BC Conservatives ready to take back government
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Summary
Trevor Halford, the interim leader of the BC Conservative Party, joins us on the floor of the Federal Conservative Convention in Calgary to talk about the leadership race, the current state of the party, and what it means for the future.
Transcript
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conservative convention in calgary with the interim leader of the bc conservative party trevor
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halford uh trevor you just got into town now but uh thanks for taking some time to stop and talk
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with us thanks for having me i literally got just in town just landed uh i got my uh got my ride
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here and i'm talking to you so it's a good start you haven't even checked in your hotel yet i have
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not i probably won't until i'm going to bed so so it's all good you can wait good good um well
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actually we're just we were kind of just beginning to chat about it over here um i really want to
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talk about uh what's happened with the bc conservatives and where things are going uh
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you're the interim leader yeah um there's a leadership race taking place right now we'll
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talk forward looking in a second but uh where you've gotten to be the interim leader is
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it's a it's an unusual uh process um you know there's a leadership review this evening for
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the members are voting uh in for the bc conservatives there was a lot of controversy
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around the process that had taken place there yeah um uh but eventually obviously enough
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members of the caucus had lost confidence in john rustad he did not step down immediately for it so
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there was it seems to have been a chaotic process uh but ultimately things emerged uh it was very
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messy but uh where are things now with the bc conservative caucus on the one hand and then more
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broadly the bc conservative party in uh kind of getting people back in the same tent and not
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clawing each other's eyes out yeah you know what honestly it's in a great spot it really is and
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and the caucus in the party like there is this unification going on right now that feels great
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and i've got a front row seat for it uh going into the leadership race which is scheduled to
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conclude on May 30th. And I, you know, for our caucus, we've got great MLAs, right, that have
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been there over a year now that are really sinking their teeth, that are holding this government to
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account. People are seeing that firsthand. Yeah, we have some growing pains. I'll tell you what,
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every caucus does. But what we realize right now is that we've got to be a government waiting
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because nothing, nothing that this NDP government is touching right now is going well. We've got a
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record 12 billion dollar deficit we've got 14 hour wait times minimum at some of our hospitals
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on lower mainland we got emergency room closures all throughout the province and and i can tell you
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is is crime has never been worse than it is right now so our guys know what's at stake and our party
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knows that as well so we're in a we're in a good spot we're looking forward to the spring i don't
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think for most of our people watching this you'll have to convince them that david eb's uh ndp are
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you know they've kind of got the reverse Midas touch everything they touch goes to shit at this
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point pretty much so I think BC conservatives understand the stakes but a lot of people have
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looked at the extreme chaos that had consumed the party and that had turned a lot of I think
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it's turned a lot of people off sure thinking that maybe these guys aren't ready for prime time yet
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yeah I know what that's kind of like I came from the wild rose in Alberta and we had gone through
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all sorts of chaos ourselves and people said not yet yeah and they required us to get things
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together um the party does appear to be more united right now but the leadership race is just
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heating up yep leadership races are by the very nature divisive they normally not always but they
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normally come together at the end and people kind of rally behind whoever eventually wins
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but they are divisive um a lot of what i hear talking to bc conservatives is that the party
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is still figuring out what it is is it kind of a reboot of the bc liberals so the earlier form of
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the bc liberals when they were more conservative under say early gordon campbell where you know
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but it was a the broad yeah um free enterprise coalition is the term normally used was the
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anybody who's not a crazy socialist so it would include some moderate federal liberals
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moderate conservatives more hardcore conservatives um that is one vision and the other one being is
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this a more philosophically robust and populist conservative party? Where do you see this coming
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out of this as it relates within the leadership race right now? Yeah, I think the beauty of this
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is that's going to be for the members to decide. And I think right now is you've got leadership
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candidates that are emerging that are putting forward some of those ideas, some of that vision,
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and it's really going to be up to those members on how they want to go forward. I myself can tell
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you is that you know we got to be focused on what's important to british colombians and not
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compromise the values that we all ran on full stop and i think we can get to a good spot but i can
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tell you that you know what's important is is that that each leadership because i i honestly
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like i believe that we are electing the next premier of the province full stop like i believe
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on may 30th who's ever successful will be the next premier of the province and the members are going
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to choose who that's going to be. And it's going to be really what their vision is going to be to
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take forward from there. So the caucus itself, as it was before you became interim leader,
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is back together. They have one recognized interim leader right now, you. But it's not intact as it
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was coming out of the last election. As far as I can tell, it's actually still in four pieces.
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There's the BC Conservative Caucus. There is, I don't remember all the names, but there was one
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who came from BC United Liberals, who still is an independent, I believe.
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And then there were the two who went to be a part of 1BC,
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I guess keeping a caucus of two together was a little difficult.
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I know there's personalities involved in these things.
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There might be legitimate sources of conflict, some maybe less legitimate.
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um what do you how likely is it that one or more of these people return to the bc conservative fold
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in the next few months well before the next election yeah and we've had this conversation
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quite a bit and that's a decision that's up to caucus it's not going to be independently made
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by me but i can tell you is well i'm asking like you as the interim leader where would you like to
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see things going knowing that these of course are caucus decisions yeah i i think right now that
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That's going to have to be a decision that's likely going to be made after the session,
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is after we have a new leader and that they're having input as well, right?
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It's not something that I think is going to be done over the next couple of weeks or next couple of months.
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I'm focused on the people that are in that room.
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The people that are out of the room, they've made that choice.
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But I am focused on the people that are currently there.
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Actually, Russ, that made the choice in some of those cases, I think.
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But, you know, at the end of the day, we've got to do what's best for caucus, and that's what I'm focused on.
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Do you see it as a desirable goal, if possible, bringing these people back into the BC Conservative Party?
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That's, again, and every situation is, like you said, every situation is different, right?
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We've got five MLAs that have left caucus all in different circumstances over the last year.
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They represent different areas of the province.
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And there's different circumstances around each of them.
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Those are all decisions that caucus is going to have to be unified on
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before we make a decision on whether one individual is coming back or all of them are.
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And if they want to come back, by the way, too.
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Some of them have been quite explicit, saying they don't want to.
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Yesterday, the NDP Premier, David Eby, had some interesting remarks.
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He said that Alberta nationalists are treasonous.
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But what was more interesting to me was he said they're not Albertans.
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And that they don't want to be a part of Alberta.
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now i i as far as i understand alberta has ontario dc has ended its free drug program
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but is the premier on something well i i think the premier needs to focus uh on his own backyard
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and he hasn't for a while and we've seen that with the fact that we've got a record
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setting deficit and then we've got the worst crime that we've ever had we've got an extortion
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crisis going on our forestry sector has been absolutely decimated um and now you know he's
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sitting at the kids table when it comes to discussions on a pipeline so the premier can
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wade into anything he wants that's his prerogative um but at the end of the day uh he's got to be
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responsible for what we're seeing on the streets of bc and it ain't good i think that and i think
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he knows that i think part of the problem is he doesn't want to focus on the challenges whether
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it's DRIPA, whether it's the health care sector, he doesn't want to figure out the fires that
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are burning at home. So, you know, he's trying to change the channel and we're not going
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So I know you're not going to be ready for Premier, you're interim Premier, sorry, interim
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leader. But if you, part of the leader of the, job of the leader of the opposition is
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providing incredible alternatives and you're the leader of the opposition right now. How
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would you address um the situation uh you know here we got people from across canada for the
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conservative party here uh i can't walk 20 steps or so out someone asked me about what's happening
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with this independence referendum oh my god is this is real is it happening uh it's it's kind
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of the talk in the air here you just got here but you're you're gonna hear it okay um how would you
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if you were in the Premier's chair right now, address the almost certainty Alberta is very,
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very likely to be having a referendum on independence probably by this fall? How would
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you address this if you were the B.C. Premier right now? With transparency. With transparency,
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and that's something that we're lacking in B.C., right, is transparency in communicating with the
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voters. I think that the public has gotten so frustrated with what they're seeing that, you
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know it's really a struggle and and for me it's it's about full transparency well what do you
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mean by that um yeah yeah no everybody in public office says we should be transparent but like what
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is it you would do as premier how would you react to what's taking place in alberta so what do you
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so ask me about clearly on that so you're asking about what i mean is you know if you are in eb's
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position right now in the premier's chair yeah and it's now very apparent alberta's likely to
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be having a vote on independence um dvdb has had his way of responding to that saying this is treason
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and yeah these people are on team so i guess i yeah you were how would you respond so my response
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to be very easy is how the hell did we get here right so what's made people get to this point
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where they're wanting to make that kind of drastic change and that's what i'd be looking at is how
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did things in bc go so wrong where people are looking at that kind of change all right um well
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I don't want to talk too much about federal politics
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of the BC Conservatives at the National Convention
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this evening is going to be the review of the leadership
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what's your job, what are you trying to achieve on the ground here
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it's great to catch up, there's a lot of British Columbians
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I've already seen since I've walked through the doors
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I've seen most more British Columbians than Albertans here.
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But we love coming to Calgary, not just at stampede time.
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As it relates specifically to British Columbia,
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what is it you want to hear from Polyev when he speaks this evening?
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If you're writing a speech, what do you put in about BC?
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To be honest, it's pretty much what he has been saying, to be fair, since he's taken on this role,
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is that when it comes to crime on our streets, making sure that there's consequences for actions,
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whether it's the disastrous decriminalizations that we've gone through in British Columbia,
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whether it's the housing crisis, the health care crisis.
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What he's been saying has been resonating with British Columbians, and we've got to keep going on that.
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All right. Well, thank you. And I hope you enjoy your time here in Calgary.