get reelected.

00:07:18.640 Not after that. No, he was basically he had to leave office extremely unpopular. So he did not get reelected after after the use of the Emergency Act against the truckers.

00:07:31.960 Oh, right. But I was saying that he did get reelected shortly after the covid measures and everything like that.

00:07:39.200 So it's not as if it was totally against the will of the people is my point.

00:07:44.360 Yeah, I wouldn't I wouldn't attribute it to that. And the Canadian people value their freedoms.

00:07:48.740 And, you know, I was very outspoken in favor of individual freedom, not just on on the issue of the pandemic, but more broadly on economics and won a lot of support.

00:07:58.440 So much so that the Liberal Party later than claimed that it was going to adopt many of my policies.

00:08:04.740 So I think when you I think the the agenda of giving people for more freedom, economic freedom through lower taxes, unlocking homeownership and energy and resource development or personal freedom by letting people speak their minds and have freedom of speech, even when it's politically incorrect.

00:08:24.860 Actually, that agenda is very popular in Canada and around the world. And that's why I've stayed true to it.

00:08:31.140 Yeah, because that's not why I've stayed true to it. It's one of the it makes it easier for me to stay true to it. Sorry.

00:08:36.200 Fair enough. But it's been very disheartening and actually quite upsetting to watch what Canada has become and the trajectory it's it's gone on, because as somebody who's from the UK, I've seen the exact same trajectory we're on.

00:08:51.140 And I look at Europe and I look at Europe and the same thing is happening in Europe and you're kind of thinking to yourself, why is this?

00:08:58.340 Why are we on this trajectory when to even the most basic of laymen, it seems like we're heading on a path of self-destruction?

00:09:05.880 There's a, if you look at it, what it really comes down to is this. It's freedom or force.

00:09:12.480 There are, there's a movement to concentrate power, control, money in the hands of bureaucrats, technocrats and other insiders using the state as their mechanism.

00:09:31.440 And that has led to the mass impoverishment of the people across the Western world and an enormous gap between rich and poor, by the way, this is not happening because of free enterprise.

00:09:42.440 It's happening because of the massive interventions of the state to take from the hardworking many and concentrated in the hands of the few.

00:09:52.700 Or on the other hand, there's another alternative, which is to give people back more economic, personal and political freedom through a smaller state and more powerful individuals, families and communities.

00:10:07.220 And that's the side I'm on.

00:10:08.320 Well, you're focusing on the narrow economic part of it, but I think what Francis is alluding to is there's a...

00:10:13.460 It's the same thing, though.

00:10:14.140 Well, is it, though, because there's a cultural and ideological dimension to this as well, because, say, the policy of net zero, which is just economic suicide.

00:10:22.940 It's the same thing. Tell us.

00:10:23.880 Exactly the same thing, because it's being used as a pretext to concentrate money and power in the hands of the state.

00:10:28.640 It is just the latest of the many pretexts that are used to justify taking away everybody's money and giving it to a treasured, privileged few green grifters. 0.98

00:10:41.240 You know, the corporatism of saying, well, we're going to tax all of the energy and we're going to block the resources and then we're going to take the money and give it to the government.

00:10:52.560 Who's going to dole it out to all of these corporate insiders who claim that they are doing something for the environment?

00:10:59.580 When, in fact, you look very carefully, it's all BS.

00:11:03.620 In fact, they have no problem directing much of that money to China, which is opening two coal fire plants a week.

00:11:10.520 So it has nothing to do with the environment.

00:11:12.760 It is entirely a pretext to take from the working classes and give to a small group of insiders through the mechanism of the state. 0.70

00:11:22.920 So whether you're talking about the net zero fraud or massive government redistribution schemes or just an overall growth in the bureaucracy, it is all or even on the speech side.

00:11:36.520 It's all about concentrating power and money in the hands of fewer and fewer people while taking away the opportunities of the people who actually do the work.

00:11:45.460 Because I was going to say when I was researching for this interview, I was looking at the immigration rates in Canada.

00:11:51.840 It's staggering, just as it is in the UK, just as it is in Germany and other countries.

00:11:57.460 Same phenomenon, though.

00:11:58.720 The same phenomenon.

00:11:59.920 Because here again, what happened?

00:12:02.480 A corporate elite was able to drive down wages and drive up rent.

00:12:06.120 Why?

00:12:06.680 They brought in low-wage temporary foreign workers and they brought in enormous numbers of so-called students.

00:12:14.400 Many of them weren't actually studying.

00:12:15.780 But they ultimately provided a source of low-wage labor and created a major demand for a fixed supply of housing.

00:12:24.620 So the rent went up and the wages went down.

00:12:26.940 And those multinationals that benefited from it, they concentrated even more wealth.

00:12:33.160 Well, the working classes ultimately got shot at of jobs and homes.

00:12:36.520 So again, it's the same phenomenon, whether you're looking at mass immigration, censorship policies, these net zero schemes, blocking home building, very high taxes, and as the French would call it, dirigeuse d'economics, where the government decides who gets what.

00:12:54.600 All of it has concentrated wealth and power in fewer and fewer hands.

00:12:58.940 And that is why our working class people are understandably and legitimately upset with the state of things.

00:13:04.980 And we have to provide them with a hopeful opportunity, a hopeful way forward that involves opportunity to own homes, have affordable energy, affordable food, start families, raise kids, and live their lives.

00:13:17.880 And that's the hopeful vision that I'm trying to bring Canadians.

00:13:20.500 Well, you were poised to be in the position to implement that vision.

00:13:24.960 I think a former prime minister of Canada described the relationship being next to the U.S.

00:13:30.420 You like quoting this, like sleeping next to an elephant.

00:13:34.200 Doesn't matter how peaceful it is, every twitch and grunt affect you.

00:13:38.380 I put it to you, the elephant is wide awake now and it's stomping around.

00:13:43.440 And you might like that, you might dislike that.

00:13:45.200 But is Trump's behavior towards Canada the reason you didn't become prime minister?

00:13:50.500 Well, the challenge for me was I was, it was very hard to focus on the very domestic, very powerful domestic case we had.

00:13:56.220 I mean, we, you know, if you looked at the situation in Canada, the housing costs had doubled.

00:14:02.060 So had the food bank lineups.

00:14:04.040 I mean, we've got 2.2 million food bank visits every single month.

00:14:07.140 Wow.

00:14:07.400 A violent crime up 50%, the immigration system in shambles. 1.00

00:14:12.120 And we wanted to focus the election on that.

00:14:14.500 It became very difficult with the sound and fury of the Canada-U.S. debate.

00:14:22.820 So we, my focus now is what do I do from here?

00:14:26.080 How do I, how do I go forward?

00:14:27.680 And obviously our trade relationship with the U.S. is up for review.

00:14:31.160 We have a free trade agreement that effectively dates back to the Mulroney era in the late 80s, early 90s, that has largely remained intact.

00:14:40.520 But that relationship is being renewed in the summer.

00:14:45.320 And so what we have to do as Canadians is be stronger at home so that we have unbreakable leverage in any negotiations that come on that relationship.

00:14:54.780 And we've got a lot of leverage.

00:14:56.160 I mean, a lot of people underestimate Canada, but we've got the fourth biggest oil supply.

00:15:01.200 We've got 10 of the 12 NATO defense critical minerals.

00:15:05.340 We've got the second biggest landmass, biggest oceanic coastline.

00:15:08.920 We should be leveraging all of that power to get what we want, which is basically tariff-free trade with our American friends.

00:15:16.640 And that's the approach I'm going to be taking going forward.

00:15:18.600 Well, you pivoted very well from my question, but it sounds like the Trump behavior was not helpful to your election.

00:15:25.700 Is that fair to say?

00:15:26.840 I acknowledge that by saying we wanted to be, I wanted to be talking about how we could make people's lives better on immigration, cost of living, housing, crime, all of that.

00:15:37.540 But it was very hard to do that when, obviously, the debate was going on.

00:15:40.840 When Trump was talking about how you should become a state.

00:15:42.420 Which is never going to happen, which is never going to happen.

00:15:45.180 Right.

00:15:45.460 And everybody knows it's never going to happen.

00:15:46.980 And do you think he meant it, or was it one of his trolly comments that he throws out there?

00:15:51.460 Well, the liberal government in Canada said that it was a joke at the time.

00:15:55.660 But what I would say is we can't control President Trump.

00:15:59.480 Yeah, I think that's fair to say.

00:16:01.060 That's very clear.

00:16:01.860 And actually, our prime minister has acknowledged that.

00:16:04.140 So that's one thing we actually agree on.

00:16:07.360 But so, you know, very stoically, we have to focus on the things we can control.

00:16:11.040 Right.

00:16:11.460 Well, let me ask you about that, then.

00:16:12.960 Because I think we did get the answer I was looking for, or clarity, at least on it.

00:16:17.940 Mark Carney, who's the Prime Minister of Canada now, after Davos and the US administration presented a whole different geopolitical vision, effectively, at that meeting.

00:16:32.100 He came out and he talked about the fact that countries like Canada and the UK and Australia, they basically need to get very upset with the US and have their own little clique that they work together while challenging the US or, you know, working with China.

00:16:45.980 Do you think this is a good way of approaching things?

00:16:48.780 Working with China? 0.97

00:16:49.780 Yeah.

00:16:50.100 Look, I think we need to trade and talk with China.

00:16:53.180 Yeah.

00:16:53.960 It is, it's a, the Chinese people constitute a brilliant and extraordinary civilization.

00:16:59.620 There's no denying it.

00:17:00.800 And if we're being honest about it, they've been outworking, out hustling and out, the people of China, but out working, out hustling. 0.93

00:17:08.440 Those of us in the West for the last three decades, it's incredible, really.

00:17:13.400 They, China went from a country with 80% of the population living in less than a dollar a day to the second biggest economy in one lifetime.

00:17:21.960 So you can't ignore them.

00:17:23.540 But the idea that we can have a permanent rupture with our closest neighbor and biggest customer in favor of a strategic partnership for a new world order with China is not on.

00:17:35.200 It's just not going to happen.

00:17:36.320 We sell twice as, sorry, 20 times as much to the Americans as we do to the Chinese.

00:17:42.500 They are, American capitalism is the single biggest force, economic force, in the history of the world.

00:17:49.040 And they live right next door.

00:17:51.280 So we need to have a solid friendship, free trade agreement, and, of course, security partnership with the United States.

00:17:59.480 And there's no way that China or anyone else will replace that relationship. 0.96

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00:20:21.140 Because one of the difficulties that you have in Canada is, to put it bluntly, you've got a brain drain where your brightest and best are consistently leaving for America.

00:20:29.260 America, where you are essentially stifling growth, entrepreneurialism, and you look at what's happening with America and you see Canada dwindling almost, don't you?

00:20:40.460 Well, look, it doesn't have to be that way.

00:20:42.600 In 2015, the ultra-liberal New York Times wrote that Canada had the biggest middle, the best and the strongest middle class in the world.

00:20:50.300 And people were actually leaving the U.S. to go to Canada.

00:20:52.940 That was 10 years ago.

00:20:54.140 So, Wilfrid Laurier, who was our first liberal and our first francophone prime minister, actually said that Canada always had to have lower taxes than the United States because they would have this enormous economic gravitation.

00:21:07.920 The only way to overcome that would be to have lower taxes, faster permits, and more economic freedom.

00:21:13.300 And by the way, for most of the early part of this century, we ranked as a more economically free country than the U.S. based on the rankings of numerous think tanks.

00:21:23.420 So, we can do that again.

00:21:25.640 We need to repeal all the laws that block our resources in so that we can, we should have the fastest permits anywhere in the OECD.

00:21:32.800 We should, we should, we should have a policy of generating energy, home building, and food production at a faster rate of growth than the growth in our money supply.

00:21:44.580 And then you will find that we will become the most affordable country in the world.

00:21:48.100 We should be the dirt cheap place to live because we've got the most dirt to build homes on, to grow food on, and to dig resources from, right? 0.88

00:21:58.280 And for 41 million people to share in that enormous endowment, we should be the richest and the most affordable, and we will be when we unlock that potential.

00:22:08.740 Because when you talk to young people from Canada, they talk about the property situation being even worse than it is in the U.K.

00:22:16.020 That's hard to imagine.

00:22:16.800 We have the fewest homes per capita of any country in the, in the U, in the G7, which is incredible because we have 10 times more land per person than the second closest country being the U.S., right?

00:22:29.600 And so why is that?

00:22:31.220 And the answer is that about, depending on where you are in the country, somewhere between a third and 60% of the cost of a new home is government.

00:22:38.740 Taxes, fees, charges, delays, lobbyists, consultants, lawyers that you have to hire to go into building a home.

00:22:45.400 Twice as much money goes to guys in suits to build a Canadian home than goes to guys who swing hammers and lay concrete.

00:22:53.080 So, and the consequence is that the carpenter who's built our homes can't afford to buy them.

00:22:57.920 So we need to get government costs out of housing.

00:23:00.760 And I've proposed zero taxation on home building and massive, powerful incentives and penalties for bad behavior by municipalities that block home building.

00:23:10.820 So you unblock home building and you could have very, very affordable homes.

00:23:15.420 Everyone could afford to own Canada if we did that.

00:23:18.480 Because when I look at Canada, again, I've made this point before.

00:23:23.700 It reminds me of the U.K.

00:23:24.820 And I think to myself, this is economically unsustainable, particularly when it comes to your young people.

00:23:29.700 You've got wonderful universities, world-class institutions, but you get your brightest and best who go there.

00:23:35.960 They get trained in engineering, etc.

00:23:39.300 They look around.

00:23:40.680 They see there's no opportunities.

00:23:42.280 They can't buy a house.

00:23:43.420 So they leave for America and they literally double, if not triple their salaries.

00:23:47.760 And frequently, they pay far lower taxes as a result.

00:23:51.680 And that's exactly what I want to reverse.

00:23:53.140 We have to cut income taxes so that the brilliant kids that come out of Waterloo and Kitchener and engineering can stay in Canada and earn an incredible living and own an affordable house.

00:24:04.320 And we know we can do it.

00:24:05.700 We have so many advantages over the Americans geographically, the landmass we have, the population that we have.

00:24:14.100 We should be the richest and most affordable country in the world.

00:24:18.240 And we can be.

00:24:18.860 Yeah, and moving to geopolitics a little bit, do you have a clear understanding of what the Americans are doing, what their posture is towards the world?

00:24:27.540 And obviously, that will affect Canada as well.

00:24:31.100 Are you now, do you want to talk about the tariff policy or the recent actions in Iran and Venezuela?

00:24:37.820 What would you like to address?

00:24:38.440 Here's what I'm trying to get into, right?

00:24:40.080 And we can talk about all of those things, and I think we should.

00:24:42.600 I think a lot of people thought that Trump 2.0 would be a little bit like Trump 1.0.

00:24:49.540 And suddenly, you know, he's talking about Canada becoming a state of the United States.

00:24:55.000 He's talking about invading Greenland.

00:24:57.080 And he's taking real action.

00:24:59.020 And some of it I am a big fan of.

00:25:01.060 You know, get rid of Maduro.

00:25:02.480 Great.

00:25:03.080 You know, Iran is, you know, more difficult.

00:25:05.320 We can talk about the pluses and minuses.

00:25:07.700 But what I think is happening is there is a clear, different perspective that they have.

00:25:14.160 They've shifted their entire attitude towards geopolitics, the world, and they're taking a totally different approach.

00:25:20.560 Do you understand the rationale and the logic behind that?

00:25:24.480 Do you see what they're trying to do?

00:25:25.760 Here's what I think is happening.

00:25:28.020 For, you know, 50 years, the United States made a calculation that they could trade freely with China and build a friendship with that rising power.

00:25:42.840 And they blinked.

00:25:45.720 And all of a sudden, they had a very powerful rival.

00:25:50.100 They looked around and saw that their entire industrial base had been hollowed out.

00:25:54.160 Whole towns had been emptied.

00:25:55.360 And they had become increasingly dependent on a country that was, at best, a serious rival and, at worst, a serious threat.

00:26:03.360 And they decided that they were going to assert dominance in order to counter that rivalrous threat.

00:26:13.600 Some of that thinking was justified.

00:26:16.720 Some of it has since been mistargeted.

00:26:18.380 Canada, for example, despite all of the criticisms you might have made about public policy decisions, Canada is not the problem.

00:26:25.360 And so I think that targeting Canada is a mistake and a distraction.

00:26:30.640 And Canada is actually part of the solution because we have the resources, the minerals, and the geography to help make the entire continent safer.

00:26:38.540 And that would be the better way to go.

00:26:40.760 But there's no doubt that the United States does not want satellites of Beijing in Latin America in particular,

00:26:50.020 as we saw with the decision to oust Maduro and with the aggressive economic approach against Cuba.

00:26:58.600 And as I think we're seeing with Iran, they've made the decision that they're not going to have these countries that are ultimately in the China sphere of power encroaching on America's security or sovereignty.

00:27:20.740 And I think that I believe that that is one of the reasons for the approach that the U.S. is taking.

00:27:28.260 So we have to decide as Canadians how we fit into that.

00:27:31.900 And my view is that we have the ability to make the North American continent a lot safer and more secure and more prosperous for all the countries.

00:27:40.780 If we take advantage of the leverage that we have resources, geography, etc.

00:27:45.860 If we massively rebuild up our military to protect the northern, to protect the Arctic, then we will have a lot more leverage to get what we want,

00:27:55.540 which, again, is unbridled, tariff-free access to the most lucrative market in the world, that being the U.S.

00:28:01.400 And do you worry that what is happening in Iran now, I mean, I don't, I'm someone who's, you know, happy to see intervention when I think it's good.

00:28:13.080 But I also very, very, you know, I grew up in the era of Iraq and Afghanistan.

00:28:17.180 We both did, right?

00:28:17.860 I imagine you did too.

00:28:19.480 And those were not things, I think, objectively speaking, that led to positive outcomes that everybody would want.

00:28:24.860 Are you worried that perhaps, you know, President Trump's felt like he's on a roll and he can just keep going and sometimes he's going to go too far

00:28:33.180 and there will be a lot of drawbacks to the policies he's pursuing?

00:28:39.700 Look, it's easier to predict the past than the future.

00:28:43.140 But I don't see how it could be a bad thing for the world to remove Khomeini and the theocratic dictatorship that dominated Iran. 0.55

00:28:52.140 Isn't that what we said about Gaddafi and Saddam and all these other people?

00:28:55.480 I don't see how it's, and I was like, yeah, they're bad people.

00:28:57.980 But what comes after is my question.

00:29:00.040 I don't see what comes after.

00:29:01.300 Well, the difference, there's a couple of differences.

00:29:04.580 One, Iran has not been just sitting back and watching the world go by.

00:29:10.400 Iran was responsible for the attacks of October 7th.

00:29:13.200 It was funding and directing Hamas, Hezbollah, the Yemeni terrorists before the Assad regime fell.

00:29:23.740 It was responsible for that.

00:29:25.560 It was actively threatening not just Israel but the Arab powers in the region

00:29:30.940 and was developing a nuclear program for the express purpose of targeting Western allies,

00:29:36.320 not just Israel, by the way, which would be bad enough, but the United States of America.

00:29:41.060 It was the single biggest state sponsor of terror in the world.

00:29:44.580 And by the way, they killed over 100 Canadians when they fired a missile at flight PS752.

00:29:50.920 And it was a civilian aircraft.

00:29:52.940 So this is a hostile enemy regime.

00:29:56.600 And so, you know, it's not just that somebody showed up at the UN and made allegations that they had weapons of mass destruction.

00:30:02.200 Everything I've just said is undisputed, by the way, unlike the weapons of mass destruction allegation in Iraq.

00:30:09.720 And then who would govern?

00:30:12.220 Well, I think what they need to do is find a way to get to elections,

00:30:15.120 because I think the people of Iran could choose a government.

00:30:17.300 And I think it will be a very Western-friendly government,

00:30:19.760 because the population there is actually very Western-friendly.

00:30:23.640 The government was completely out of touch with the population.

00:30:27.560 And so they need to get to elections.

00:30:30.120 That's the outcome.

00:30:30.880 Are we certain about this?

00:30:32.200 I'd love it for it to be true.

00:30:33.500 I honestly don't know.

00:30:34.260 Are we certain that the population is pro-West?

00:30:36.180 We have an enormous Iranian expat population in Canada,

00:30:39.560 and they are very pro-Western and against theocracy.

00:30:46.900 So I'm confident that we'd have a better future if it were directed by the Iranian people 1.00

00:30:52.320 than by the Ayatollah and the religious theocracy that was running the place before.

00:30:58.380 And is your sense that this more geopolitically interventionist policy will continue?

00:31:03.760 Is Cuba going to be next? 0.99

00:31:04.820 Are we going to see more things like this, do you think?

00:31:07.320 I don't know.

00:31:08.060 I don't know.

00:31:08.880 I don't know the answer.

00:31:09.800 Your wife is nodding over there.

00:31:10.840 Well, my wife is hoping so.

00:31:13.400 She's from Venezuela, and her family was obviously thrilled to see Maduro go.

00:31:19.140 You know, and this is actually what's so funny,

00:31:21.060 is to watch these woke progressives pulling their hair out in the street,

00:31:24.700 claiming that they're siding with Iranians and Venezuelans

00:31:27.600 by opposing the removal of their dictators.

00:31:31.700 And the people, both the Iranian people and the Venezuelan people,

00:31:36.200 were thrilled to see these dictators ousted.

00:31:40.760 And my wife's family, I can attest to that.

00:31:43.520 Oh, look, absolutely.

00:31:45.220 Everyone in my life.

00:31:46.120 Go on, go on.

00:31:47.020 Everyone who watches the show.

00:31:47.740 And if it's making my wife happy, then it can't be bad.

00:31:50.180 The joke here is Francis says his family is from Venezuela every single show.

00:31:54.780 It's the number one liked comment on our show every time.

00:31:57.580 Yeah.

00:31:57.860 Are you Venezuelan?

00:31:59.040 Yeah, yeah.

00:31:59.460 I know I don't look it.

00:32:00.480 Yes.

00:32:01.000 Oh, God.

00:32:01.380 We should have brought my wife on the show then. 1.00

00:32:03.380 Yeah.

00:32:03.920 Half Venezuelan.

00:32:04.860 The other half is Irish, so that's why I've got that. 0.98

00:32:06.700 Oh, good.

00:32:07.120 Well, I've got a lot of Irish blood.

00:32:08.500 Yeah.

00:32:08.760 There's only two types of people, those who are Irish and those who wish they were. 1.00

00:32:12.180 That does sound like what an Irishman would say.

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00:34:20.900 That being the case, I think we can acknowledge that what happened in Venezuela is very, very

00:34:24.760 different to what is happening in Iran.

00:34:26.320 And what people never really address is that when you get an authoritarian government coming

00:34:31.420 to power, as we saw with Venezuela and then before that, Iran, what they do is they put 0.81

00:34:37.480 in and they establish autocratic methods of control.

00:34:41.900 Right.

00:34:42.240 So in Venezuela, you get the colectivos.

00:34:45.180 In Iran, you get the Islamic Republican Guard numbering, I was reading, about 150,000 people.

00:34:52.000 It's not just as easy as removing the Ayatollah. 0.99

00:34:55.960 What do you do with the Republican Guard?

00:34:58.800 They're not going to lay down their arms.

00:35:01.060 This is a very, very serious problem.

00:35:03.840 The IRGC is the single biggest terrorist organization in the world.

00:35:07.740 And then it has a whole series of spawns that it controls remotely.

00:35:11.400 So you're absolutely right.

00:35:12.220 The IRGC, I believe, will have to be dismantled.

00:35:14.760 Uh, and they will have to find, uh, you know, a new way to, to, to set up a security apparatus

00:35:21.620 that is, reflects a hopefully democratically elected government.

00:35:25.080 Uh, but, uh, you're quite right. 0.89

00:35:26.860 Uh, the IRGC will be a very big problem and, uh, they need to be, they need to be destroyed.

00:35:32.020 We only, frankly, we, we, we should have banned them a long time ago in Canada.

00:35:35.280 They are active in Canada.

00:35:36.820 They have something like 700 agents on the ground.

00:35:40.060 And that's a very...

00:35:40.860 Sorry to interrupt.

00:35:41.420 What do you mean they're active in Canada?

00:35:42.980 There's, there's a, according to intelligence, they have 700 agents on the ground in Canada.

00:35:49.380 They have, um, former IRGC members have moved to Canada and taken the plunder with them

00:35:54.900 so that they can harass the Persian and Jewish populations in our country. 1.00

00:36:00.520 Um, they, uh, they, some of the insane anti-Semitic riots and, um, um, attacks that we saw against

00:36:09.760 synagogues, et cetera, I believe in Canada were actually instigated by IRGC, uh, by, uh,

00:36:16.040 inflaming the population and getting people, um, to carry out these, these terrible rampages

00:36:22.600 in our, in our streets.

00:36:23.900 So, uh, this is a terrible organization that is not just a threat to the Iranian people, 1.00

00:36:28.780 but is active around the world.

00:36:30.240 And, uh, it is, uh, hopefully with the, with the ousting of the regime, we can break that

00:36:35.860 organization as well.

00:36:37.140 Look, I want that.

00:36:39.020 And we all want a free Iran, a democratic Iran.

00:36:41.780 The problem comes when you remove the leader, you still have the IRGC and you think to yourself,

00:36:49.600 well, how are they going to get rid of it?

00:36:51.500 Because Trump said in his speech that this is a chance for the Iranian people to overthrow

00:36:57.660 the regime.

00:36:59.000 And you think to yourself, what you want the Iranian people to go out against 150,000 trained 0.88

00:37:06.040 military.

00:37:07.440 I mean, that, that's what, that has a potential to be a bloodbath.

00:37:10.840 Well, it's already bloodbath.

00:37:12.140 It was a bloodbath before the president and Israel removed the regime.

00:37:18.200 Uh, they were, they were slaughtering the population in the street.

00:37:21.040 And they have been doing that now for years.

00:37:23.760 And the population has been rising up and getting crushed, rising up and getting crushed

00:37:28.540 over and over again.

00:37:30.020 So I think what, what he means now is, well, now, uh, the regime that was crushing the

00:37:36.520 population has been removed.

00:37:37.740 The population has to come together and secure a democratic government.

00:37:42.400 And coming back to the conversation we were having earlier, and, you know, you were very

00:37:46.100 persuasive, actually, I thought in, in articulating the idea that almost all the problems that

00:37:50.260 we often focus on are the product of the concentration of power and assets and wealth in

00:37:55.720 the hands of a small number of people who structure society for that purpose.

00:37:59.940 But there's another dimension culturally, which is the kind of self-denigration that

00:38:04.180 has become very popular in the West.

00:38:05.720 And it's frankly being taught in our schools and colleges and universities on mass now where

00:38:11.500 young people, young Canadians, young British people are effectively taught a version of

00:38:15.540 their history that inevitably leads to them hating their own country.

00:38:20.200 Do you see that happening?

00:38:21.440 And what, what can you do about it?

00:38:23.060 Well, by the way, I think that's also part of the same phenomenon I described earlier, which

00:38:27.500 is that those who want to have more power, what do you do?

00:38:30.660 You, you erase history because then they have a blank slate to write on.

00:38:34.000 You can create something out of nothing.

00:38:37.180 You can say everything, all of the foundations that created our civilization, we've wiped them

00:38:42.720 away.

00:38:43.440 And now I pull out my magic marker and I paint a brand new civilization of which is, you know,

00:38:51.680 in all, if you look at, if you look at all the literature about dystopia, whether Huxley

00:38:57.980 or Orwell, it involves eliminating the past.

00:39:02.500 But the only way to preserve freedom is to anchor it in history.

00:39:07.700 Our history, for example, goes back to a field about an hour from here in Runnymede, the Magna

00:39:15.200 Carta, the great English liberties that we inherited as Canadians.

00:39:18.960 That is an 800-year-old tradition, an imperfect one, one that started off with a very small

00:39:25.840 group securing their freedom by imposing liberty under the law, but then expanded over eight

00:39:31.680 centuries to the imperfect state it is today.

00:39:34.560 But without that 800-year tradition, you don't have freedom.

00:39:39.220 So on the other side are those who want to erase all of that so that they can impose their

00:39:44.980 agenda.

00:39:46.460 And my point is we've got two generations at least.

00:39:50.220 I mean, my generation, we're probably similar age, our generation, I remember it started to

00:39:54.660 creep through already.

00:39:55.860 Then you look at the generation below us.

00:39:58.640 So you just, I mean, if they went to university, I don't know if you've ever seen that meme

00:40:02.700 of like the people before and after certain drugs, like before weed, after weed, before

00:40:07.400 hair and after.

00:40:07.900 And then the last one is before college, after college.

00:40:10.660 And before college, it's a normal person.

00:40:12.580 And after it's, you know, nose piercings and all of that kind of stuff, right?

00:40:16.920 So that's been the effect that that is the country.

00:40:19.180 If you ever become prime minister, you will inherit in which young people have, some young 0.95

00:40:22.780 people have been brainwashed into this ideology.

00:40:25.300 I know Jordan has obviously done a lot to try and push back against the great Canadian.

00:40:30.720 Jordan Peterson, truly a great Canadian.

00:40:33.140 Yeah, he is a great Canadian, he's a great man.

00:40:35.640 But the fact that he had to is evidence of where your society is.

00:40:39.580 Is that a fair assessment?

00:40:40.640 No.

00:40:41.200 No?

00:40:41.440 I think that our young people today are more conservative, more hardworking and have more

00:40:48.940 common sense than maybe any generation since the Second World War.

00:40:52.120 Lucky you.

00:40:52.660 We have our young, are the young people in Canada, the ones I meet, they want to start

00:40:59.540 families, own homes and take responsibility.

00:41:02.420 The ones you meet, you're a conservative.

00:41:04.140 No, no, the ones I meet when I go to a coffee shop and I talk to the barista or I go to a

00:41:08.400 restaurant and talk to the waitress. 1.00

00:41:10.260 I'm not talking about a conservative rallies.

00:41:12.100 I'm talking about it on shop floors and in retail outlets across the country where I meet young

00:41:19.060 people and they're the ones being held back.

00:41:21.700 We won, by the way, we won the youth vote.

00:41:23.560 In fact, we have our election body, Elections Canada, runs elections in the high schools.

00:41:30.200 They are mock elections, but all of them participate.

00:41:32.380 Now, some people say, oh, this is trivial stuff.

00:41:35.060 We're talking about like every high school student.

00:41:37.380 We won the high school vote.

00:41:39.140 They voted conservative.

00:41:40.440 Wow.

00:41:40.580 And this is the first time that the high schoolers voted differently than their parents in the

00:41:47.520 general election.

00:41:48.980 And it's on election day.

00:41:50.500 So young people today in Canada, I believe, are grounded in a desire to work hard, to unleash

00:41:57.080 their ambitions.

00:41:58.300 And so I'm actually very optimistic about our upcoming generation.

00:42:02.180 Well, if I thought that was the case here, I'd also be optimistic, but it's not.

00:42:05.820 It's not.

00:42:06.340 Okay.

00:42:06.520 I don't know a lot of British youth.

00:42:08.640 You guys are very lucky if that's the case.

00:42:10.880 I mean, one of the things that we've seen with the UK and Australia and Canada is the

00:42:17.340 guilt of their history.

00:42:19.140 But the guilt is different.

00:42:20.460 For instance, in the UK, it's guilt for empire.

00:42:23.460 In Australia and Canada, it's slightly different because there's the indigenous people and there's

00:42:29.500 a guilt around that in Canada.

00:42:31.960 Can we talk about that a little bit?

00:42:33.360 Because I've found something quite fascinating, actually.

00:42:37.020 Well, okay, so I think that in Canada, what we need to do is focus on what we can actually

00:42:45.940 achieve together.

00:42:46.740 The indigenous peoples of Canada can be literally the richest people in the world because the

00:42:54.600 lands on which they live are among the most resource rich.

00:42:59.180 And one thing you will never hear about in the media is the pro-energy, pro-oil and gas

00:43:05.640 indigenous communities that are very common across western Canada in particular, but also

00:43:11.860 in the mining communities of northern Ontario.

00:43:14.240 The previous liberal government killed a number of natural resource projects as part of the

00:43:19.540 net zero obsession that had overwhelming and near unanimous support of the indigenous

00:43:25.320 communities nearby.

00:43:26.440 And there was one oil and gas mine, the Tech Frontier mine, $20 billion.

00:43:29.920 Every single indigenous community around it supported it.

00:43:33.120 And the government in Ottawa came in and killed it.

00:43:34.840 So, the approach that we have tried to take as conservatives in Canada is to unleash incredible

00:43:42.500 amounts of opportunity for First Nations, allow energy companies to even pay some of their

00:43:48.860 corporate tax obligation to local indigenous communities to help with fighting poverty, training

00:43:54.300 young people, getting them into six-figure jobs in the trades.

00:43:58.500 So, that's the approach that I take.

00:44:00.320 And I think it's a positive one.

00:44:02.480 And I think, you know, the traditional indigenous values, I believe, are quite conservative.

00:44:07.640 Faith in a creator, family, tradition.

00:44:10.940 And I think we can build on those foundations.

00:44:14.720 Because it seems to me the Liberal Party take a very paternalistic approach towards the indigenous

00:44:20.200 people, whilst, on the other hand, not giving them the freedom to actually be able to progress

00:44:25.300 and improve their own communities.

00:44:26.840 Well, the approach has been to block resource projects and then double the size of the bureaucracy

00:44:33.540 for indigenous affairs.

00:44:35.880 So, that is not the right approach.

00:44:37.900 And we don't need more bureaucrats in the nation's capital. 1.00

00:44:41.460 We have too many of those.

00:44:43.120 We need more opportunity in the indigenous communities themselves.

00:44:46.440 Pierre, one thing that Francis and I have been thinking about a lot, because I think anyone

00:44:50.940 is thinking about a lot at the moment, is I think the world is about to change very dramatically.

00:44:55.500 Actually, it's a trivial thing to say in one way, but we went to San Francisco and you walk

00:45:00.080 around, like a third of the cars on the road are not driven by humans anymore.

00:45:03.760 You talk to some of the people in AI.

00:45:06.400 Like, this thing is happening really fast.

00:45:08.780 Do you have any thoughts on, you know, the impact that that will have on countries like

00:45:13.200 Britain, like Canada? 0.64

00:45:14.540 And what do you see coming down the pipe?

00:45:17.800 Look, it's an incredible opportunity.

00:45:19.360 I think it could massively increase the availability of goods and services at much lower prices

00:45:25.440 if it's allowed to and if monetary inflation doesn't cancel out all the benefits again.

00:45:31.380 But one thing I ask myself is if AI is going to replace a number of different tasks that

00:45:37.740 we do, what kind of meaning will people have in their lives, right?

00:45:41.320 I'm a big believer in Viktor Frankl, incredible psychologist, and his thesis was that people

00:45:48.240 need meaning, even more than they need food and water, they need meaning in their lives

00:45:52.380 to give them happiness.

00:45:55.060 And he tells the story of a group therapy session where there were two ladies.

00:46:00.180 One was a very wealthy woman who had married a very rich man, and she was sitting next to

00:46:05.040 a woman who lived in poverty and had two children, one who died early and the other who was severely

00:46:10.380 disabled.

00:46:10.880 And he said to both of them, when you're on your deathbed at 80, what will you look back

00:46:15.260 upon your life and say?

00:46:16.880 And the wealthy woman said, well, I'll say that I had an easy life with lots of joys and

00:46:22.880 easy, frivolous pleasures, but it all really meant nothing.

00:46:31.020 Whereas the mother who had struggled and fought for her kids said, well, I look back on my life

00:46:37.780 and though my first child had a short life, it was a beautiful one, and my second child

00:46:43.520 had a disability, I made him into a great person, and I would look back at my life and say it

00:46:49.520 was an incredible success.

00:46:51.220 So the point being that life is not just a pleasure machine, it's about having meaning.

00:46:57.200 And if machines and robots replace the meaning that we get from doing our work and contributing,

00:47:05.780 then how will we find meaning and purpose?

00:47:08.780 That's something I think about 50 years from now.

00:47:11.420 If some of the predictions about what these AI mechanisms are going to be able to do,

00:47:16.480 what kind of meaning will, how will we get meaning, the meaning that comes from work and contributing?

00:47:21.220 I think you're exactly right, although I think 50 years is extremely optimistic.

00:47:24.680 I think it's happening very quickly.

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00:48:31.800 Call 866-885-1948.

00:48:35.620 That's 866-885-1948.

00:48:38.860 Or go to AmericanFinancing.net slash Trigonometry.

00:48:42.360 Another thing, though, and I think you're totally right.

00:48:46.440 Like, the upside is unlimited in healthcare and in all sorts of things.

00:48:51.660 There is a thing, though, like, they're starting to do some experiments where they give the AI

00:48:56.480 some information and they say, well, the CEO is having an affair, right?

00:49:00.280 And then the CEO gives an order to shut down the AI for unrelated reasons.

00:49:04.160 The AI will blackmail the CEO to not be shut down.

00:49:06.900 In other words, it has a survival instinct.

00:49:13.460 Wow.

00:49:13.900 And if something has a survival instinct, that means, by definition, its primary interest is not human beings.

00:49:20.400 Its primary interest is survival.

00:49:24.120 There is an existential risk to humanity.

00:49:26.320 It might be very small.

00:49:27.880 But is that something you've thought about at all?

00:49:30.780 I hope more politicians do think about this.

00:49:32.620 Listen, I've never been blackmailed by AI, so now I haven't thought about that.

00:49:39.500 Well, get ready.

00:49:40.460 It's coming.

00:49:41.080 All right.

00:49:42.200 Thanks for the warning.

00:49:44.440 Yeah, look, these are the kinds of things we have to think about and what happens if and when they take a life of their own.

00:49:52.040 But I don't have the ability to extrapolate that far into the future, but you've given me something to think about.

00:49:57.180 Fair enough.

00:49:57.680 No, it's just a new thing, but I think it's going to happen so much faster than people think.

00:50:02.160 And I hope politicians start to think about it a little bit more.

00:50:05.220 Because one of the challenges I think politicians face, and we saw that with Zuckerberg when he was being interrogated by U.S. politicians,

00:50:14.420 is that you were listening to the U.S. politicians interrogate Zuckerberg, and you go, oh, you don't understand tech.

00:50:22.340 And the concern for a lot of people is the knowledge is concentrated in the hands of a very small amount of the population.

00:50:31.620 And really, we need politicians who are across this just as much as the tech industry, if not more, really.

00:50:38.240 I agree. I agree. I agree. Because otherwise, it's a black box for all but those who control it. 0.73

00:50:45.620 And so we have to diffuse the knowledge, and we have to know more about what it's going to do.

00:50:49.960 Yeah, well, you will need to.

00:50:51.880 But coming back to this central theme of our conversation, which I think you've articulated, as I say, very powerfully,

00:50:56.900 how do you wrestle control back from the people who've established this gigantic bureaucracy,

00:51:02.800 who have all the corporate structures that benefit them? 0.97

00:51:06.260 How do you actually get to the point where that is no longer the case,

00:51:10.580 and your country, our country, is no longer about serving the interests of a very small group of people at the top?

00:51:16.320 Well, you have to activate everybody else.

00:51:18.500 You have to provide hope to everyone else that life can be so much better than it is right now for them.

00:51:24.380 And that's why we've focused in our party in the last several months, particularly on a hopeful message,

00:51:30.580 because we don't want people to become despondent and detached from the political process.

00:51:35.740 If they don't show up, then they will be governed only by those who do.

00:51:41.720 So I've asked myself, how do I go and get the mill worker in Thunder Bay to become politically active

00:51:48.520 so that he can own a home and double his pay and continue to enjoy his hunting rifles

00:51:53.680 and his pickup truck and the things that make his life great?

00:51:58.600 That's one of the political challenges for those of us who are trying to give power back to the people

00:52:02.800 is to get the people engaged to take it.

00:52:05.140 But isn't also the challenge going to be that you've got to change a culture?

00:52:09.360 Because I think it was around 40% of Canadians are employed in government jobs.

00:52:15.380 And I was talking to a friend of mine.

00:52:17.740 He was saying, look, for a lot of Canadians, that's the dream, because you get a cushy government job.

00:52:22.240 You're not going to have to work as hard.

00:52:24.560 And that means, you know, that you've got life on easy street.

00:52:27.760 Now, maybe that's an unfair way of putting it.

00:52:30.280 But I've heard that from more than one person.

00:52:32.440 I don't know if I would say that's true.

00:52:34.600 In Canada today, the problem I see is that people are working extremely hard.

00:52:41.220 They're running nonstop, but there's so many obstacles in their way.

00:52:46.720 You know, if you're a young person, you want to buy a home.

00:52:48.960 Well, they're not building them.

00:52:50.060 You know, we build fewer homes today than we did in the 1970s.

00:52:53.320 Why is that?

00:52:53.980 Not because we don't have carpenters who want to swing hammers.

00:52:56.340 It's because you can't get a permit to build a home.

00:52:58.880 You've got, go to Western Canada.

00:53:00.920 The people who are unemployed in Western Canada and the trades, it's not because they don't want to work.

00:53:04.660 It's because the government has blocked them from working in the energy sector.

00:53:08.100 So, you know, I don't see the population as being a problem at all in Canada.

00:53:13.060 I think the problem in most Western countries that are in this challenge is governments.

00:53:19.640 It's not the people.

00:53:20.400 I don't know how much you've followed this in other countries.

00:53:22.800 And I wonder if it is an issue in Canada or not.

00:53:25.780 But the point you make about political activation is obviously true.

00:53:28.880 But one of the things that's happened both in Europe, in Britain and in America is political activation of a very frustrated population, understandably, has spilled over in many instances into anger and resentment and a much more destructive perspective.

00:53:44.920 You see, you know, social media.

00:53:47.520 You know, I always talk about how the kind of the caliber of the influence.

00:53:51.280 It tells you a lot about the time you're in.

00:53:52.800 So you kind of go from Jordan Peterson, within like 10 years, you go down to Andrew Tate, to Nick Fuentes, right?

00:54:00.600 And in the UK, you see that the polarization is creating very angry, divisive movements, which are understandable in some ways because they're reacting to things that are very unpleasant that you've been describing.

00:54:13.060 Do you have that problem in Canada?

00:54:15.780 And do you know if you do what, do you know what to do about it?

00:54:19.060 What other people should do about it?

00:54:20.300 The problem being polarization?

00:54:22.920 No, it's not polarization because if you, I guess the problem being that the anger that's created by the policies you're describing then becomes a vehicle for people who are not offering the message of hope and positivity that you are,

00:54:36.320 but are offering a destructive message, a message of hatred against other people, et cetera.

00:54:41.120 I think we're, in Canada, we're very blessed that the focus has remained on hope.

00:54:47.360 And I will, you know, bluntly take some credit for it because I have been the major opposition to the status quo in the country.

00:54:56.100 And during that time, we have not, you know, our Conservative Party has remained unfractured.

00:55:00.780 We are one party.

00:55:01.680 We haven't fractured into numerous parties and our focus has been on giving people, driving their political energies towards a hopeful future rather than just being upset about the status quo.

00:55:14.580 And very simply, the antidote to anger is hope.

00:55:17.940 Because if you say to people, yes, you're not happy with where you are, but this is where we could be.

00:55:21.680 Wouldn't this be wonderful?

00:55:23.080 Wouldn't it be great if you could own a home, raise a family, chart your own course, live a great life, launch a business?

00:55:29.620 And I've tried to keep people focused on that optimistic, forward-looking possibility.

00:55:34.940 And I think that is the antidote to the problem you described.

00:55:37.640 Yeah.

00:55:37.840 And I thought your apple-eating video was a perfect illustration of people trying to drag you into the negative.

00:55:43.840 Oh, my God.

00:55:44.340 That was strange.

00:55:46.500 When my staff were there witnessing this, no one thought that this was a moment of any kind.

00:55:52.020 Really?

00:55:52.280 No, like we buried it like seven minutes into a 15-minute video that we thought no one was going to watch of me just sort of wandering around talking to people in an orchard.

00:56:01.180 And somehow this thing blew up.

00:56:03.100 So it was when people came to me weeks later and said they had seen a video of me eating an apple, I didn't even remember what they were talking about.

00:56:10.300 But it's funny how social media behaves.

00:56:12.780 That was a great moment in internet history.

00:56:15.640 Pierre, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts with us.

00:56:17.660 We really appreciate it.

00:56:18.520 Thank you.

00:56:18.640 We're going to ask you some questions from our supporters.

00:56:21.600 Many Canadians have written in with their questions.

00:56:23.960 Sure.

00:56:24.460 Before we do, though, the last question we ask all our guests is what's the one thing we're not talking about that we should be as a society, as a culture?

00:56:31.380 Before Pierre answers a final question at the end of the interview, make sure to head over to our sub stack.

00:56:36.240 The link is in the description where you'll be able to see this.

00:56:39.940 What is one thing the world can learn from Canada?

00:56:42.560 And what is one political idea you would like to see brought to Canada from elsewhere?

00:56:47.060 What's your stance on the Alberta independence movement and how do you feel about Quebec?

00:56:52.460 One thing we're not talking about, I think, is the biggest cause of economic injustice, which is monetary inflation.

00:57:03.100 I think it has been the single biggest wealth transfer away from the working class. 0.63

00:57:06.540 And it has been a phenomenon in all of the Western world, with the possible exception of Switzerland.

00:57:14.240 And it is, you know, we're creating cash at six times the rate that we're building homes.

00:57:19.140 And that is inflating the cost of everything.

00:57:21.360 It's taking from wage earners and savers and concentrating money in the hands of a very small group of insiders.

00:57:29.240 And is that why it's happening, you think?

00:57:30.700 It is exactly why it's happening.

00:57:32.180 Yes, it's very simple.

00:57:33.760 You mentioned apples, right?

00:57:35.580 If you have an economy with 10 apples and $10, it's a buck an apple.

00:57:38.760 If you double the number of dollars to 20, but you still only have 10 apples, it's now $2 an apple.

00:57:44.480 No, what I mean is, is the reason it's happening is that for the same reason you've said everything else, there's a benefit to a small number of people?

00:57:50.660 I don't think it's a conspiracy.

00:57:52.140 I think that it's so, if you're a politician and you want to spend money you don't have, what's the easiest way to do it?

00:57:58.600 Is it to raise everyone's taxes?

00:58:00.020 Is it go out and say, well, we're going to, you know, a politician says they're going to raise the sales tax by three points?

00:58:05.480 Or why not just print the money?

00:58:07.440 It has the exact same effect, but no one realizes because it's way too complicated for even people who are extremely intelligent to understand.

00:58:16.460 And so that is the original cause.

00:58:20.120 But then there are all these secondary beneficiaries at the top and then the great masses of victims at the bottom who pay for it.

00:58:29.000 And I think it is the single biggest wealth transfer in modern history and almost no one notices it because it is, it is a sleight of hand.

00:58:38.560 It is an optical illusion that is very difficult to detect.

00:58:41.340 Well, it's become a lot easier to detect now when countries like the UK and the US are running debt at high levels on their GDP.

00:58:48.740 Do you think that music is going to stop at some point?

00:58:50.520 It has to, because one of two things will happen.

00:58:52.620 Either they'll start printing and cause inflation crises that provoke enormous upheaval, or they will, that they don't print, then their bond yields will start to rise to points that they can't actually make their payments.

00:59:06.800 One of those two things is going to happen if they don't get their spending under control.

00:59:10.580 So you have an inflationary crisis or you have a fiscal crisis.

00:59:13.140 Exactly, one of the two.

00:59:14.280 And they've chosen inflation over a fiscal crisis now.

00:59:18.100 And that is why the money printing has been so rampant.

00:59:21.020 The deficits are enormous and the only way to deal with them, the only easy way for politicians to deal with them is to print money and rob people's buying power, but eventually people will get fed up and they won't be able to do that and the music will stop.

00:59:35.540 So how do you, if you're, if you become prime minister, how do you actually deal with this?

00:59:40.180 Because if you've got an economy and a society that's basically got used to the fact that you print money that you don't have to spend on things you can't afford,

00:59:48.060 you are then, you know, evil dad who comes in and says, no, we can't spend money on this, no more candy for you, no more this for you.

00:59:56.740 You're going to be there for one term.

00:59:59.020 Well, the people aren't getting the so-called candy.

01:00:02.920 They're the ones paying for it, right?

01:00:05.060 As Jefferson said, the government is taking from the mouth of labor the bread it is earned.

01:00:11.100 The people are paying the price.

01:00:13.740 This is why, you know, people can't eat food, can't eat beef anymore.

01:00:18.020 That's why you used to be able to own a house and pay off a mortgage in seven years on a single income.

01:00:23.960 You know, a welder could buy a house, raise four kids and pay off his mortgage in seven years.

01:00:28.880 And now a lawyer and an accountant can't buy a house in 20 years, even get the down payment.

01:00:34.340 So there's no candy for the people.

01:00:36.500 It's only been a candy for a small group at the top.

01:00:38.920 And how do you stop it?

01:00:39.900 You need to shrink the size and cost of government so that there's no longer a need to print money.

01:00:44.320 That means cutting bureaucracy, consultants, corporate welfare, handouts to phony refugees, foreign aid. 0.84

01:00:50.180 We have to cut all those things.

01:00:51.400 And yes, it will take backbone to do it, but I have that backbone.

01:00:54.860 Follow us to triggerpod.co.uk where we ask, Pierre, your questions.

01:01:00.340 Trump's running commentary obviously angered a lot of Canadians.

01:01:03.100 How much anti-American sentiment do you think will subside when he goes?

01:01:07.860 And how much is locked in until the people who were alive when it happened died?

01:01:24.660 A claims program for harmed Canadians has begun as a result of a landmark tobacco settlement.

01:01:30.720 If you smoked regularly before November 20, 1998, and were diagnosed with lung cancer, throat cancer, emphysema, or COPD,

01:01:41.820 you may qualify for a significant payment.

01:01:44.740 To learn more, call 888-482-5852 or go to tobaccoclaimscanada.ca.

01:01:52.380 To be continued...

01:02:00.060 To be continued...

TRIGGERnometry - March 04, 2026

The Elite have Betrayed the People - Canada’s Opposition Leader, Pierre Poilievre

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