HANNAFORD： Grassroots politics over Big Government
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Summary
Fetiene Grzeski is a political commentator and former Conservative candidate nominee for the House of Commons and a candidate for the New Brunswick Provincial Legislature. In this episode of The Hannaford Show, she talks about the current political climate and the challenges facing Canada.
Transcript
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Good evening, Western Standard viewers, and welcome to Hannaford, a weekly politics show.
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I'm Jen Hodson, filling in for Nigel Hannaford.
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My guest today is Fetine Grzeski, a political commentator and former Conservative candidate
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nominee for the House of Commons and a candidate for the New Brunswick Provincial Legislature.
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Fetine Grzeski, an Alberta-born girl and hockey mom, is a political commentator and host of
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a national issues commentary show that airs on networks Canada-wide.
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An executive director in the charitable sector and a candidate nominated for the Federal Conservative
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Party and a candidate for the New Brunswick Provincial Conservatives.
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So Fetine, given your history in politics as both a Federal and Provincial Conservative candidate,
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and your work, I hear, with youth driving political change, I reckon you have some special
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insight into the multi-level political chaos we face as the nation.
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Yeah, well, you know, I, like you and all of your viewers, I love this nation, you know,
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and I'm both a businesswoman and a mom, and so, you know, I interface with the issues of
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And, you know, the stakes are high, the issues are intense, and it is just a wild time in
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politics right now, so I'm great to, I'm happy to be with you today to chop up some of
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I do want to mention, though, at the federal level, I was a nomination candidate.
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I lost the nomination by just a hair, and provincially, I was on the ticket, so.
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I saw that it was really quite a close race, though.
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So we'll get back to any kind of political ideas you might have in the future towards
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the end of the show, but for now, let's just jump right into it.
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So the unelected Mark Carney appears to be a shoe-in for the liberal leader coming up.
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We have a March 9th liberal leadership contest, and if he wins that, he'll become the next
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So there is speculation that he would call an election right away, but some people are
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saying that the liberals could de facto stay in power until 2026, even though there's an
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And according to the Charter, I think it's Section 4, if there's an emergency situation,
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like a tariff war, for example, that it could be even longer.
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Well, you know, what I make of the current political climate is that things are changing,
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not just by the day, but by the hour, by the minute, right?
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So I think so much of our political context right now definitely is responsive to what
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is happening in the United States, specifically with President Trump, and it changes, can change
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So, you know, in terms of the possibility of the federal election being pushed all the
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way to 2026, I think the only way that Canadians would have an ounce of that without a major
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outcry would be if there was a legitimate national crisis.
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You know, many people would say that the crisis that we're facing right now is not only external,
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wasn't just created by the Trump tariff threat, but it's been created by poor domestic policies.
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The fact that we haven't been able to get our act together on the issue of domestic trade,
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There's a lot that we could do internally, I think, to bolster our economy, or not I think.
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There's a lot that we can do internally, domestically, you know, to bolster trade,
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to bolster the economy, to strengthen our essential industries before we have to go so far as to
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declaring a national emergency that would cause the election to be delayed a year.
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So I think the liberals have a pretty hard sell, given the fact that a lot of the economic
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crisis that we're facing was created by them and by their policies, they're going to have
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a hard sell with Canadians to push that election all the way to 2026.
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And just to your point about all of the internal solutions that Canadian politicians, both federally
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and provincially, could be doing, you mentioned the internal trade.
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I've recently discussed with both the Alberta Chamber of Commerce and the Canadian Chamber
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of Commerce, amongst some other business agencies here in Canada at both federal and provincial
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levels, and they are actually all singing a similar tune, that the tariffs are creating
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And should they go through, there's going to be massive impacts.
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But this isn't just the beginning of a new issue.
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It's actually been something that's been going on for years or even decades with all these
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You know, we have the carbon tax being spiked again on April 1st, and that's going to be
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like a 20% increase for, you know, forgive me if I'm slightly off about that, but it's
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a substantial increase in the carbon tax as well.
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So it's not like Donald Trump just came along and created these problems for Canada.
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And that's without even touching on the illegal immigration issues that Canada has had for
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years, and even legal immigration has been so wildly out of control.
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And in addition to that is where we're learning more and more just what an issue this fentanyl
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So in light of the liberal leadership race, it's like Parliament has been put on pause for
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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on January 6th, as you know, he announced his intention to
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resign, but we haven't actually seen any fruit of that except for a prorogued parliament
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and a liberal candidate scrambling to get their act together for this leadership contest.
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So how do we square this circle when we have so much going on that needs to be addressed
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from not just an internal perspective, but internationally?
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We're dealing with Trump and the tariffs and all the different issues that are collectively
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adding towards something that we need to really address.
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But we don't have anyone seated in the House of Commons right now.
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Yeah, it's incredibly concerning and disappointing, obviously, to have a dysfunctional parliament
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at such a critical moment in our national timeline here.
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So, you know, listen, there are so many different things that you said there, but let's go with
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And let's face it, if the one thing that Trump's tariffs threats accomplish is that we get those
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pipelines built, that we get Energy East flowing, that we start getting our resources to market
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on both the Pacific and the Atlantic coast, you know, that will be a huge win.
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Now, obviously, that's not going to happen in a minute.
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And so we have to be looking at what are some of the other economic levers that can be pulled
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that are immediate other than just starting a massive trade war with the United States
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And the low-hanging fruit, Jen, is that carbon tax.
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This has been one of the deepest grinds on Canadians in the last decade.
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And the average Canadian household right now, as I understand it, is paying just under $1,000
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You know, we understand as well that this carbon tax is putting immense pressure on our industries,
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that those costs are being passed on to the consumer in a multiplicity of ways.
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And I just, I want to applaud the voices of common sense that have been saying this really
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And sometimes, you know, a little bit of an external pain makes us wake up to some of the
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conversations that we might not have been open to in the past.
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And I want to say this, like, I'm an Alberta girl originally, but I've really lived all
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I lived in Vancouver, went to university there, and then have built my life kind of across the
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And, you know, Jen, I've noticed that, you know, a lot of Eastern Canadians really don't
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understand the policy press that has been put on the financial economic engine of our
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They just, it's not that they don't care, it's just that they don't know.
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It's not something that is widely talked about.
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And what's happening here with the discourse surrounding the tariffs and with the strong
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leadership of Premier Danielle Smith is it's bringing this conversation to the fore in a
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way that I think is really critical, important, and probably the lightest word in the mix I could
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Like, this needs to be a conversation where we've got $300 billion in equalization payments
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over the last several decades, and yet an all-out war on the very industry that makes those
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So I would say, I would advocate for beginning with the conversations we can have domestically,
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And then let's learn how to be diplomats on the international stage and not just throw
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Like, I applaud Danielle Smith and her leadership.
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I think she's demonstrating how to get it done.
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I think that Premier Smith is doing a great job.
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It's really refreshing to see such a strong, level-headed voice come out in defense of Canada,
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And without taking on this Team Canada rhetoric either, that the federal liberals are all of
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a sudden putting forward, without, too long ago in recent memory was the Freedom Convoy,
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where the federal liberals, of course, were acting like anyone who was on so-called Team
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Canada was some kind of a domestic terrorist or something, calling the Emergencies Act, which
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was recently appealed in the federal court by the Trudeau liberals.
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So to circle back to about what you mentioned about the carbon tax and how that is impacting
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us internally, how do you think that makes us look on the world stage?
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We're really the only nation that has these kind of measures anymore.
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We see other Western nations walking back these climate policies.
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So how do you think it makes us look and what does it do for our attractiveness as global
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You know, we're facing down the barrel of a gun of this looming trade war.
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Who's going to be wanting to do business with Canada with all of these extra taxes, including
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this astronomical carbon tax that is tacked on to all of our goods and commodities?
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I haven't asked any of my international friends and colleagues, particularly on this issue,
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You know, our emissions output is 1.4 percent of global emissions.
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The last time I researched it, maybe we're somewhere near 1.6 percent, but we're definitely
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I hadn't even heard, you know, for decades, you know, I remember back in probably around
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2009, Stephen Harper saying, listen, we could tank our entire economy as we drive towards
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net zero and really make almost no impact on the global emissions footprint.
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And so, you know, we do need to think about our families.
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We need to think about creating that climate once again, speaking of self-sabotage, creating
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that climate once again, where Canada becomes attractive to business and that those of us
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here that are business owners like myself, you know, are actually able to flourish and
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build a life for their families that is prosperous.
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And we are at a time where the pendulum needs to come back.
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Crazy has just gotten more crazy on some of these frontiers.
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And it's time to begin to look at these things pragmatically, logically, and ask those tough
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questions like why in the world are we killing our economies, these various industries, when
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it's really having a negligible impact on global emissions?
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We really got to get the adults back in the room, back in the House of Commons, where these
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matters can be actually discussed with leadership and with a leader that has a mandate from the
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So just again, back to the Mark Carney and liberal leadership.
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So Carney, there's, again, there's speculation that he would call an election right away because
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he would just become the de facto prime minister if he wins the leader liberalship race, which
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The leader liberalship contest is going to be just a few weeks before that on March 9th.
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So we're going to have a new prime minister in place.
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It's going to be someone elected by liberals, essentially.
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So a lot of people are looking at the polls, looking to see when is the next election, because
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many Canadians are liking what they hear from Conservative leader Pierre Polyev.
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But it seems like there's still a few hurdles to jump over.
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And as I mentioned at the beginning of our discussion, it seems like there is a constitutional
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I think you even said that earlier, that would keep the liberals and ergo Carney, should he
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win the leadership race in power, even beyond 2026, if Parliament votes to repeal, of course.
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And with the support of Jagmeet Singh and the NDP, that very well could happen.
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Yeah, there's so much in what you just outlined there.
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But just to say this, in politics, usually polling rules the day, unfortunately.
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And that is, again, so discouraging and disheartening as someone who loves Canada.
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And I know you're in the same boat and is deeply concerned about the trajectory that our
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We need an election for the sake of the will of democracy to be expressed.
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But we know that political parties, they're going to be looking at the polls.
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They're going to be looking at the temperature of what's happening, how what's happening in
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the United States of America and President Trump's policies, how that's going to be impacting
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It seems like the liberals are trying to set themselves up to be campaigning against President
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And so they're going to be watching these things.
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Obviously, political parties always try to strike when they think that it is most beneficial
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So, again, like I said earlier, anything could happen.
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So I really feel like it's wisdom just for people to engage at the grassroots level right
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You mentioned the whole dynamic that we will have a prime minister that was not elected by
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the Canadian people, but rather by the members of the Liberal Party.
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I don't know what the membership is out right now for the federal liberals.
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But I do know that when Justin Trudeau ran, he won, I think, believe it was with 90,000
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So if you weigh 90,000 votes up against 40 million people, that's 90,000 people deciding
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for 40 million that Justin Trudeau was going to be the official leader of the opposition
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But this just illustrates why it is so important for people to get involved in grassroots,
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partisan politics with the party that most represents their views and values.
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Because if you're involved in things like these leadership races, you're going to be
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And I think it goes without saying, I need to highlight this right now because I'm not sure
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And that is that there are nominations that are being rolled out all across Canada right
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As a matter of fact, I just got an email yesterday from somebody, right?
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Just a stone's throw from you right there, Jen.
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In Calvary, there's a nomination that just opened up in Bow River, I believe.
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But these nominations are rolling out right now.
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And lots of these nominations will be determined by just a couple dozen Canadians that buy a membership
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And it's going to be those Canadians that literally set the climate for our nation going
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You know, we know up until about a month ago, most of the polls were projecting a super
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So to be honest, the more important elections, it's really not the liberal leadership race,
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It's actually those nominations that are happening all across Canada right now that are going
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to determine the climate of the Conservative Caucus and the climate of the House of Commons
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here within, well, we'll see, six or 18 months.
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Well, that's such an interesting point because I think for a while there, the Conservative movement
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was feeling pretty confident that Pierre Polyev had it in the bag or has it in the bag for
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However, there's been kind of a toss up since this Liberal leadership race got going with
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a lot of Liberals who had jumped ship under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
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Now with Mark Carney, things, you know, seem to have shifted a little bit.
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He seems to have some appeal for some former Liberals or Liberals that were starting to feel
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wishy-washy and maybe said that they would vote Conservative because they want to see someone
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that's a little bit more competent in the leadership role as the nation's leader.
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And so people, I think, are finding some likability perhaps in Mark Carney.
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And we see in the polls recently, you know, you say polls are what really demonstrates the
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situation that actually the Liberals are starting to gain a little bit more ground.
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So just as we're wrapping it up, you know, you mentioned about grassroots movements and
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that it's not so much the big general election that is going to have the poll, but in these
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And what are some other ways that people on a more local level or more grassroots level
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can get involved and can really play a role, a democratic role in what is to come of this
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I think the most important thing that your viewers can do, the listeners can do after they
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are done listening to this podcast is to go and make sure that your membership is active
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in the party that most represents your views and values and just get in the room.
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It's not the people that are outside of the room that determine the temperature and the
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And then once you're in the room, raise your hand, you know, every time that there's an
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And I always encourage the people that I lead to come with a service heart, to come with a
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I think we are all so weary and tired of toxic politics, right?
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I say, get in the room, get in the room with courage, be a voice for the things that you
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care about, but also do it in a way that is going to foster unity and a culture of kindness.
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Like I just came through one of the most toxic elections that, oh my gosh, it was crazy.
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And I just, you know, all of us have to decide, number one, we're either going to be in the
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room or we're not, because it's only going to be the people in the room that have sway.
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And number two, we're going to be that person in the room that contributes to a healthy culture
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And so I think those are the two, if we all just did those two basic things, got in the
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room and then helped contribute to a healthy culture, then we would see change in our nation
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Thank you so much for that perspective and for wrapping up the show on a positive note,
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because, you know, we can sit back and comment on all these political unfoldings, but until
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people realize that actually it's up to we, the people and decide to get involved ourselves.
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And Fetine, it's been amazing to have you on the show.
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This is Fetine Grisecci, who has her show on Fetine TV, and she is a former conservative
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candidate for the House of Commons nominee and for the provincial legislature in New Brunswick.
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Oh, no, it's just been wonderful to be with you, Jen.
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And maybe I'll just land it with the words of a very Honorable Albertan, the Honorable
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Thank you to the Honorable Preston Manning for his insight.
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I saw that you just recently did a segment or four-show segment with him.
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Thank you for joining us for The Hannaford Show this week.