John Rustad, the leader of the B.C. Conservative Party, joins me to talk about the truckers and the freedom movement, and the recent ruling by the Supreme Court of Canada in the case of the War Measures Act.
00:02:41.760So when the, when the court ruling came out, which vindicated the trucking movement, which vindicated and showed that what government did was a huge overreach and shouldn't have happened.
00:02:50.820I thought, you know what, it's time for politicians that made a mistake to be able to stand up and own it and just say, look, we're sorry.
00:02:58.440You know, we apologize for, for condemning the freedom movement.
00:03:02.380And so that's what I've asked David Eby, the premier of British Columbia, as well as Kevin Falcon, the leader of the United Party and all of their members to do.
00:03:10.920Just put out a statement, apologize for it.
00:03:12.900And let's move on because, you know, I thought it was wrong, but it was, it was actually quite amazing to see the United Party and the NDP actually voting against freedom and against the freedom movement.
00:03:26.600And, but then again, you know, in British Columbia, we're always known for left wing politics.
00:03:31.160And, you know, that's why I often say three lefts doesn't make it right.
00:03:34.600No, exactly. It's, it was, it's fascinating to see how, how many politicians, especially to the left on the spectrum, still, even after the ruling came out, they said, you know, the Canada's national security and our economic security was, was a threat.
00:03:53.560And that's why they needed to invoke the Emergencies Act.
00:03:56.600Do you think that our national security was ever a threat?
00:04:01.780This was a freedom. This was peaceful. This was a statement that people were making about an overreach by government.
00:04:08.840And, you know, the positions I'm taking, which is, I think we need more direct democracy.
00:04:12.900We need to strengthen our, our democracy.
00:04:16.220You know, I think there needs to be freedoms and freedoms of choice, particularly when it comes to things like, like our healthcare and over, you know, our own bodies.
00:04:24.380I'm called a danger to democracy by the leader of the NDP.
00:04:29.060I'm called, you know, radical and a danger to democracy.
00:04:32.680And, and I understand why, because it's a danger to their form of democracy.
00:04:37.120They have a very authoritarian approach in terms of how they want to do things.
00:04:42.620So they're coming in and trying to force things upon people and they have no respect for democracy.
00:04:47.600In, in British Columbia, we actually have a situation where a sitting municipal government wants to keep the RCMP as their police force and government is coming in and overruling them and saying, no, you will move to a local police force.
00:05:28.820It's really quite funny, actually, to see how the left will really stretch just to try to force their agenda on people.
00:05:35.620It's it's impressive gaslighting in Alberta, in Saskatchewan.
00:05:42.400There's been a push from from certain people that they would like to see the RCMP replaced with a provincial police force or more municipal police force.
00:05:49.600But if Daniel Smith or Scott Moe did what the B.C. government is doing, there would be outrage.
00:05:57.260It would be they're just disrespecting the municipalities.
00:06:01.960They're, you know, they're the problem with democracy.
00:06:04.840And here we have, you know, an actual leader that is pushing through something that the people don't want.
00:06:11.320But you're the threat to democracy for supporting freedom.
00:06:15.360And this is why I support direct democracy.
00:06:17.200If we're going to do this, like, for example, British Columbia, if we were to consider to going to a provincial police force and there's some that think that we should go in that direction.
00:06:24.660Let's get all the information out to the people.
00:06:27.240Let's show them what the costs are, what it looks like, what the benefits are, what the pros and cons for each option.
00:06:50.380You can see in Alberta how the United Conservative Party has pushed more direct democracy.
00:06:57.220So with exiting the Canada pension plan, they've committed that they're actually not going to do anything until there's a referendum on the subject.
00:07:05.360So under you, as you as the Premier of B.C., would there be more referendum?
00:07:10.220Would there be more questions put on municipal ballots and stuff like that in the future?
00:07:16.000Now, you don't want to do it for everything, right?
00:07:18.000I mean, you're elected as a representative.
00:07:20.500Your representative is to represent the people on the decisions that need to be made.
00:07:24.680However, when there are big decisions, I think it's important to be able to go to people and have a referendum.
00:07:28.660So, for example, last spring, I think it was February or in that area, I actually moved forward a motion in the legislature to say that there should be no new taxes or no increased taxes unless it's done by referendum.
00:07:43.200Why wouldn't we go to people and say, look, make the case if we need more money, we'll make the case and say, you know, are you willing to give more money because this is the benefit?
00:07:52.360And if people say no, then government's got to live within its means and figure out, you know, how to balance its books and how to deal with the issues that need to be done.
00:07:59.200And this is the kind of thing that I think people need to be involved in to renew our democracy, because quite frankly, you know, as you see with these more authoritarian approaches, both federally and provincially, certainly in British Columbia, it's an erosion of our democracy and it's erosion of our freedoms.
00:08:15.620So that actually comes to another thing.
00:08:18.740Speaking of taxes and a referendum on taxes, BC has, I believe, the first and oldest carbon tax in the country and the cost of living is out of control.
00:08:29.120Vancouver and the lower mainland is one of the most expensive areas on this planet to live.
00:08:35.840Real estate, especially for millennials, is completely out of reach.
00:08:39.340And if you're living or if you're working in Vancouver, in Vancouver Metro, you're living out in the suburbs and you're commuting.
00:09:51.760It's going to put $2.8 billion back in the pockets of British Columbians from last year.
00:09:55.980And the thing is, when you look at the cumulative, by 2030, 2031, the carbon tax and associated taxes will be the equivalent to taking $27,000 out of a family of forest pockets.
00:10:38.880Well, you know, since 1991, it's been 32 years, 16 years of NDP and 16 years of V.C. levels.
00:10:45.060And just about everything you can look at in British Columbia is worse off, including housing.
00:10:49.420Since 1991, housing has gone up by five or sixfold, while wages have doubled.
00:10:54.740So wages have fallen way behind the ability for people to be able to pay for housing.
00:10:59.880So there needs to be some dramatic shifts in terms of how we deal with housing.
00:11:04.680We haven't crawled out our housing policy quite yet, but there's sort of three prongs that we're looking at on dealing with housing.
00:11:11.020The first is we've got to figure out how we bring down the development charges by municipalities.
00:11:15.760Municipalities need to be able to put in new water and sewer and the services they need for housing.
00:11:20.420So let's figure out how we support municipalities to be able to do that so that it makes it easier for them to be able to move forward with housing projects.
00:11:28.580The second thing we need to do is, of course, we need more supply.
00:11:32.600And there were solutions that were done back in the 60s and 70s, which drove a significant amount of rental units to be built.
00:11:39.400We should be looking at the same type of solutions, right, in terms of creating that environment so that investors can come in and actually build the units that we need.
00:11:47.500And the third piece, of course, is on affordability, people's ability to be able to buy the houses.
00:11:52.060And so we're going to have some very interesting policies that are going to come forward to be able to help people to be able to afford their housing in British Columbia.
00:11:59.940Yeah, I hear that so many times that so many good projects die at city council.
00:12:06.900And, you know, every council across the country, especially in the major cities, is struggling with housing right now, but they're still raising taxes.
00:12:16.400So in Victoria, there was a major project which was going to have, you know, commercial on the ground floor and housing in the other floors.
00:12:25.840And they proposed a five-story building.
00:12:29.060Well, the local residents complained, saying, no, no, that's too tall.
00:12:32.400And so they cut it back and forced the developers to go to a four-story building.
00:12:36.300And the developer said, well, if we're going to do that, we can't afford to put in social housing, this affordable housing for people as part of it.
00:12:42.460And the council said, oh, that's okay.
00:12:48.220And the problem is because the building is going to be five stories instead of four.
00:12:52.340And then you've got projects in Vancouver, for example, that take five, six, seven years to actually get approved for redevelopment and done.
00:14:41.620Many students come into the country to get an education, but also as an opportunity to be able to get a job and maybe have an opportunity to immigrate into Canada.
00:14:54.360I mean, like I say, I'd like us to have that opportunity.
00:14:56.780But we actually have some facilities that are one-room colleges where students come in, register, and then they go directly into the workforce.
00:15:04.500And so that's not only abusing the student in terms of coming in, but it's abusing the process and opening up for immigration sort of through a backdoor without the kind of filter and process that should be done.
00:15:17.840And so I look at that and think we need to have better control of what's going on with that.
00:15:30.240But the BC NDP has gone one direction and the Alberta UCP has gone an opposite direction, but they are tackling nearly identical issues, especially in rural areas with rotating hospital closures, ERs being shut down, shortage of family physicians pretty much everywhere.
00:15:48.720You can take the headlines and you can cross out Alberta and write in BC.
00:15:53.020But the NDP in BC has decided to double down, spend more money, change nothing, and Alberta's gone a different direction.
00:16:01.640AHS has basically been split up into four different areas.
00:16:05.460They've picked four different areas of focus, and they're expanding access to family physicians by allowing nurse practitioners to treat in family general practice settings.
00:16:16.640And they've put an aggressive amount of money into health care and addictions.
00:16:21.460BC, on the other hand, has gone the safe supply and free crack pipe route.
00:16:58.720I like many of the things that Alberta is doing around that.
00:17:01.760So we need to be looking at this different approach in terms of how we deal with addictions.
00:17:05.300But when it comes to health care, there was a court case that went through about a year ago, a year and a half ago, where the government essentially was arguing that the system was more and more important than patient suffering.
00:17:19.280And the worst part is the judge agreed.
00:17:21.980Like, patient suffering and patient should be the focus of health care.
00:17:26.640So what we need to do is actually we need to look at our system and think, how do we improve this?
00:17:40.500And I'm sorry, that's not a model I want to follow.
00:17:42.880We need to be looking at what Europe's doing and what places like Australia are doing.
00:17:46.540We need to have a universal health care system that is delivered by both public and private sources.
00:17:51.840It's the only way that we're going to see the kind of improvements and actually create a better morale in our health care system so that we can attract professionals.
00:17:58.300So especially the Scandinavian countries, they have a very interesting mix of public-private delivery.
00:18:07.140And essentially, if the public system is unable to help you within a reasonable amount of time, your public dollars, you then take them to a private clinic and you can get the treatment.
00:18:17.880And so, you know, Alberta and BC have this weird relationship where all the Albertans have to go to the Canby Clinic to get treatment and all the BC folks, they got to come to Calgary to the different clinics to get surgery.
00:18:29.840So would you be working with Saskatchewan, Alberta, probably Manitoba at coming up with a plan that, you know, if somebody in BC needs a hip surgery and they can get it done in BC in a private clinic faster, those public dollars, are they going to follow that patient to that clinic?
00:18:48.860We're going to actually put together a proposal as part of our platform going into the 2024 election here.
00:18:56.200That's going to be talking about how we can change and how we can create that kind of a model.
00:19:01.640Now, we may run afoul with the Canadian Health Act.
00:19:04.600And so that's something that we're going to have to deal with.
00:19:06.540And certainly we're going to be looking at partners, people like, you know, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, New Brunswick, right?
00:19:13.660Any of those sort of provinces that have these same problems that would like to have this change.
00:19:17.840But the key in doing this is it has to be universal.
00:19:20.820So it has to be available regardless of where that source is.
00:19:23.980And we should be using whatever source is available to be able to reduce the wait times for patients.
00:19:30.000Last year, I think it was the last number I saw, about 17,000 people in Canada died waiting for diagnostic services and surgeries.
00:19:41.060At that rate, just on a population base, and we can't get the numbers in BC because they won't publish them,
00:19:46.180we're seeing about the same number of people die, if not even more, waiting for diagnostic services and surgeries as are dying from the opioid crisis.
00:20:23.980Nenshi, when he won as mayor here in Calgary.
00:20:27.620Right now, I think the last poll I've seen, you guys are sitting in second place.
00:20:32.240And, you know, how do you carry that momentum into October?
00:20:38.340Well, obviously, there's a lot of strategy that has to go in around carrying that forward.
00:20:42.640But people in British Columbia are hungry for change.
00:20:45.020And what we say is it's not about being conservative or liberal or NDP or green.
00:20:48.700It's just standing for what's right, fighting for the average everyday person and just being straight up with people.
00:20:53.960People from across the political spectrum are interested in what we're doing.
00:20:57.580And we saw a poll before Christmas that showed the Conservative Party in B.C. is actually there's 56 percent of the people in B.C. are considering voting for us, which is a stretch because the last time the Conservative Party in British Columbia formed government was 1927, where the oldest party in B.C.'s history.
00:21:14.760The last time we even elected anybody was in the 1970s.
00:21:17.720And so we're coming really completely out of the wilderness on taking the stage here in British Columbia.
00:21:23.040But we're putting forward a great team.
00:21:24.920We're going to have a very good strategy and lots of very interesting platform pieces to try to attract that vote in British Columbia.
00:21:32.320And I think, quite frankly, we have a path to be able to win government in 2024.
00:21:36.340It's going to be a very interesting year.