Western Standard - EXCLUSIVE： One on one conversation about Aitchison's campaign to lead the CPC.

00:00:00.000 All right. Well, thank you very much for coming to the Western Standard Studios, Mr. Aitchison.

00:00:04.320 I've been looking forward to it. We've been watching the conservative leadership race with

00:00:08.560 a lot of interest. It's been an interesting one already, lively, I guess you could say,

00:00:13.600 and different. A lot of contenders. There's six of you going for it in the campaign. It's going

00:00:17.840 to be a long one going all the way until September 10th. So I'm glad we got a chance to speak early

00:00:21.680 because I'm certain there's going to be a lot of developments as the campaign unfolds.

00:00:26.400 Well, thank you for having me. It's a great honor to be here. It's my first time at the

00:00:30.400 Western Standard. So it's great to be here. Yeah. And so you're out west and you're a member

00:00:35.520 of parliament from out in Ontario. You've been active in politics for quite some time. So

00:00:39.360 maybe I'll start, I guess, with a bit of your campaign challenges that will come out when

00:00:43.760 getting across the country. It's a weighted system for the leadership, so many votes providing. So

00:00:47.680 you certainly have to reach out to every region and develop support and bring that in. How's that

00:00:53.760 been going for you as you travel in your campaign so far? Well, it's been going well. I, you know,

00:00:58.720 as you mentioned, I'm a newer member of parliament and probably as famous as a former mayor of small

00:01:05.440 town Ontario community would be. But, you know, the message is resonating. We're really pleased with it.

00:01:11.280 And we've been doing an awful lot of social media and digital outreach as well. So touring across the

00:01:17.440 country has been a lot of fun. It's been great to meet conservatives from coast to coast.

00:01:21.360 Right. And I mean, as I kind of said earlier with six candidates in a field, I mean, it's hard to

00:01:26.320 stand out, but one of the things that I want to talk a bit about the debates, but the first debate,

00:01:29.920 and I watched it, it was the unofficial one, I guess, with a Canada strong and free network.

00:01:34.880 The way you stood out, actually, I found to be a calm voice of reason, whilst the others were

00:01:39.920 quite frisky with each other, I guess, to say it politely, but you stuck to your message and you were

00:01:44.800 quiet. But at the same time, it's hard. And I appreciated that. I think a lot of viewers appreciated

00:01:50.000 that. And that's when they discovered you that night, I think. But at the same time,

00:01:52.960 it must be difficult for you because you can, it's hard to stand out in that crowd when the

00:01:56.240 other two are stealing the spotlight. Well, I think the tone is really,

00:02:00.800 really important. It's going to be very important in the next election. And I think that when we talk

00:02:06.240 about, you know, what's going on in Ottawa, or what's not going on in Ottawa, as it might be,

00:02:11.520 I spoke about this most recently in my speech in response to the government's use of the Emergency

00:02:16.400 Measures Act related to the convoy in Ottawa. You know, the way we talk about, you know,

00:02:24.320 dividing Canadians and pitting each other against each other to win votes, that kind of divisive

00:02:29.680 rhetoric and that kind of, you know, zero-sum game approach to politics, winning is everything,

00:02:34.960 it might serve your short-term purposes, but it actually divides the country. And I just think

00:02:39.600 that we need to be, as Conservatives particularly, have an opportunity as a truly national party,

00:02:45.920 with representation across the country, to talk about the things that unites us and brings us

00:02:50.320 together. And I don't think it's easy to do that if we're fighting amongst ourselves. And I think we

00:02:55.120 need to build trust amongst, you know, Canadians that live in areas where we haven't been winning.

00:02:59.520 And so the best way to do that is, I think, is with a principled conservative message, but also

00:03:04.240 delivering that message with a tone of respect. We need to be listening to each other and build that

00:03:09.440 trust and show some unity. It doesn't have to be uniform, but we have to be unified.

00:03:14.800 And I appreciate that. I mean, the infighting can be devastating to a party, and I don't expect you

00:03:18.640 to speak to our provincial issues, but we are experiencing quite something here, you know,

00:03:22.400 with the United Conservative Party that came in with such a strong majority. And right now,

00:03:27.040 in public polling, they're in abysmal shape within Alberta. And much of it's due to the fact that

00:03:31.680 they've all been at each other's throats for the last couple of years, rather than managing the

00:03:35.840 province. And as we see, as you said, some of the tone coming out in this race, there's a risk of

00:03:40.080 that. I mean, if you divide the party too much, it could damage the whole.

00:03:43.200 Well, I think there's no shortage of, I think, frustration across the country, really,

00:03:50.560 especially related to COVID and lockdowns and, you know, the uncertainty of it and the length of

00:03:58.480 lockdowns. There's no question there's frustration and anger. I get that. But just fanning the flames of

00:04:03.520 that anger doesn't actually solve any problems. I think it's important for us to be talking about

00:04:08.640 policy ideas. I think elections are perfect opportunities for us to talk policy. And so,

00:04:14.240 instead of attacking each other, we should be talking about ideas that conservatives want to

00:04:18.720 talk about and that we can then talk to the rest of Canadians about and sell our message and form a

00:04:26.080 majority government. Getting into some of those mechanisms, as I warned you, I did want to talk a

00:04:30.080 little bit about those two debates. They were radically different from each other. One, the

00:04:34.720 first one, as I said, was very adversarial, very heated, kind of allowed for a free for all. The

00:04:40.160 second one was exceedingly moderated, very unusually. So paddles and the horn interrupting people and

00:04:47.680 things such as that. I want to speak my own point of view. I don't think either worked well to communicate

00:04:53.040 the message of the candidates out to people or terribly effectively. What are ways that these events

00:04:58.320 perhaps could be improved? Because we do want to see all the candidates. We want to see that interchange

00:05:01.680 and such. But where can we hit the mark with these sorts of events? Well, I'm not exactly sure how we

00:05:08.400 can improve them. But this much I do know is that the second debate, while I mean, it's a little bit

00:05:13.600 goofy in certain parts, at least there was a little more, you know, meat on the bone. There's a little more

00:05:19.760 policy discussion. I think that's important. We didn't get into, I think, enough policy issues. We didn't

00:05:25.120 really talk enough about foreign policy. We didn't talk enough about housing. I feel like I missed an

00:05:29.120 opportunity to talk more about housing. So it's a bit better, for sure. But I guess it speaks to the,

00:05:35.200 you know, the importance of all the candidates, making sure they get their message out and

00:05:39.760 crisscrossing the country and talking to Conservatives about ideas to bring the country,

00:05:43.760 move the country forward and to present a platform to Canadians that will resonate,

00:05:49.440 not just in the areas we consistently win, but where we need to win as well.

00:05:52.400 Right now, housing, I mean, that's a big issue. It's an acute one. And you've made it a large part

00:05:57.120 of your platform. Young people, I can't imagine how they can get into the housing market right now.

00:06:01.840 I mean, inflation is hitting us all around. But we've got a massive housing shortage. You know,

00:06:07.280 the supply is the issue, people wanting to get into the market, labor shortage. I mean, it's a very

00:06:12.160 complicated issue, but it's pressing. And I guess that's part of the largest part where you're

00:06:16.720 standing up. Do you want to expand a bit on your housing policy?

00:06:18.800 Yeah. Well, I mean, I speak to this issue of housing. It's in part one of the reasons why

00:06:24.080 I left my job as mayor of my community to run federally, because of course, at the local level

00:06:29.280 in Huntsville, we were doing all kinds of things. We were partnering with developers,

00:06:32.400 we were giving land away to Habitat for Humanity, we were waiving fees and doing all kinds of stuff.

00:06:37.600 But what was missing always was a reliable federal partner to help with funding more than anything

00:06:42.880 else to just bridge the gap on maybe affordable rental units, for example, to make those numbers

00:06:47.920 add up and make sense. And so it's the biggest reason why I decided to run ultimately. And of

00:06:53.200 course, I got to Ottawa and find a liberal government that is long on promises. They've

00:06:58.160 lots of funding announcements and photo ops with funding announcements, but you haven't seen many

00:07:03.200 ribbon cuttings. And that's because they just not get the job done. And so the government, of course,

00:07:09.040 of Canada can't just wave a magic wand and just, you know, tell cities how to run their show.

00:07:13.440 But I believe strongly that the federal government can take leadership, working collaboratively with

00:07:19.760 provinces and cities to help, you know, reduce the backlog. You know, in larger centers, it can take

00:07:25.920 up to two or three years to get zoning approval and site plan approval and all the approvals required

00:07:31.280 to just get shovels in the ground. When you're in a housing crisis, when supply is the issue,

00:07:38.240 that's not acceptable. Canadians are suffering and we need to do better. And so the federal government

00:07:42.640 can take leadership by tying the billions of dollars that the federal government assists

00:07:47.680 municipalities and provinces with on infrastructure to real results on the ground. And so I say we can

00:07:53.200 work together to eliminate things like exclusionary zoning. We can increase densities without affecting

00:07:59.360 character in all kinds of neighborhoods all across Canada. And that's something that we absolutely have

00:08:04.160 to get done. Just talking about it and promising money isn't getting the job done.

00:08:08.800 That's where your municipal experience can apply towards this sort of negotiation. And actually,

00:08:12.720 it's a subject I've been on a lot here in Calgary. We're actually at eight years right now from

00:08:17.280 plan to development at this point. And of course, your development could be shut down at any point

00:08:22.240 throughout that process too. And that's left us with a terrible backlog.

00:08:25.200 Well, this is the thing. I guess it's where I probably, you know, I bring a lot of experience

00:08:31.120 in this regard. I mean, you know, Huntsville is a lot smaller community, but the principles are the

00:08:34.880 same and the process is generally similar. You know, development and investment requires,

00:08:40.240 they really like certainty. They, you know, they don't like instability. They don't like uncertainty.

00:08:44.800 These timelines, these processes, there's no reason why there can't be, you know, specific timelines

00:08:52.160 related to getting things done as, you know, getting through this process. I used to do that

00:08:58.400 as the chair of planning in my community. And then as the mayor, we guaranteed timelines to get,

00:09:03.920 you know, reports and approvals done. We didn't skip any steps. We didn't skirt any corners. We didn't

00:09:12.000 loosen the rules. We made it very clear that these are the rules. You follow these rules,

00:09:17.600 we can proceed. And developers worked really well with that because it was certainty. Just tell us

00:09:22.640 the rules. Part of the problem you have right now in municipalities, in a lot of cases, especially

00:09:27.200 larger centers, you have, you know, ward counselors that try to teach, they kind of treat their wards like

00:09:32.320 their own fiefdom. And of course, the loudest voices in the room tend to get the most, the most

00:09:37.040 attention and you have YIMBYs. And so I've got a YIMBY plan. Yes, in my backyard. We need to

00:09:43.120 increase those densities. We need to improve these processes. We need to speed up the timelines.

00:09:48.080 And the federal government can play a leadership role in working with the provinces and cities to

00:09:51.600 get that done. I speak that language. I've been doing it for years, creating collaboration,

00:09:56.160 partnerships and moving things forward. Great. Another area, and it's, it speaks to inflationary

00:10:02.000 values. And it's a spot where you've stood out from other candidates as well. And it's not an

00:10:05.680 issue that you hear a lot coast to coast, but it's supply management. It's Canada's

00:10:09.600 dairy poultry management system. It's been around since I believe the early 70s. You're the, well,

00:10:15.600 I believe Mr. Baber has now come out against it, but initially you were the only candidate who's

00:10:19.440 spoken out against that policy. Why have you decided to take that stance when the others won?

00:10:23.920 Well, for me, this is all about affordability, but it's also about opportunity.

00:10:28.640 So supply management costs the average Canadian family about $600 a year in the grocery bill. So

00:10:34.320 it's making milk and cheese and dairy products more expensive. And that's particularly difficult in

00:10:39.440 a time when carbon taxes are making life more expensive and inflation is making life more

00:10:43.840 expensive. I represent people in my community and I know there are people across this country that

00:10:48.400 are struggling to heat their homes and put real food on the table. The other side of this issue,

00:10:53.200 of course, is that farmers are trapped in a system that limits their potential, limits their opportunity.

00:10:59.920 New Zealand, a country of 5 million people, exported $17 billion worth of dairy products

00:11:04.560 around the world last year. Canada, a country of almost 40 million people, exported 378 million.

00:11:11.840 There's huge opportunity to be unleashed for Canadian farmers that produce

00:11:16.080 world-class dairy products that can market it to the world.

00:11:19.840 And so I don't think this is a question of pitting farmers against consumers.

00:11:24.480 I think it's a question of making life more affordable for Canadian families, but I also see

00:11:29.200 it as an opportunity for the government to assist in a transition away from a system that maintains

00:11:35.920 a status quo and it might be stable, but transitions away from that system and in collaboration and

00:11:42.240 cooperation with farmers helps them create new markets around the world that farmers can then,

00:11:48.480 you know, realize a lot more potential.

00:11:50.320 Yeah, and it's understandable. You can't just flick a switch and stop the system. It would

00:11:54.000 disrupt the entire markets and put people bankrupt. I mean, you know, they're heavily invested in

00:11:57.920 those quotas, but just seeing somebody start to say, well, we've got to set an end to this is

00:12:02.240 finally a good start. So it's…

00:12:03.280 Well, it's… and it, you know, there are vested interests. I mean, I think the dairy lobby is pretty

00:12:07.760 powerful on Parliament Hill and I just think that they're missing out on an opportunity. And if we work

00:12:14.080 together, we can… we can make… we can make Canadian dairy, you know, a coveted… coveted products

00:12:19.840 across the world.

00:12:20.480 Great. So speaking across the country then, getting out of unity, it's a big, broad issue and it's one

00:12:25.840 in Canada we've always got. Quebec used to be the more acute one. You'd hear more through the 80s and

00:12:31.280 90s, but now in the West, we're getting pretty upset with a lot of policies out here. One that recently

00:12:36.560 came up was… it was the court ruling on C-69. It's now headed… heading to the Supreme Court of Canada,

00:12:41.840 we're… we'll see. I don't hold a lot of confidence. It's going to uphold the provincial

00:12:45.360 ruling, but we'll see. But we've felt a lot in the West that we've been either ignored or taken

00:12:50.080 for granted or at times even outright abused by the government. How can you end some of that

00:12:54.720 national unity right now when people are feeling so divided?

00:12:57.280 Well, and this is… this is one of the key issues that I think speaks to this divisive rhetoric that

00:13:01.680 we've seen. We've seen a Liberal government for the last seven years that has been quite happy to

00:13:05.440 demonize Western Canadians and particularly Albertans and Saskatchewan.

00:13:10.320 What's the… what's the… what's the… what's the… Saskatchewanian, I guess?

00:13:14.000 Yeah, that would be right, yes.

00:13:15.040 Saskatchewanian, I guess? But happy to demonize the hard-working folks in these two

00:13:19.360 provinces that are the energy superpower of our country to win votes in downtown Toronto.

00:13:26.640 What we need to talk to each other about is the fact that not only is Canadian energy the most ethically

00:13:33.920 produced energy in the world, but we're bringing in… we're bringing in things… oil from places like

00:13:39.280 Saudi Arabia and Venezuela that is not ethically produced. And the other important factor, of

00:13:44.800 course, is that, you know, the oil sands here in Fort McMurray has reduced their carbon output on

00:13:50.160 their production by 30 percent over the last 15 years. They're responsible. These are responsible

00:13:54.800 producers that are doing their part to help reduce Canada's footprint overall. So we need to… we need to

00:14:01.920 listen to each other. This is part of the challenge. We need to start listening to each other's

00:14:05.760 Canadians and recognizing that Albertans care as much about the future of this planet as do people

00:14:11.520 in downtown Toronto. And I know there's people in downtown Toronto that think taxes are too high as

00:14:16.080 well. So we need leaders that actually start talking about things that unites us, brings us together,

00:14:22.240 instead of focusing on ways to win elections, through division. This is a key area. This is an

00:14:27.280 absolutely key area.

00:14:28.240 Yeah, about… and I've asked every other candidate on this too, and it's a tough one,

00:14:32.160 is equalization. I understand it's constitutionally entrenched, but there is room to work perhaps on

00:14:36.960 the formula or ways that it's administered and things like that without tearing open the nightmare

00:14:40.880 of the constitution. Would you look at addressing equalization as many out here feel that perhaps

00:14:45.520 it's not been applied fairly or properly over the last few decades?

00:14:48.800 Yeah, I actually think that equalization is one piece of a much broader conversation that the federal

00:14:54.400 government needs to have with the provinces. I think that the relationship that exists now between

00:14:58.640 the federal government and provincial governments is unhealthy. And a big part of that is equalization,

00:15:04.000 but another big part of that is our health care system. Canadians wear as a badge of honor,

00:15:08.240 almost part of our identity, that we have this amazing health care system. It's the best in the

00:15:12.800 world. And the truth of the matter is, it's not the best in the world. It's failing Canadians. It's 0.65

00:15:16.720 part of the reason… it's one of the things that I hope we have learned through COVID-19 is that we don't

00:15:22.000 have the best health care system in the world. And part of the reason for that is, of course, it was

00:15:26.320 created on a promise from the federal government, meddling in provincial affairs again, to pay 50%

00:15:31.840 of the cost. We've never lived up to that promise as a federal government. And as a result, you see

00:15:37.600 provinces struggling to keep up with, you know, the growing burden of health care services. And they're

00:15:44.720 not fiscally sustainable as a result. I think it's time for a more respectful relationship between the

00:15:50.400 federal government and the provinces on all of these issues and create more fairness in the system

00:15:57.280 that actually respects the role of the provinces and gets the federal government out of meddling in

00:16:01.200 provincial affairs. The provinces actually run this country. They actually run the country.

00:16:06.000 A lot could be avoided if we just stick to the jurisdictional things we already have in the

00:16:09.040 constitution. And honestly, the federal government was created… you look at the constitution,

00:16:12.720 the provinces came together and created this federal government for a lot of different reasons. One of which,

00:16:17.120 though, was to actually help create new markets in the world. And if the federal government focused

00:16:23.280 on the things that it was meant to do, things like making sure we have, you know, a well-equipped

00:16:29.040 armed services, instead of playing games with provincial services, we could focus on the things that

00:16:33.760 we're supposed to. We wouldn't have embarrassing situations like we have right now, where we've taken

00:16:39.120 decades too long to replace fighter jets that are 50, almost 50 years old. And we would be a reliable

00:16:44.880 partner with our allies. And our allies wouldn't be creating new alliances without us because

00:16:50.560 we just won't show up to the table. We haven't been a reliable partner. So the federal government

00:16:54.560 needs to get back to doing what it was created to do in the first place and start doing it well.

00:16:58.240 Great. Well, before I let you go, are there some other policy points you want to hit before I

00:17:03.360 let you out of the studio and back onto the campaign show?

00:17:05.600 Well, we could talk for hours about the policy.

00:17:07.840 Yes, look a good one, perhaps.

00:17:09.600 But honestly, the biggest thing for me is about affordability. This is a question about affordability

00:17:17.360 for Canadians across this country. I think that this race should be about policies that make life

00:17:23.280 more affordable for Canadians. And I think if that is our message as conservatives going forward,

00:17:27.440 we will form the next government and we can get rid of a tired Liberal government.

00:17:30.640 Great. So where can people find more information about your campaign and follow-up or support?

00:17:35.520 It's very easy. Since nobody knows how to pronounce or spell my last name,

00:17:39.760 my website is votescott.ca. It's very easy.

00:17:43.600 Great. Well, I appreciate that. But I think Mr. Polyev has still had more name mispronunciations

00:17:48.640 going on than yourself. He probably has actually, yes.

00:17:50.560 Your second. Well, thank you very much for coming in and joining us today.

00:17:52.720 Thank you.

00:17:53.280 And I look forward to talking to you again down the road.

00:17:55.280 Thanks again.

Western Standard - May 18, 2022

EXCLUSIVE： One on one conversation about Aitchison's campaign to lead the CPC.

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