Western Standard - May 10, 2022


EXCLUSIVE： Éric Duhaime Conservative Party of Quebec chats with Matthew Horwood

Topics
mask mandate conservative leadership debate
Mentioned
Eric Duhem Francois Legault Justin Trudeau Jean Charest Quebecer Pierre Derek
CANADA - Pressures Caused By High Energy Prices CORY'S RANT： Wishful progressive thinking is putting citizens at risk

Episode Stats


Length

11 minutes

Words per minute

199.05

Word count

2,358

Sentence count

191

Harmful content

Misogyny

2

sentences flagged

Toxicity

2

sentences flagged

Hate speech

1

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Eric Dumas is the leader of the Conservative Party of Quebec, a party that has grown from 500 members to over 58,000. In this interview, he talks about the party's rapid growth, his vision for the future of the party, and why he thinks Quebec is more conservative than other Canadian provinces.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 This is Matthew Horwood reporting from the Western Standard.
00:00:02.660 I have here Eric Duhem, the leader of the Conservative Party of Quebec.
00:00:06.180 Eric, how are you doing today?
00:00:07.260 Very good. Thank you, Matthew.
00:00:08.800 Very good. You just had an address where you said that the party has grown from 500 members to over 58,000.
00:00:16.080 What do you owe this rapid growth to over the past couple of years?
00:00:19.060 Well, the fact that people are just fed up.
00:00:20.880 I mean, the government has been way too interventionist over the last two, three years.
00:00:25.640 Many of us voted for the CAC, the current government of Francois Legault in Quebec,
00:00:29.560 and were very, very disappointed of what he did.
00:00:32.120 He did the opposite of what we were promised during the election campaign.
00:00:35.980 You know, Quebec's civic rights have never been as bad.
00:00:41.240 Our individual freedom has never been as little respected as it has been over the last two years.
00:00:46.400 Our democracy has been put on pause for over two years.
00:00:50.140 I think there's a lot of people who are unsatisfied and are looking for a true change,
00:00:54.380 and we currently were the voice for that.
00:00:56.700 We're the voice of freedom in Quebec as we speak.
00:00:58.540 So it sounds to me like you're very critical of the public health measures right over the bridge.
00:01:03.320 You guys still have a mask mandate going on.
00:01:05.820 You've had some of the toughest restrictions in Canada.
00:01:07.980 What do you think of the response to COVID that has happened over the past two years?
00:01:11.400 Well, obviously, it was abusive measures that have been adopted by Quebec, like many other jurisdictions.
00:01:15.940 But in Quebec, it was even worse.
00:01:17.820 So, as you rightly pointed out, we still have the mask compulsory.
00:01:20.920 There's all sorts of things that have been done in Quebec that were not done elsewhere.
00:01:24.900 We had curfews.
00:01:26.640 The lockdowns were more severe.
00:01:29.420 Everything was worse in Quebec.
00:01:30.760 And even with the worst measures, we have, right now, the worst record in terms of deaths in Canada per capita.
00:01:39.260 So, if the measures were working, we would know.
00:01:41.380 But obviously, it didn't work.
00:01:43.160 And Quebec has a bad record.
00:01:44.740 And we hit our economy.
00:01:46.180 We hit our youth.
00:01:47.040 We hit our mental health over the last two years and for no results.
00:01:51.840 And I would assume that, like Conservatives in English Canada, or most Conservatives, you are against the idea of vaccine passports and mandatory vaccines?
00:01:59.360 Absolutely.
00:01:59.940 We've been talking against that.
00:02:01.500 For me, every Quebecer is equal and every citizen has the same rights.
00:02:05.720 And I was not proud to live in a province where we were asking people to show a proof of vaccination to get in public places. 0.90
00:02:13.340 I mean, this is completely ridiculous.
00:02:15.340 It was the first time in our history and hopefully the last one. 0.91
00:02:18.500 For sure.
00:02:19.140 Could you tell me a little bit about the difference between Quebec Conservatism and English Canada Conservatism?
00:02:24.100 My boss, Derek, he said that you are more Conservative than Albertan Conservatives.
00:02:29.800 Would you agree with that statement?
00:02:31.080 What's the difference?
00:02:31.920 It depends on which issues.
00:02:33.120 On certain issues, he's right.
00:02:34.440 Let's say, let's talk about the health care reforms.
00:02:36.680 In Quebec, we're openly talking about the importance to add the contribution of private sector.
00:02:41.540 If I become Premier of Quebec, there will be private hospitals managed and owned by private interests and investors.
00:02:47.400 I do believe that that's very important.
00:02:50.420 The strong majority of Quebecers agree that we need more private in health care.
00:02:53.960 I think in English Canada, it's not as popular for all sorts of reasons because it's what, for many English Canadians, that's kind of something that differentiates them from the Americans, let's say.
00:03:04.140 Well, in Quebec, we don't need that.
00:03:05.220 We know with our language, our culture, our history, our identity, we know we're not Americans. 0.86
00:03:09.600 We don't need a public monopoly on health care.
00:03:12.220 But on certain other issues, it's the opposite.
00:03:15.180 Quebecers on the cultural issues want the government to intervene much more because they want to protect and promote our French language that is always threatened because we're a small minority.
00:03:23.640 So it depends which issues we're talking about.
00:03:26.960 And the other major difference also between Quebec and the rest of Canada in terms of conservatism is probably the decentralization.
00:03:34.000 For Quebecers, it's very important the respect of our constitution, the respect of our jurisdictions, the respect of our regions.
00:03:40.160 We do not like centralist Ottawa.
00:03:42.720 Ottawa knows best.
00:03:43.960 We don't like those policies.
00:03:45.760 We've always been against it.
00:03:46.920 And we're all united no matter which color we are.
00:03:49.540 Quebecers are very jealous of their jurisdictions.
00:03:53.140 And historically, the conservative movement in Canada has been.
00:03:57.300 And that's why today I said and I underlined the fact that it's important to respect decisions that are made democratically in Quebec at the National Assembly and not try to have the federal government to intervene and to overlap with those decisions.
00:04:10.820 For sure.
00:04:11.200 Speaking of the federal government's power over Quebec, what do you think of the issue of separatism?
00:04:15.640 Is that something that you would...
00:04:17.920 What are your thoughts?
00:04:19.020 Quebecers have paid tremendously because of that debate.
00:04:21.480 We've spent almost half a century debating about that issue.
00:04:25.880 Quebecers said no twice.
00:04:28.100 There's no appetite right now to go back there.
00:04:30.900 I think we need to fix our health care reform.
00:04:33.040 We need to produce gas and oil locally in Quebec.
00:04:36.080 We need to give more freedom of choice to parents in the education of their kids.
00:04:40.860 We need to lower taxes because we're one of the most taxed states in the continent.
00:04:46.740 So there's a lot of things that we want to do, and we want to move on from a linguistic and constitutional crisis.
00:04:54.200 For sure.
00:04:54.460 Could you tell me your thoughts on Bill 21?
00:04:56.560 A very divisive issue has gotten a lot of attention in English Canada, particularly.
00:05:00.100 Absolutely.
00:05:00.800 Look, the Quebec National Assembly adopted a bill on that.
00:05:05.980 A majority of Quebecers do support it.
00:05:08.860 The bill has been adopted democratically.
00:05:11.200 There's kind of a bon entente right now, kind of a peace.
00:05:14.580 And the last thing we need to do is to reopen that can of warm.
00:05:18.400 As I said, there's other reforms we need to do, and I don't think we need to split Quebecers on such issues again.
00:05:24.140 For sure.
00:05:26.480 What would you say your main issues are with the Liberal government and how they've been governing over the past couple of years?
00:05:32.160 What would you like to see?
00:05:33.660 Well, first off, they're spending way too much.
00:05:36.140 I mean, for me, the equity between generations is something very important,
00:05:40.780 and I don't like to see the government indebting the youth that badly.
00:05:45.420 It's terrible what Justin Trudeau has been doing here.
00:05:47.640 It's the worst legacy ever, and unfortunately, we don't feel it yet because the people who are going to feel it the most are not even born yet.
00:05:56.500 So that, for me, is my main, main concern.
00:05:59.800 I really, really don't like the way that guy's spending right now.
00:06:02.540 It's out of control.
00:06:03.840 And so that's on the fiscal side.
00:06:05.680 On the constitutional side, obviously, he's a centralist.
00:06:08.920 He thinks out of what knows best and everything, and that's something else that I don't appreciate.
00:06:13.060 I don't think it's the role of the federal government to intervene on everything.
00:06:16.380 I think he should mind his own business more often.
00:06:20.300 For sure.
00:06:21.040 Did you catch the conservative leadership debate last night?
00:06:23.740 Absolutely.
00:06:24.280 Did you have any thoughts on what happened?
00:06:26.380 Any candidates you really favored or did not favor?
00:06:28.460 First off, I liked it because, you know, there was a lot of fight,
00:06:33.320 and personally, I like it when it's a little bit rough.
00:06:36.000 Don't we all, right?
00:06:37.060 I was served.
00:06:38.360 It's like hockey, right?
00:06:39.660 We all say we're against violence, but when they're fighting, we're screaming, and we love it.
00:06:43.180 So last night, there was a lot of emotions.
00:06:47.520 Both the two main candidates did a very good job, I think.
00:06:52.180 And for me, you know, there's a lot of side shows, and it's okay,
00:06:55.940 because we like to see the fight and to see how they react in such a circumstance.
00:07:01.280 But overall, I think there's a lot more that unites us as conservatives right now than divides us.
00:07:07.560 If I look on fiscal issues, I think that, you know, we have two fiscal conservative leaders
00:07:12.280 that are much closer to each other than they could be close to Justin Trudeau.
00:07:15.680 The same thing, like for us in Quebec, we have a huge project,
00:07:18.440 like $14 billion of liquefied, the natural gas, LGN, Saguenay, in the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region.
00:07:28.100 Both candidates are supporting the project, even if the government of Quebec is against it,
00:07:31.780 and we are supporting it as conservatives in Quebec.
00:07:34.860 So we're very happy to have the support of both candidates.
00:07:38.300 On health care reforms, I think they're also open to give us the power
00:07:42.420 to act the way we want to do with our health care reforms that we're proposing.
00:07:46.860 So, you know, at the end of the day, I think we're going to have a much better leader,
00:07:50.580 no matter who wins, than the current prime minister.
00:07:53.480 Absolutely. Any port in a storm.
00:07:55.620 What do you think of Jean Charest's performance last night?
00:07:58.700 Now, he was attacked for being, you know, a liberal in conservative clothing,
00:08:03.940 but many people pointed out that he was actually very fiscally conservative
00:08:06.420 when he was the premier of Quebec. What are your thoughts on that?
00:08:08.980 Well, yesterday I found Jean Charest quite aggressive.
00:08:12.820 I was surprised, actually.
00:08:13.820 I think it's the first time during this leadership debate that we saw him a little bit on the attack.
00:08:19.400 And so that was something new that I've noticed a lot.
00:08:22.300 In terms of content, I didn't see a lot of differences from what Pierre and Charest were saying since the beginning.
00:08:28.220 I think it's quite similar to what we've saw since the beginning of the campaign.
00:08:32.520 Personally, because I'm leading the provincial conservatives,
00:08:35.300 I don't want to intervene on the federal scene because I have a lot of people in my team who work on both sides.
00:08:41.340 And I don't, you know, people don't like to have a leader of a provincial party telling them how to vote federally.
00:08:46.740 And I'm not going to do that.
00:08:48.100 So I'm going to stay neutral until the end of that debate.
00:08:50.960 For sure.
00:08:51.760 I got to ask you, because this is a subject that a lot of our viewers and our readers really enjoy.
00:08:57.280 Do you have any thoughts on the World Economic Forum and their role in Canadian politics and things of that nature?
00:09:04.240 Look, I'm not, I hear a lot about it and we hear a lot of things that are going on.
00:09:08.980 But for me, I'm not influenced in any way, form or shape by them.
00:09:13.120 I've never been in touch with anybody linked to them or that I know of.
00:09:16.900 And so for me, you know, it's, I don't really know how much impact they're having.
00:09:26.140 They might play a role.
00:09:28.420 But I think, like, if I take the example of what happened in Quebec and the reason why the government went so far
00:09:34.600 and went over the top on health measures during the crisis,
00:09:39.380 I don't think it's because there was international influence.
00:09:41.860 I think it was a lot by, they were governing by polls and we had a lot and it's normal.
00:09:46.140 We had a lot of seniors who were insecure when the virus arrived
00:09:49.800 and they were looking at, you know, getting those support, those votes.
00:09:53.560 And instead of looking at the well-being of the population and the collateral damage of their measures,
00:09:58.860 they were strictly focusing on COVID and they've imposed us abusive measures.
00:10:03.740 And so for me, that was a huge problem.
00:10:05.720 I think the polls played a major role in the bad decisions that were made by the Legault government in Quebec.
00:10:12.560 For sure.
00:10:13.020 And a lot of health care experts have said that lockdowns were needed
00:10:15.840 because we didn't have enough health care capacity in our provinces.
00:10:18.500 And of course, now we've had a lot of unvaccinated nurses being let go. 1.00
00:10:21.840 We have staff shortages.
00:10:23.300 What are your thoughts on increasing health care capacity in Quebec
00:10:26.100 and making sure that lockdowns for, you know, God forbid, a future pandemic are not needed?
00:10:31.200 That's why I want to add the contribution of the private sector.
00:10:33.800 I mean, any monopoly is no good and the public monopoly on health care is no good.
00:10:38.160 We all know that.
00:10:39.520 And unfortunately, it became a dogma in Canada.
00:10:42.220 And I think it's time to challenge it.
00:10:44.360 I seriously believe that we need some competition.
00:10:47.680 We need hospitals to compete against each other. 0.77
00:10:49.840 We need decentralized decisions.
00:10:51.900 The centrally planned monopoly is broke.
00:10:54.860 And it was broke, actually, even before COVID arrived.
00:10:57.420 We have to be honest.
00:10:58.500 The COVID only has put the spotlight on it and now we know it more than ever.
00:11:01.840 But the system was inefficient.
00:11:04.280 It is inefficient and it will be inefficient if we don't fix it,
00:11:07.740 if we don't add the contribution of the private sector.
00:11:09.840 Like any kind of business, a public monopoly always ends up with a lot of waste.
00:11:15.500 Absolutely.
00:11:16.040 And last question is, what is your plan to beat Francois Legault
00:11:19.480 and the Parti Quebecois in the next election?
00:11:21.980 Well, my plan is easy.
00:11:23.040 It's to promote a pro-freedom agenda.
00:11:26.000 And that's what I'm going to do.
00:11:27.460 I'm going to tell Quebecers that we're in favour of restoring
00:11:30.500 and respecting their civic rights, respecting our democracy,
00:11:33.860 respecting our individual rights, respecting free markets.
00:11:37.540 I think citizens are fed up of government intervening way too much in their lives
00:11:41.200 and they want to take their lives back.
00:11:42.680 And this is what the Conservative Party of Quebec will propose to them.
00:11:45.740 Absolutely.
00:11:46.580 Well, Eric Duhaym, very good to speak with you.
00:11:48.940 Thank you for coming on the show.
00:11:49.820 Thank you, Matthew.
00:11:50.280 Appreciate it.