Western Standard - Is Erin O'Toole abandoning conservatives？

00:00:00.000 .

00:00:30.000 Transcription by CastingWords

00:01:00.000 Thank you.

00:01:30.000 This is Mark Petroni, I'm welcoming all of you who are tuning in to this transmission.

00:01:57.100 This is the Western Standard online broadcast, if you want to call it, or transmission on the

00:02:02.860 internet. We are now being seen on Facebook as well as on Western Standard's YouTube channel.

00:02:09.940 Welcome wherever you happen to be in this wonderful country of ours. We're going to be

00:02:13.720 chatting about the politics of Canada these days, specifically the question around whether or not

00:02:20.580 the Conservative Party of Canada has abandoned Conservatives. Now that question has been asked

00:02:27.100 quite a bit lately, especially after a number of incidents that have taken place.

00:02:31.540 We had Pierre-Paul Yev, of course, who's been a very popular critic, a finance critic. He was

00:02:38.360 basically demoted, moved on to a less high-profile position. And the huge event that rocked many

00:02:47.220 members of the party, specifically those who are pro-life and social conservatives,

00:02:52.200 Derek Sloan being removed from the party, booted out, as it were, by O'Toole and members who

00:02:58.440 supported him at quite a heated meeting not that long ago. So recently, what has taken place?

00:03:05.580 Well, there's been a number of polls that have come out, one by Ipsos Reid, another one by Leger,

00:03:12.280 another one by Abacus, that all of them point to a decline in the fortunes of the Conservative Party

00:03:18.740 from one end of this country to the other,

00:03:20.760 except for the prairies where they continue to be strong over 40%.

00:03:24.900 But by and large, the conservatives are now polling around 28%,

00:03:29.600 which is pretty low.

00:03:31.960 They don't want to go into the next election campaign,

00:03:34.360 which could actually take place in June, as a matter of fact,

00:03:37.900 with poll numbers in the 20s.

00:03:41.460 That's not going to work if the Tories are hoping to win.

00:03:44.760 In fact, if you take Alberta and Saskatchewan out of the equation right now,

00:03:48.140 excuse me the toys are polling probably in the mid-20s uh just a hair's breath above the ndp

00:03:56.960 let that sink in for a minute i also want to talk a little bit about uh his negatives but before i

00:04:04.860 do that i want to talk about our guests for the evening because no you're not going to have to

00:04:09.160 listen to me the entire time we have uh clinton devoe on the line clinton coming to us from

00:04:15.460 Halifax in the beautiful province of Ontario. And Clinton's been a frequent guest on my show

00:04:19.740 on Saga 960. And I'd love to have Clinton on. He's a longtime political strategist. He worked

00:04:26.740 for the Conservative Party. He currently is not an associate of that party, but he still has a lot

00:04:32.380 of friends and a lot of people who like to talk and call him up and give him all sorts of

00:04:36.320 information. And then Clinton then comes on to my show and spills the beans. And then I get a big

00:04:41.640 scoop so i'm always happy to have clinton on the show hi clinton good evening how are you this

00:04:47.640 evening mark i'm excellent thank you usually we do this in the mornings i know it's a it's after

00:04:54.520 nine o'clock in the evening in halifax uh but we've got good representation from across the country

00:05:01.000 this evening because we also have david parker on the line and david is a uh a political animal as

00:05:07.160 well and park david is a is a supporter of a verano tools and so i'm looking forward to hearing his

00:05:13.800 take as well uh are you there david can you hear me mark yes i can thank you for coming on the show

00:05:20.760 i really appreciate that thank you for having me it's a huge honor all right cory morgan is also

00:05:26.840 going to be on hand he's doing uh he's pushing the button he's making all this happening so

00:05:31.960 so i wanted to get his name out there okay here's what i want to throw out there to both of you guys

00:05:36.120 There's been suggestions of buyer's remorse by a number of people in the Conservative Party.

00:05:42.460 Aaron O'Toole has been the leader since August.

00:05:45.420 He defeated a field that included Derek Sloan, that included Peter McKay, who was largely seen as the favorite, as well as Lesley Lewis, who was kind of the darling of the party as well.

00:05:57.860 And so the Conservatives like all those people.

00:06:00.780 But Peter was defeated in that race.

00:06:05.100 People thought that Aaron O'Toole, who had touted himself, and you remember this, both of you,

00:06:09.980 he was going to be the true blue conservative, okay?

00:06:13.120 So he has been slagging.

00:06:15.040 He had been slagging throughout most of the campaign.

00:06:19.260 Peter McKay saying that this guy was the red Tory, okay?

00:06:22.640 If you want the true blue conservative, I'm your man.

00:06:25.900 I'm the guy that you need to select, not Peter McKay.

00:06:30.460 And so it was a strategy that helped Aaron win the race, except now, what are we seeing now? We're seeing moves by Mr. O'Toole that has some people questioning whether or not he is conservative or not.

00:06:43.880 a flirtation with a carbon tax, a possible move towards cap and trade. All right. He has

00:06:52.700 rubber-stamped the idea of net zero emissions by 2050. And looking at other moves as well,

00:07:00.600 he booted Sloan out, suggesting that he's going to be not moving at all towards the direction of

00:07:07.520 social conservative policies, whether it's abortion or same-sex marriage, a debate that

00:07:12.820 many Canadians frankly don't really want to have right now because they've got a lot of stuff on

00:07:17.360 the plate but still some questions as to whether Aaron O'Toole is a true blue conservative or not

00:07:23.800 some people suggesting is not so I want to throw it open to you David is Aaron O'Toole a true blue

00:07:30.800 conservative or is he a liberal in disguise well let me put it this way Mark and you know I don't

00:07:38.100 work for Erin O'Toole. I make

00:07:40.200 zero dollars from Erin O'Toole, so

00:07:42.200 I just want to make that clear. My money

00:07:44.260 is all made in business right now.

00:07:46.740 But I'll say this.

00:07:49.440 The Conservative

00:07:50.380 Party is a group

00:07:52.140 of tribes. There are a lot of tribes

00:07:54.400 in the Conservative Party, and you have to bring them

00:07:56.160 together. I was

00:07:58.240 one of Stephen Harper's

00:08:00.120 Boys in Short Pants. So

00:08:02.060 actually, when

00:08:04.080 Brent Rathgeber wrote a book

00:08:05.820 about his kicking out

00:08:08.020 of Brett Rathgeber. A lot of your

00:08:09.880 listeners may not remember him, but he was

00:08:11.440 an MP from Northern Alberta

00:08:13.900 and he was kicked out

00:08:15.980 of the Conservative Caucus because

00:08:17.420 he decided that he no longer wanted to be

00:08:19.920 a team player and he wrote a book

00:08:22.140 and in that book, if you all look at it,

00:08:24.140 my name is mentioned as a kid

00:08:26.060 in short pants. And I was.

00:08:27.760 I was totally a kid in short pants.

00:08:30.060 There's no question.

00:08:31.280 Are you wearing short pants right now?

00:08:34.020 No, no. I'm wearing long pants

00:08:35.800 right now normally if i was maybe who knows but i was totally a kid to wear pants like i'm a kid

00:08:41.900 from a town there's 14 houses in the town that i was born in like okay where where were you born

00:08:48.160 haynes alberta haynes alberta which is haynes alberta i was born in lacombe because there's

00:08:52.660 no hospital in haynes right so i was born in this place called lacombe and my dad's a minister

00:08:58.360 an evangelical minister uh he was a united church minister and he left the united church

00:09:03.540 And so as far as social conservatism goes, I was quoting the 19th Psalm when I was two

00:09:10.360 years old.

00:09:10.820 There's videos of me quoting the 19th Psalm.

00:09:13.640 Okay.

00:09:14.520 Not all of your listeners are going to know Psalm 19, but you all might know this.

00:09:18.080 The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

00:09:19.720 I shall not want.

00:09:20.680 And I can quote that entire passage because I learned it when I was two.

00:09:25.360 And what always surprises me about people who think they understand social conservatives

00:09:29.880 is is they think that they know how social conservatives think because they could analyze

00:09:35.160 from books well the truth of the matter is i am a social conservative i'm literally born and bred

00:09:42.200 raised and i went to trinity western university which was recently uh not allowed to have a law

00:09:48.040 school because they uh well yeah i think yeah i remember the story i remember the story so

00:09:54.760 So, okay, thank you.

00:09:56.540 So the longer short of it is, I know the social conservatives of this party, and I've literally been working with them since I was 15 years old.

00:10:04.840 And I will say this, the social conservatives are not necessarily concerned with getting policies pushed, right?

00:10:13.880 What they're concerned with is being respected, and they have not been respected by the general public of Canada for very long.

00:10:23.120 are they being respected by O'Toole right now are they well i would i would argue that they

00:10:28.400 very much are being respected and uh and booting derek sloan out of the party isn't exactly a way

00:10:35.440 of showing respect mark david don't help me here don't mark me mock me that's that's not kind um

00:10:42.800 what i will say is this right derek sloan decided not to come on this program for whatever reason

00:10:50.720 and we'll we'll let him explain that to the populace but what i will say is i'm here

00:10:55.840 to represent my people and my people your flock no the people that i come from

00:11:04.800 okay the people from haynes the people from haynes alberta okay central albertans i asked

00:11:10.560 you a question dude please help me here i don't i'm not mocking you i really want to know is

00:11:16.160 erin o'toole a true blue conservative and uh you know does he and i will answer that question with

00:11:21.760 this there's only one man who legitimately decided to come and represent the true blue conservatives

00:11:30.080 so jacy many decided not to run in that leadership race yeah he was premier

00:11:35.200 ronna ambrose decided not to run that leadership race john baird decided not to run that leadership

00:11:40.720 race i can list you a hundred names of people yeah paulia pauliav pierre pauliav decided not

00:11:46.560 to run in that leadership race and you know why they decided to do that because they thought they

00:11:50.160 would lose to justin trudeau but there was one man who believed in a conservative party of canada

00:11:55.520 and his name was erin o'toole and all there derrick sloan is a is it's conservative derrick sloan

00:12:02.960 ran to build his own brand that's all i thought peter okay yeah i'm gonna i'm gonna move over

00:12:08.000 let's let's go over to clinton clinton uh you heard what what david had to say uh he says that uh he

00:12:14.640 says that derek sloan running was was really he was running for himself run building his own brand

00:12:19.600 he's not really a conservative and that aaron is not what i said that is not what i said what i

00:12:24.400 said okay okay i'm misunderstood go ahead so you're a uh a mechanic right and you're a mechanic and

00:12:32.480 you're trying to fix a truck but you've never fixed a truck before how good are you going to be at it

00:12:37.520 you're gonna be probably not very bad at fixing trucks and derek sloan has never been involved

00:12:43.280 in politics he doesn't know how the conservative party works he doesn't even know the base of a

00:12:47.840 member of parliament so i mean clearly he won an election brand new member of parliament yeah okay

00:12:54.720 well leslund lewis was brand new she wasn't even a member of parliament massively accomplished 0.85

00:13:00.560 person who has been a leader in many areas she didn't know much about politics though she didn't

00:13:06.160 have that much experience in politics i want to move over to clinton clinton help me out here

00:13:11.120 uh what have you heard is david right in terms of his views about uh aaron o'toole being a true

00:13:17.920 blue conservative no i mean quite frankly no offense to david he's out to lunch uh when it

00:13:23.280 comes to this stuff he's talking first he talks about experience how important experience is

00:13:29.440 i don't want to rehash the leadership race but let's be honest we had a a a co-founder

00:13:35.840 of the party ran the leadership race who was a cabinet minister who had the exact same voting

00:13:41.600 record in the house of commons as some of the individuals that he listed jason kenny

00:13:46.800 pierre pauliev stephen harper i mean i defy anyone to tell me a difference in the voting

00:13:53.040 record between peter mckay and any of the people he's listed oh yeah but but no let's let's hear

00:13:59.840 no please please david we'll get back we'll get back to you yeah it's it's a little bit bizarre

00:14:05.840 that that we we've suddenly uh decided that there's only one person in the country

00:14:12.640 who's a an experienced conservative or are conservative with governing experience i mean

00:14:17.680 it's ridiculous but anyway well i don't think i don't i don't think david parker said that uh

00:14:22.320 that aaron is the only person that who could have done that job if i heard if i heard david correctly

00:14:27.600 he was the only one in the field who had the kind of experience that Aaron did and he was the only

00:14:33.020 that is that correct yes that's what I said yeah okay thank you go ahead finish Clinton

00:14:37.760 yeah what I'm saying is we know that's false like again look Aaron is the leader of the party but

00:14:42.540 like let's stop with this dismissal that Peter McKay wasn't experienced wasn't the co-founder

00:14:48.120 of the party wasn't a multiple uh cabinet minister and high profile uh poor foes he's just as

00:14:53.900 experience as anyone else. But for some reason, everyone is talking about this idea that

00:14:58.120 you're either an O'Toole conservative or you're not. And I think it's ridiculous, quite frankly. 0.88

00:15:04.560 All right, David, I want to run, I want to thank you for that, Clint. I want to run this past,

00:15:09.600 there was one prominent conservative, I actually had him on my radio show too today,

00:15:14.320 David Spencer Fernando. I'm sure you're familiar with Spencer. He claims that O'Toole owes an

00:15:21.360 apology to Peter McKay because Aaron had spent a good chunk of the campaign slagging Peter McKay

00:15:29.060 as this red Tory who was really just another liberal running as a conservative. And at the

00:15:37.520 end of the day, we're seeing evidence that it's Aaron who has taken the party left. Do you feel

00:15:43.080 that Aaron wants to do this in order to try and peel off whether that's three to five percent,

00:15:49.940 whatever he needs of that liberal vote in places like the GTA where I am right now, or even in

00:15:56.460 Halifax where Clinton is, places in Calgary still, you know, a lot of people vote liberal and people

00:16:03.160 don't know that. I mean, you know, you can't really say that, that Aaron has been as conservative as

00:16:10.700 he has claimed that he is. I don't know. Do you disagree with that?

00:16:15.280 play the game you're playing not the game you wish you were playing and uh the answer

00:16:20.160 the answer to that is i'm sorry i don't understand a leadership race is not a general election i think

00:16:25.360 all the members know that and um the truth of the matter is the reason that peter mckay lost was

00:16:30.560 because he insulted social conservatives he didn't just insult them he called them a stinking albatross

00:16:36.880 around the neck of the conservative party well he didn't lie to them i mean he didn't say i'm

00:16:40.720 going to give you something i'm going to i'm going to push your cause and then get in and then boot

00:16:45.520 derek sloan out though so that's so so peter never did that is not the representative of the social

00:16:50.720 conservative movement in canada and uh you can say that that's fine mark i'm not going to i'm not

00:16:55.520 going to say that your opinion is you're allowed to have your opinion but the truth of the matter

00:16:59.840 is that the the true social conservatives in this country um so there's a there's a great verse from

00:17:06.640 the bible which says my kingdom is not of this world and uh that's what jesus said jesus christ

00:17:12.720 himself said my kingdom is not of this world and the real problem with a certain element that it's

00:17:18.800 a very small element of the social conservative movement in canada is that they're trying to push

00:17:24.640 their own opinions of how other people should live on other people and a good example of this

00:17:30.800 is abortion and gay marriage right uh there's a lot of people in canada who disagree with the

00:17:37.120 idea that abortion should be illegal there's a lot of people including myself who utterly disagree

00:17:42.640 with the idea that gay marriage should be illegal and you know what it's totally fine it's totally 0.55

00:17:47.520 fine for a canadian to feel that those things should be illegal we should we should be all 0.99

00:17:53.200 right with that opinion but i did all right did i don't know too go ahead let me call the spain

00:18:00.720 of spain here i've been a long time conservative activist and organizer for for i've never heard

00:18:05.840 of you for decades now and what i find david finish what i find fascinating is that in my

00:18:12.400 lifetime there's only been two conservative prime ministers that have won majority governments

00:18:17.360 stephen harper and brian morooney and they did so by not talking about abortion by not arguing about

00:18:25.040 gay marriage i mean i can't believe that we're arguing about gay marriage in the year 2021

00:18:29.760 why do you think we're arguing about it because of derek flown look all i'm pointing out to you

00:18:35.120 is that if you want to get votes in atlantic canada and ontario and quebec and british

00:18:42.000 colombia and quite frankly manitoba as well then you're going to have to moderate some of this

00:18:47.920 social conservatism canada you're not the only reason that any of this is happening is because

00:18:52.880 of derrick slump listen canadians are interested in pocketbook issues that's what they're interested

00:18:58.000 in they're interested in in in their job in their retirement in their savings that's what they're

00:19:04.640 interested in they're not like you're quoting bible verses and this stuff it's utter nonsense 0.94

00:19:09.600 nobody is voting for a biblical figure to to be sitting in 24 sussex drive i mean it's ridiculous 0.95

00:19:17.680 oh i agree it is ridiculous here's what i don't understand um you you said on one hand that 0.88

00:19:24.320 derek does not represent social conservatives which which is fine but on the other hand um

00:19:30.240 you're having a good chunk of the base is it abandoning aaron at least it certainly appears

00:19:35.040 that way david i mean you're you're welcome to dispute that but when you look at his numbers

00:19:41.280 the conservatives are polling at 28 right now nationally which suggests that a lot of people

00:19:46.400 and i've spoken to them whether it's the right now people or or people with the campaign for life

00:19:51.680 they're not going to be supporting aaron o'toole they're not going to be voting for aaron o'toole

00:19:54.800 those are tens of thousands of votes right across the country uh the you know those people are

00:20:00.160 saying that they're the ones basically who made the call not to support lisa rate the reason why

00:20:04.800 Lisa Raitt lost, at least according to people in the pro-life movement, social conservatives,

00:20:10.260 that they stayed home. They did not support her. They could have voted for her, but she

00:20:15.200 gave them not even a minute of her day. She had no interest in listening to them,

00:20:22.400 and so she ended up losing. So where am I going with this? I mean, Derek is out of the party,

00:20:29.220 and there's a lot of people, whether Derek represents social conservatives or not,

00:20:33.380 there's a lot of social conservatives who are not happy right now. In fact, the campaign life people

00:20:38.100 called on Aaron O'Toole to step down. So where are we at right now, David? Is this going to hurt

00:20:44.500 O'Toole? Is this going to hurt the conservatives come election time?

00:20:48.620 No, it will not. You know what? Here's the truth of the matter. We can lose 15% in Alberta.

00:20:56.000 And if we gain that based on... Okay, so I want to make a couple things clear. I'm not on

00:21:01.460 aaron no tools team okay i'm not working for him i'm not paid by him but i will say this just from

00:21:08.180 the outside as someone who's done politics for a very long time um he can afford to lose 15

00:21:15.720 in alberta and saskatchewan and he could win majority government there are set i'll give

00:21:22.060 you a good example of how little i care about polls okay the very first poll we did on the

00:21:28.840 Aaron O'Toole leadership campaign Peter McKay was at 65% and Aaron O'Toole was at 3% 3% in the

00:21:36.660 membership this was not a this is not a poll of of the general public this is a poll of

00:21:43.040 Conservative Party of Canada members now we had 3% and we didn't care and what happened yeah okay

00:21:50.260 well we all know that Aaron ended up winning I want to run something past for you and I realize

00:21:54.660 that you don't mind, that you don't really care that much about polls. But right now, at least

00:21:59.800 according to McLean's magazine, I want to read you this. In the abacus data's first poll after O'Toole

00:22:06.520 won the CPC leadership back in August, O'Toole held a net favorability rating of plus two. So

00:22:14.500 at the time, 21% had a positive view of Aaron O'Toole, 19% held a negative one. So more positive

00:22:23.100 of the negative. The numbers held mostly steady until late fall and then took a turn for the worse

00:22:28.920 from a net rating of plus one in November, then minus five in December. And then since then,

00:22:35.300 it's been a steady deterioration of O'Toole's to the point where now he's down minus 12 in the

00:22:42.760 Abacus latest surveys. The 32% negative impressions of Aaron O'Toole and only 20% had a positive one.

00:22:50.180 And so Clinton, weigh in on this.

00:22:53.320 It doesn't suggest to me that Aaron O'Toole is going in the right direction.

00:22:56.560 And I would suggest that part of that is due to the way he's treated Derek Sloan, as well

00:23:02.000 as demoting Pierre-Paul Yev.

00:23:03.380 I don't know.

00:23:03.680 What do you think?

00:23:04.600 Well, look, I have a different take on it.

00:23:06.820 So first of all, I agree that the conservatives, as they're currently constructed, are probably

00:23:11.860 not going to win the next election.

00:23:14.660 They need to gain seats in British Columbia.

00:23:17.080 They need to gain seats in Ontario, Quebec, and Atlantic Canada.

00:23:20.180 and they're in no position to do so right now.

00:23:24.100 The problem that the party has is it's a crisis.

00:23:27.240 It's an identity crisis.

00:23:29.220 So you have people like myself that are interested in a party that's electable,

00:23:33.720 that will appeal to a large swath of mainstream Canada,

00:23:37.720 that are interested in winning.

00:23:39.720 And there's a reason for that, because your best day in governance,

00:23:44.080 your worst day in governance is better than your best day in opposition.

00:23:48.540 And so then you have another segment of the party that thinks it's a religious movement, that thinks it's a morality brigade, and isn't interested in winning elections.

00:24:01.100 It's interested in what it perceives as being right.

00:24:05.500 and so uh this this small yet vocal and yet well organized group of social conservatives

00:24:15.100 will do everything they can in order to take the conservatives down and there's a reason why since

00:24:20.380 confederation i mean this is just like there's a reason why only four conservative prime ministers

00:24:26.940 have won majority governments we have sir johnny mcdonald john defenbaker brian marooney and

00:24:34.880 stephen harper when the conservatives act professional and they they listen to what

00:24:40.920 canadians are talking about they can get elected they want to have these social conservative

00:24:46.060 debates and and activities that's fine but just they have to decide in advance that they're not

00:24:52.080 going to win well but the conservative party also wants to be the party that is open to all they

00:24:57.540 want to be big tent and there are there are tens of thousands maybe even hundreds of thousands of

00:25:03.020 people who sympathize with the idea that maybe we have uh laws as far as it applies to abortion that

00:25:09.660 are too lax we have no we have no basic laws at all i mean we you get an abortion at any time

00:25:14.920 i mean some people find that are uncomfortable with that clinton that's fine they can look i'm

00:25:21.220 pro-choice they can feel uncomfortable about it all they want but the reality is is that if they

00:25:26.580 want to form government they need to be where the canadian mainstream public is and unfortunately

00:25:34.820 the way that the conservative party is constructed it gives voice to a small but very well organized

00:25:43.620 and vocal group of people that are motivated around morality issues okay and as long as that

00:25:50.240 continues, they will

00:25:52.200 dominate the leadership races of the

00:25:54.320 party, and they will ensure

00:25:56.540 that the party can't get elected.

00:25:58.480 We saw what happened in 2019.

00:26:01.160 Andrew Scheer was asked

00:26:02.280 questions around marriage. He stumbled.

00:26:04.680 He couldn't say that he agreed with

00:26:06.200 equality, and it cost

00:26:08.360 him in the polls.

00:26:09.960 The abortion issue comes up. It's the same

00:26:12.180 thing. You have to be where the Canadian 1.00

00:26:14.140 public is. If you

00:26:16.320 don't want to be where the Canadian public is,

00:26:18.440 then go join an advocacy group.

00:26:20.800 all right so don't run to be government of canada david parker was aaron o'toole correct

00:26:27.200 in booting out derek sloan since you yourself suggested that sloan was the problem here in

00:26:33.280 terms of highlighting the whole absolutely 100 yes okay well you want to elaborate on that

00:26:40.160 well i i'd rather not because i was asked not to but what i will say is this um

00:26:45.360 um eric sloan is not a representative of my people your people uh who i'm sorry who are

00:26:55.120 your people again he does not represent social conservatives that's what that's what you're

00:27:01.400 telling me okay but he is a social conservative that's okay he represents us and does he think

00:27:09.280 he does he wow he's not here to speak for himself unfortunately would have showed up to to speak

00:27:14.800 Well, yeah, you know, he's not here. So, you know, that's unfortunate, but it is what it is.

00:27:21.200 Where do we pay? The question is, where do we go from here? OK, so what does Aaron O'Toole have to do to win the election?

00:27:26.820 Now, he's got ready, got rid of Derek Sloan. There's going to I suggest that there's going to be thousands of votes that he's going to lose as a result.

00:27:34.460 You're absolutely right on that. He will lose votes on that. And I believe personally, that was a very calculated decision.

00:27:40.500 But you think he's going to gain votes in areas like the GTA and Vancouver, perhaps Halifax, Winnipeg?

00:27:49.780 You think he's going to gain votes from people who say, well, Aaron did the right thing by booting Derek Sloan.

00:27:56.620 I feel much more comfortable now that the party represents me.

00:27:59.980 I'm talking about progressives, people who don't care about social conservative issues.

00:28:05.580 Do you think that Aaron scored some points with those people in areas where he needs to gain support in order to win seats?

00:28:13.240 I'm asking David that question.

00:28:15.380 Well, I see that some Michael guy has said that I represent social conservatives.

00:28:19.220 And I will say very clearly that I do not believe that I represent social conservatives, nor is my lifestyle representative of social conservatives.

00:28:25.200 But what I will say is this.

00:28:28.780 Derek Sloan is not a factor in the next election.

00:28:33.560 There is two factors in the life selection. Trudeau and Aaron O'Toole. And the truth of the matter is, we only have one question to really ask ourselves as conservatives is, is Aaron O'Toole a real conservative? And my answer to that is very simple.

00:28:50.060 erin o'toole believes in three fundamental principles and i know this because i worked

00:28:56.320 for him um he believes in freedom freedom of choice right so so not just freedom if you want

00:29:03.060 to be a muslim and and wally solomon a good friend of mine is one of his uh is one of his

00:29:09.180 campaign chairs i understand the diversity issue okay what else does he believe he believes in

00:29:13.860 freedom freedom the second is fiscal responsibility and the third and i think this is the

00:29:19.960 most important that maybe people don't know about Aaron is that he believes in, he believes

00:29:24.560 in honor. And he's a military man. What does that mean? I don't even know what that means.

00:29:30.160 What does that mean? In honor. I'm not freaking out. I'm asking you what it means.

00:29:35.960 Let me explain. So, so Aaron believes in saying what you're going to do and doing it.

00:29:43.500 Well, Clinton, he said he was a social, he said he was a true blue conservative. There are a lot

00:29:48.500 of questions as to whether in fact he is. All right, so what does Aaron O'Toole have to do to

00:29:52.420 win the election now? He's trailing badly in huge chunks of the country. Out where you are,

00:29:57.960 I think he's down to what, 15% in Atlantic Canada? I mean, there's a quite strong possibility he's

00:30:04.220 going to lose the few seats he has out there. Well, so there's things that he should do that

00:30:10.660 he knows he needs to do, as I've alluded to earlier, that he can't do. So for example,

00:30:17.200 the conservative party's holding its national convention coming up and there's going to be all

00:30:22.960 kinds of uh sort of out there far out there policies that are going to be discussed around

00:30:28.800 these issues and uh the public at large is going to look at that and they're going to say

00:30:37.120 look aaron might be a good guy but his party unfortunately is going down a road map that

00:30:43.440 we don't want to be a part of okay make a prediction right now and if there's a due

00:30:48.800 election party in he needs to reign the party in and he needs to say to the canadian public

00:30:55.200 this is what we believe in and this is where we're going and we're not going to do any of this other

00:31:00.720 stuff clinton you're literally describing what he's doing but really yes i i mean i've yet to

00:31:10.560 hear aaron criticize any of this stuff that's about to happen he kicked derrick sloan out of

00:31:17.920 the party yeah he did okay well that's true he did do that all right so where does he stand on

00:31:24.080 carbon taxes yay or nay david there will be there will be no carbon tax or there will be no trudeau

00:31:30.240 tax because he's made a commitment to net zero by 2050 i mean in order to do that does he not have to

00:31:39.120 raise the carbon taxes or at least keep a carbon tax look look i'm gonna say this that

00:31:46.320 i personally am a big elon musk fan i'm buying a tesla i am a big fan of environment we need

00:31:54.640 to reduce emissions i know aaron's also a big fan of reducing emissions the truth of the matter is

00:31:59.600 that a carbon tax is is a way that a lot of people think that you can reduce emissions i

00:32:04.320 I don't believe that's true because I don't believe that taking money from everyone to reduce admissions is the right answer.

00:32:13.200 Why are people still wondering whether Aaron O'Toole is going to bring in a carbon tax or not?

00:32:19.400 Well, there's a lot of people who profit from believing that Aaron O'Toole is questioning this.

00:32:26.500 But Aaron O'Toole is not concerned about those people.

00:32:30.220 I want to jump in just to add another.

00:32:33.700 all right yeah okay let's let's get uh who who's who's up next cory yeah to add a bit of a different

00:32:40.740 perspective since it's back and forth because uh i'm not a social conservative i am a fiscal

00:32:46.260 conservative i am an alberton and i cannot support a tool i'm sorry he's trying to

00:32:55.540 this talk about reducing emissions to the point as you've mentioned

00:32:58.980 uh in that timeline uh that means if it's not a carbon tax again it's going to be some sort

00:33:03.940 of crackdown on the west we've been cracked down on enough okay so cap and trade i mean is that a

00:33:08.820 possibility or is there no answer do you just say well hey you guys are losing the way you're going

00:33:14.340 right now so you know you're talking that this path has been a successful one for otole it's not

00:33:19.060 gaining him support in fact it's splitting it up anything that the most conservative government we

00:33:24.020 ever saw in a long time was the Chrétien Liberals with a principled reform opposition in there,

00:33:29.300 and if that's what it's going to have to take, I would rather that than having two liberal parties

00:33:33.460 to pick from in the next federal election. So who are you voting for, Corey, right now? I mean,

00:33:37.300 if there was an election today, would you vote for it? Yeah, tell us, Corey. Yeah, no, I'm terribly

00:33:42.580 undecided as it sits. I might even throw it at the Maverick party because, you know, I'd rather

00:33:46.340 vote for someone to lose than vote for a loser I don't want representing me. Well, I know what 0.97

00:33:50.180 writing you're in and your vote doesn't matter well thanks you know you put that on a brochure

00:33:57.540 and send it out parker yeah you know what the truth of the matter is i asked an albertian

00:34:02.260 as you know cory um i can lose 15 in alberta and i'll be perfectly happy to get that 15

00:34:09.780 okay so dual supporters don't care if they lose 15 of albertans that's a brilliant campaign i can

00:34:15.220 see part of why mr is doing this poorly as he is absolutely guys okay okay let's let's hear from

00:34:21.620 clinton yeah go ahead clinton so it's it's great that one guy says i'm prepared to lose 15 in

00:34:28.500 alberta or saskatchewan because i'm going to make it up in the gta well the reality is is that if

00:34:34.180 we look at all of the independent polling and i'm not going to name any one firm but we can see all

00:34:39.140 the polling data that that's not happening it's just not happening the party is not in a position

00:34:45.860 to gain or pick up seats in all the areas where it needs to pick up seats and to your point i argue

00:34:52.740 that it's a communications problem that the party has and quite frankly it's an honesty a problem

00:34:59.540 to mark's point earlier when the leader of the party commits the party and says we are going to

00:35:09.060 follow through on net zero by 2050 which is the exact same position as the existing government

00:35:18.340 and then when the leader is asked the question how do you intend to get there

00:35:23.860 and he's unable to give an answer then it leads the public to question a is he being honest

00:35:31.300 and b does he know what he's talking about and i would argue that the problems that he's having

00:35:40.040 in the polling data is because the conservative party doesn't really know what it wants to

00:35:46.460 campaign on and what it wants to to you know tell the public what it's going to do you can't on the

00:35:52.520 one hand say we're going to we're going to meet these targets that the existing government has

00:35:56.720 agreed to. And then on the other hand, say, but we're not going to follow through on any kind of

00:36:02.980 tax regulatory burden. And David Parker, thank you, Clinton. David Parker, there were at least

00:36:09.820 a dozen caucus members in Aaron O'Toole's caucus now who are speaking with media, critical of their

00:36:16.980 leader, saying that he's going in the direction of a carbon tax or cap and trade, and that the

00:36:23.040 party is moving a direction which they never signed on for and that story was in was in global

00:36:29.040 news earlier today i mean is is aaron having to face down a caucus revolt now is is that the

00:36:35.680 problem well as as someone who has helped orchestrate one of those um i'll say uh this is

00:36:45.120 not a caucus revolt this is a minor blip in the the thing i love about the modern world is

00:36:50.640 everything is you know 15 minutes it's like what happened today um i will say this and you know

00:36:57.360 what maybe i'll be wrong and clinton will be right but i'll say this fred delori has lost a lot of

00:37:03.240 elections and then he won a really important one that no one thought he would and that was uh erin

00:37:09.240 o'toole winning and fred delori is probably one of the smartest people that i've ever met

00:37:14.660 And you know what? Clinton can talk about polls before an election. There's only one poll that matters, and that is the election. And I'm fairly confident that, in fact, I would stake my entire reputation on this. Aaron O'Toole will get at least 10 more seats than Andrew Scheer did.

00:37:35.420 Wow okay so you're talking about in position not quite a forming government but pretty I mean

00:37:44.360 the bet would be depending on what the Liberals do so you're saying right now that you're predicting

00:37:49.340 that the Liberals will lose seats the Liberals will definitely not necessarily lose seats because

00:37:55.700 they're gonna so the way that they're gonna gain any piece are you taking the Tories are gonna

00:37:59.720 no there's block seats too there's a lot of seats out there right yeah right now the tories are

00:38:04.840 pulling 13 percent and go back the tories are pulling 13 percent and go back and so they're

00:38:09.240 right now right now you're talking about a moment in time yeah not a so so the thing about strategies

00:38:15.960 is they they don't just materialize immediately first you have to develop them now then you have

00:38:21.320 to execute them then you get the result so yes erin o'toole was at three percent against peter

00:38:26.280 mckay you're right in that moment of time it looked pretty dire all right let's go i want to

00:38:31.640 go to corey and ask him have we maybe failed not to get we have we not given aaron enough of a chance

00:38:36.840 because david seems to be suggesting that you know over time it's a strategy that that will work

00:38:42.600 corey maybe uh maybe we haven't given aaron o'toole enough of a chance to to make that strategy work

00:38:48.840 Well, time's running out. I mean, it's only I think due to a messy vaccine rollout that we

00:38:56.920 aren't certainly going to an election within a month or two here right now. You only have so

00:39:01.800 much time to build this so far mythical Quebec support and things that are going to turn this

00:39:07.240 around. So if there's a great hidden strategy out there, I'm really looking forward to it.

00:39:13.000 I don't think putting Polyev on the back bench was a good way to do it. Again,

00:39:18.360 every move seems to design to uh frustrate and annoy the core base supporters and i see that

00:39:24.520 when i hear core base supporters the ones who have funded the ones who have door knocked the

00:39:27.960 ones who put in decades told well that's okay we can lose 15 of your votes anyways because we've

00:39:32.040 got to win in central canada what about that what about that argument so maybe we alienate some core

00:39:37.800 members of the conservative party uh but uh we offset that with people in toronto in in the 905

00:39:45.640 belt in vancouver in halifax because uh it's a zero-sum game uh you know there we get up i mean

00:39:55.080 if you just want to win the west then yeah you are going to be confined to opposition no matter

00:39:59.160 what you do it's give and take if you're going to you know address one end the thing is though

00:40:05.000 that's what leadership is is finding the balance of that coalition to get that broad support without 0.90

00:40:10.280 alienating big chunks and left and right and when you chucked sloan out the way you did you alienated

00:40:14.840 the social conservative base which are not even one of but that's a chunk of that percentage that

00:40:19.160 you're really going to have to regain somewhere and what about that david before i go to clinton

00:40:25.640 okay look look how clinton how many campaigns have you managed okay clinton go ahead yeah i've

00:40:32.120 i've run a lot of campaigns how many i i'm not coming on let him answer i i'm sure mark can

00:40:38.280 fill you in on some of my my past background you work for harper how many campaigns have you managed

00:40:44.840 Well, I don't want to go down through the list, but leadership candidates.

00:40:52.240 Let him answer the question, please.

00:40:56.040 Yeah, it's not about me here.

00:40:59.160 Corey, how many campaigns have you managed?

00:41:02.820 I've managed a number of them.

00:41:03.900 Now, quick questioning and let him answer.

00:41:08.480 Clinton, go ahead.

00:41:09.520 Finish up.

00:41:10.260 Okay, you work for Harper, right?

00:41:12.040 You work for Harper's campaign.

00:41:13.820 you've worked for leadership candidates correct yeah manage the campaign how many are you gonna

00:41:23.760 yeah look I don't want to get into that none zero zero well that's that's actually not true

00:41:30.160 yeah I know for a fact that Clinton has managed somebody did but he doesn't want to discuss it

00:41:34.940 right I've managed all right all right Parker I've managed David how many matter how many of

00:41:42.320 you managed 22 22 campaigns all right so there you go so what i will say is this

00:41:48.420 every time i show up on a campaign there's people like cory and clinton that show up

00:41:54.540 and they tell me everything that i'm doing wrong and really good you know quarterbacks from the

00:42:02.800 freaking couch and they and they love to watch the game and they love to be critics but here's

00:42:08.160 truth there's only one man whose whose name is on the line here and his name is fred delori

00:42:15.920 if fred delori doesn't deliver then fred delori has failed but i will tell you it was fred involved

00:42:22.960 in sheer's campaign no oh he wasn't okay that was that was hamish yeah that was hamish and and and

00:42:31.280 so you know what the truth of the matter is we can we can all you know yammer on about how smart we

00:42:36.400 are and how we think that aaron's failing but i know there's a plan and i know that uh if that

00:42:42.960 plan fails it's going to be on one person so i just i just want to jump in so to cory's earlier

00:42:49.600 point about the sort of the communication failures around uh net zero for 2050 like here's another

00:42:56.960 example the conservative party was starting to gain some traction in recent weeks when it was

00:43:03.280 being very critical of Huawei, the telecommunications giant based out of mainland China and its 5G

00:43:10.720 networks. And then what happened in the last week or two? The vice president of Huawei Canada was

00:43:19.040 hired and put in charge of the Conservative Party war room. So Canadians are looking at this and

00:43:24.560 again, it's another one of these sort of, you know, you're literally shooting yourself in the foot.

00:43:29.200 And this is another example of poor communications, poor policy decision-making.

00:43:36.020 And we're seeing this time and time again.

00:43:39.240 So someone like me, I'm not a social conservative.

00:43:42.600 And so I should be one of Aaron O'Toole's, like, number one people in his voter pool.

00:43:48.720 And I have a hard time trying to figure out what the guy stands for.

00:43:52.420 So if I'm having a hard time and Corey's having a hard time and many others, according to all the polling data, then we have to question, you know, is the party interested in appealing to the Canadian public at large?

00:44:06.700 Or is it only interested in appealing to sort of the loud voices that give the money and they're great to have for the infrastructure, but you can't win an election.

00:44:21.000 You have to appeal to the public at large, and the party just isn't doing that.

00:44:26.920 I mean, we started this discussion by your guest quoting verses from the Bible.

00:44:32.460 I mean, this is how out of touch we are.

00:44:34.940 Do you think some soccer mom in Toronto wants to hear us quote verses of the Bible?

00:44:39.740 No soccer moms from Toronto are listening to this.

00:44:42.340 uh but but more importantly um look you may not like where i come from and that's okay clinton

00:44:51.800 uh but i but i do come from there and i didn't hear clinton say he doesn't like well he said i

00:44:57.780 started quoting bible verse and that's a problem well we're not talking clinton i don't know who

00:45:02.480 you think you're talking to but we're talking to people the western standards audience which is a

00:45:07.880 a group of people that i happen to know very well because i've spent my entire life

00:45:12.620 in western politics including the reform and then the alliance and then the stephen harper

00:45:20.100 leadership and i'll say this you know what people don't have to like me but the truth of the matter

00:45:25.480 is conservatives real conservatives understand that we cannot win with the current with the

00:45:34.280 strategy that Andrew Scheer put forward. You realize the Conservative Party's current

00:45:39.000 ceiling for its base. No, no. Can I finish? May I finish? Sure. Yeah. The thing is, everyone is

00:45:47.720 criticizing Aaron right now because he spent the last six months building a plan to win. And he

00:45:53.880 didn't tell everyone what his plan was from the very beginning. Because you know who's listening

00:45:57.640 to this right now? Definitely the Liberals. They're listening to every single conversation

00:46:03.640 we have. And if we're already broadcasting our plan to everyone, then they're already going to

00:46:09.160 know our plan. And what are they going to do? They're going to counter our plan. So it would

00:46:13.600 be a very foolish election strategy to tell your enemy your plan before you begin to execute it.

00:46:22.520 So yeah, maybe it's down in the polls right now. And hey, Aaron O'Toole could lose. I could be on 0.92

00:46:29.180 the wrong side of history are you saying so you're saying that there is this plan that they put

00:46:37.420 together so basically they got kind of a hail mary that they're getting ready no no not a hail mary

00:46:42.580 a very detailed and strategic militaristic plan to target what needs to be done to win

00:46:49.760 well the the numbers suggest and i realize that you've been slagging polls and sometimes polls

00:46:57.420 are wrong but he seems to be going the wrong way in terms of his likability

00:47:02.280 though Cory six months of planning will do that's your likability all right so

00:47:07.260 Cory this is this is the argument here that David is making is that it's

00:47:11.220 because Aaron's been spending all his time planning strategizing that's why

00:47:16.740 his likability is is on the decline yeah well I believe during the planning

00:47:22.040 session the tool should be front and center he should be speaking to

00:47:25.440 canadians western eastern and so on i mean you don't stop doing everything because you're holding

00:47:30.000 a secret apparently plan so in the meantime his support is dwindling there's no getting around

00:47:36.580 that and that plan is going to get tougher and tougher whatever the heck that secret plan may be

00:47:41.380 if he waits another couple more months to implement it so we'd better see some planning

00:47:46.080 to change the trending right now or it's going to be a really big mountain to climb when that

00:47:50.440 campaign hit. Corey, I don't want to go after you. I don't feel like we need to be personal.

00:47:57.080 There's at least no personal insults. It doesn't have to be any personal stuff anyway. The truth of the matter is you have no idea what you're talking about. You've never been in a national war room. You've never planned a national campaign. You've never even been involved in a national campaign.

00:48:12.140 You know, I'm not going to put my resume up here.

00:48:16.840 You know, I'm starting to look, I don't want to put TV up for you.

00:48:21.480 And to be honest, as we've been seeing from the commenters, nobody's bloody heard of you.

00:48:24.700 So don't be questioning our qualifications based on the anecdotes you're throwing out.

00:48:28.560 We're putting out opinions.

00:48:29.860 We're doing them.

00:48:30.640 But don't give me that BS that, oh, you haven't managed this and you haven't managed that.

00:48:33.900 I'm going to dive it back a little bit, guys.

00:48:35.760 Let's go to Clinton.

00:48:36.440 All right, so what's happening here is that apparently Aaron O'Toole is playing 5-D chess.

00:48:42.960 He's got a plan, and the reason why people don't seem to like him or that his favorabilities have been on the decline

00:48:49.900 is that he's spending all his time planning and strategizing for this upcoming campaign.

00:48:56.500 Clinton, go ahead.

00:48:59.060 Yeah, look, I'm not taking any joy in saying this.

00:49:03.840 I wish it were not the case, in fact.

00:49:06.440 i really do uh i don't believe that the conservatives right now have positioned

00:49:14.280 themselves to to appeal to urban voters in uh vancouver or calgary or the gta or the

00:49:26.440 the greater halifax area or quebec like it's a this is a real problem and i go back to my earlier

00:49:32.840 point they gotta focus on things like pocketbook issues on things like jobs the economy your

00:49:39.400 savings your retirement on you know growing the economy getting caught up in this this sort of

00:49:46.680 war that's been in the headline of papers now going on two months about derrick sloan and

00:49:53.160 campaign life coalition and all of this stuff is not doing the party yeah but david is suggesting

00:49:59.720 that that's sloan's fault and so now now that sloan is gone that problem i guess has been 0.90

00:50:04.680 resolved is that correct but i do want to ask it's not resolved okay what we're seeing happening

00:50:11.160 is that again this is not me saying this like we're hearing from journalists that are that are

00:50:16.520 interviewing delegates for the upcoming convention where they want to talk about abortion at the

00:50:22.680 upcoming convention but what do you do i mean are you okay so are your people david are they being

00:50:29.880 purged from the membership role ahead of this policy convention as we've heard from people

00:50:36.520 like derek sloan and from the national campaign for life are they being booted off the roles in

00:50:42.840 order to prevent a kind of ganging up on erin or tool at that convention i'll say this right now

00:50:50.280 the last person who tried to purge my people from from convention was uh andrew sheer we all know

00:50:56.520 what happened to him yeah he won well he did lose but he won the popular vote he still got 34 and

00:51:03.720 right now that's four percent more than probably six percent more than uh than aaron is polling so

00:51:11.000 i i think listen i think aaron would be hard pressed to match the same number of seats with

00:51:17.480 all due respect to your prediction earlier David okay well maybe I am but

00:51:22.100 right now I would say if there was an election today the Liberals would be

00:51:26.260 pretty darn close to a majority territory what do you think Cory well

00:51:31.460 they're walking on that edge so it's a swing thing it's pretty important I

00:51:35.580 mean it's been almost a bad for Canadians but a gift for Trudeau or a

00:51:40.220 tool that the vaccine rollout has really harmed Trudeau because it seems nothing

00:51:45.320 else need to be chipping away at his support um and they were clearly getting ready to pull the

00:51:50.360 pin pretty quickly here and i just as this is pure speculation on my part but i mean infections i

00:51:56.760 feel and everything the pandemic is really going to wind down with a lot of seasonal basis plus

00:52:00.840 vaccinations and so on and that's going to be an ideal time for a governing party to say okay this

00:52:06.040 is the time to hit the polls people are feeling better they're feeling relieved so it's now we're

00:52:11.720 at a point where it doesn't look like it might be a majority for trudeau but that can certainly

00:52:15.320 change quickly so it's uh we're getting into campaign mode and we can't keep uh waiting on

00:52:21.720 a plan though i mean we really got to start turning that momentum around i mean it's almost

00:52:26.200 go ahead clinton yeah one of the things i want to throw in so during this global medical pandemic

00:52:31.640 that everyone has seen this was a real opportunity for the conservatives to actually gain some

00:52:37.480 support. And what I've argued for some time now is one of the reasons that Aaron O'Toole

00:52:43.940 has performed poorly in the polls, and I'm not blaming him for this, by the way,

00:52:49.220 is that there's a large segment of the Conservative Party base that considers COVID to be,

00:52:58.100 quote unquote, just the flu. And then if you start talking about things like a COVID vaccine,

00:53:04.400 then there's another segment of the of the party base that doesn't even believe in vaccines

00:53:09.800 and so for Aaron O'Toole he realizes that he sees where the base of the party is and he knows that

00:53:17.480 if he talks about COVID and vaccines and things like that that he's going to turn off a large

00:53:24.060 number of these people who give money to the party who do the the door knocking and and do the

00:53:29.720 campaigning and all of that kind of stuff so he can't he's because of the the base he's not able

00:53:37.040 to appeal to a larger segment of the public okay if i heard david correctly alienating those people

00:53:46.160 or at least some of those people is part of the strategy now maybe i'm wrong is this is that kind

00:53:51.000 of strategy i don't know the strategy this is all perspective right okay yeah um but if i was doing

00:53:58.140 it if i was writing this strategy that is exactly what i would be doing so you would okay walk me

00:54:05.260 through this you would be deliberately upsetting members of the base who clinton just identified

00:54:12.220 some of those anti-vaccine people i don't want those those people are not going to get us to

00:54:19.580 okay look what is what is the purpose of a political party to win yes you cannot win

00:54:25.260 if your base is literally crazy people so you're going to get rid of the base are you you're

00:54:31.340 alienating the base on the base is doing fine the conservative party is hitting record fundraising

00:54:36.700 numbers right now but you're saying that some of those people are actually bad for your prospects

00:54:43.340 of getting elected am i right members of the base yeah did i hear you correct so some members of the

00:54:48.300 base are actually preventing the conservative party from moving forward and winning the election

00:54:53.020 do i hear you correct okay so there's we've nailed it down we've nailed it down cory uh the problem

00:54:59.500 is you guys is some of these people some of these people who are stock believers in the conservative

00:55:05.900 party in the past um have attitudes that are upsetting those in the major centers who

00:55:14.060 traditionally vote liberal and they don't want to be associated with you so the idea is to get rid

00:55:18.220 of you so therefore to open in order to open the door for more people who would otherwise vote 1.00

00:55:23.260 liberal you have to get rid of the riffraff and that that's why you got to go so that that's uh 1.00

00:55:28.860 i believe that's the direction that david is pointing yeah i don't know i don't know where 0.91

00:55:35.500 to argue with this okay if that's the way to grow go for it all right what do you what do you think

00:55:41.580 clinton is that a strategy that might work you deliberately get rid of the riffraff quote unquote

00:55:47.180 And, you know, I don't I don't consider those people riffraff, but it seems that if you that there's a certain mindset that suggests that if you get rid of those people, that it would open the door and be more welcoming to those centrists, liberal voters, some of whom are ticked off with with with Justin Trudeau and are looking elsewhere to go. 0.84

00:56:09.320 but they look at the conservatives and go, I don't want to be associated with that bunch over there, 0.84

00:56:13.500 you know, those SOCONs. And I don't want to be associated with people who don't believe in 0.91

00:56:16.840 vaccines. I don't want to be associated with people who think COVID is a hoax, you know,

00:56:21.160 so why would I vote conservative? So to answer your point, instead of saying get rid of riffraff, 1.00

00:56:28.460 the solution is for the leader to take on the vaccine discussion and to embrace it and make 0.99

00:56:38.600 his issue that is the solution so that people in other parts of the country even people in the

00:56:45.400 west that live in the prairies who live in calgary and edmonton people who live in towns that are in

00:56:50.440 favor of vaccinations so they feel comfortable with the leader but if the leader is afraid to

00:56:56.200 even acknowledge why a vaccine program is important and why it's important for our

00:57:03.400 health and for our economy and all of these things then the public is left with the perception

00:57:10.440 unfortunately that the sort of the anti-vaxxers the you know it's the the uh covid is a they

00:57:21.080 call it a plannedemic right that's the term that these guys use right so it didn't hurt that the

00:57:27.320 prime minister himself came out and said that this is an opportunity to force a an economic reset i

00:57:32.920 I mean, that fed into a lot of the conspiracy theories.

00:57:35.560 But to your point, there's a lot of those liberal voters that aren't really happy with where Trudeau is going.

00:57:42.980 And so they're trying to find another home, we think.

00:57:47.460 But the problem is, is if the conservatives don't, if the leadership of the conservative party doesn't say, look, we believe in vaccinations.

00:57:56.940 we believe that COVID is a real global medical pandemic that we need to deal with in order to

00:58:03.760 get our economy humming and rolling again. If they're not prepared to do that, then they're

00:58:09.320 not going to get those mainstream votes. And Aaron O'Toole just shook up his communications

00:58:14.800 team not that long ago. So is that what needs to happen here, David Parker? I mean, Aaron needs to

00:58:20.440 come out and say, all right, here's where we stand as a party. We believe that this is not a

00:58:26.380 folks that it's a it's a real the kovat 19 is a is a real virus we believe in vaccines and those

00:58:32.700 that segment of the party that uh thinks otherwise well we don't uh we're not gonna have anything to

00:58:38.240 do with them is that what he needs to do clinton and i are in fundamental agreement on pretty much

00:58:43.380 everything that he just said but but it's more than that right it's the conservatives don't

00:58:48.300 want to lose either like this attitude that that the the socans will just leave and they'd rather 0.94

00:58:53.760 lose than see the Conservatives win is completely ridiculous. Yeah, Corey Morgan and people like

00:59:00.920 Corey. And I like Corey. Like, Corey and I have literally talked many times. I like him. But

00:59:06.960 that attitude is not conducive to victory. I'll tell you where that might be mistaken.

00:59:18.020 The people who come out and say, you know what, we decided that Lisa Wright would be defeated.

00:59:24.320 And who's the we? The SOCONs and her riding.

00:59:28.440 No, it was the Muslims. It was the Pakistani Muslims in Milton.

00:59:31.040 Not according to the national campaign line. 0.80

00:59:34.460 I'm literally managing the campaign in Milton for the Conservatives right now.

00:59:37.240 I know that data way better than you.

00:59:40.460 Well, according to the SOCONs, they stayed home, but did not support Lisa.

00:59:44.580 So they came out and said, you know what?

00:59:46.300 We could have put Lisa Wright over the hump

00:59:49.480 and we decided not to support her.

00:59:52.680 False.

00:59:53.620 Okay, that's false.

00:59:54.700 There you go, Corey.

00:59:56.420 Where are we going from here?

00:59:58.140 I'm not sure.

00:59:59.460 I mean, I'm one of the ones that I've been pretty open.

01:00:02.860 I believe in vaccines.

01:00:04.560 I've never denied that the pandemic is real

01:00:06.980 and that it needs to be addressed and things such as that.

01:00:09.780 But again, at the same time, I want to see some conservatism.

01:00:13.300 conservatism my issues have been more on the shelving of polio my concerns have

01:00:17.360 been on this very aggressive climate plan that sounds like something the

01:00:21.060 left liberals may have drafted without having the blanks filled in on how he's

01:00:24.520 gonna get to it but again when I show distress with the party I'm told bye bye

01:00:28.420 we don't need you so okay carry on so is that what's going on here so people

01:00:33.540 like you're being oh there you go David Parker is saying goodbye yeah they say

01:00:39.160 you as a detriment yes so he's the problem cory morgan and people like him who think like him or

01:00:48.520 they are the problem they are the the uh impediment to keeping uh to victory is for as far as aaron

01:00:56.100 or tool and his team is concerned is that right david i i don't speak for aaron or tool or his

01:01:00.500 team okay what do you think i'm asking your opinion someone like cory is the reason that

01:01:05.740 the conservatives lose wow okay is that is that true clinton no i i don't i don't think so i mean

01:01:11.940 cory is is pointing out that he's in favor of a of a message that embraces like the the health

01:01:20.320 and the science and things like that around covid but he's but he's also pointing out that he wants

01:01:26.180 a little more uh free enterprise i guess is maybe the best way to describe it on some of these other

01:01:32.260 issues. And look, I've always argued that conservative governments, whether they're

01:01:38.240 federal or provincial, the ones that have always been elected in our lifetimes have

01:01:43.420 been the ones that have focused on free enterprise and not getting involved in those morality wars.

01:01:51.780 There's also the, yeah, or it's Brian Mulroney or, you know, Ralph Klein in Alberta or Mike

01:02:00.060 yeah what about the business and the free enterprise okay what about the

01:02:06.180 deplorables though David who spend money and give money but you're talking about

01:02:09.600 yeah but isn't that largely due to the very people that you think are the the

01:02:17.520 problem if they if they're all feeling like Cory's and they wouldn't be

01:02:20.940 donating well I would suggest you that a lot of people who are donating our

01:02:26.040 long-time party members some of whom may not particularly like whether mark mark yeah just a

01:02:32.120 frank question how many uh how many elections canada returns for uh for donations have you

01:02:39.800 gone through in your life oh i've i've been a journalist or a media so have you analyzed the

01:02:45.960 data and said hey the conservative party is now 15 above their fundraising from last year and

01:02:53.880 and they're probably projected to be 20 percent above it and all right whose people are numbers

01:02:59.400 who's giving the money who is donating is it people uh it's all people in alberta saskatchewan

01:03:05.960 alberta it's the same people but i thought those were the deplorables though david i thought those

01:03:09.880 were the people you want to get rid of i mean the people that you say you don't need you say

01:03:14.760 we need to get rid of the 15 percent of burtons that is that is a mistake you told me that they

01:03:21.000 are the problem that the people who i did not say that i said that people like cory who are going 0.75

01:03:26.760 around saying that aaron is defaming them or or or is is separating himself from them is actually

01:03:33.480 lying even about how they feel about aaron all right let's let's let's okay let's go around one

01:03:42.520 more time they're already donating more after sloan left donations went up okay there you go

01:03:50.360 donation votes and uh that's what we gotta look at in the end you could quadruple your donations

01:03:56.840 if you get trudeau majority it doesn't matter you know where you don't get a majority you know where

01:04:04.760 this is the problem that i alluded to earlier is that corey just hit it he goes you know what's

01:04:09.560 more important you're right cory what's more important than donations it's votes listen the

01:04:14.360 conservatives outstrip the liberals in fundraising in 2019 but they got their butts kicked no they

01:04:20.600 actually got more votes so actually votes don't matter listen everybody knows that the majority

01:04:27.320 of them and this is not a criticism where do the votes matter clinton where do they matter

01:04:30.680 not in alberta pardon me not in alberta you're missing the point no i'm literally saying the

01:04:40.220 point well yeah the alberta votes frankly i mean if the conservative party could take

01:04:49.660 you know 50 000 alberta votes and move them to the gta into the 905 belt they would do that in a

01:04:56.160 heartbeat i mean they would do that tomorrow uh maybe that's what they're doing mark okay so

01:05:02.120 that's the plan that's the that's the 5g that's the 5d chess that uh a game that aaron o'toole

01:05:09.300 is playing right now cory let's go right let's go around one more time final comments has uh

01:05:15.340 aaron o'toole and the conservative party abandoned conservatives in canada yay or nay

01:05:19.300 Corey. Sure, I'll just start. I mean, again, I'm a classical liberal. You know, the social issues were never of concern for me. Again, I'm not up on, you know, saying vaccines don't work and all those things. But again, I guess due to being a small government Albertan, I'm still of the ones that they wave bye bye to. So yeah, I definitely feel abandoned. And as you said, you can sacrifice those Alberta votes. Okay, but I don't see a formula necessarily means they will translate to

01:05:49.280 central Canadian votes. It might just be a net loss. We aren't seeing the gains anywhere yet.

01:05:53.700 So this hidden strategy. Well, that is a problem because, you know, it's, if you believe in that

01:05:59.820 net, well, if you believe in that zero sum game argument, then by all rights, the more, more

01:06:06.780 people should be leaning conservative, say in the 905 belt where I'm in Mississauga and Brampton

01:06:11.380 and Vaughn and all these other areas in the 905 belt. But so far that's not really happening.

01:06:16.680 I'll let you finish in a second there, Parker.

01:06:19.940 Clinton, over to you. 0.86

01:06:21.900 Look, the conservatives need to appeal to mainstream Canada.

01:06:25.900 And you can do that by talking about free enterprise, by talking about fiscal conservatism,

01:06:31.560 by talking about pocketbook issues and, you know, science, innovation, technology, all

01:06:38.400 of that kind of stuff.

01:06:39.640 You don't need to get into this argument about morality.

01:06:42.760 And I mean, to David's point earlier about fundraising, I mean, at the end of the day, fundraising means nothing.

01:06:49.080 It's votes is what matters.

01:06:51.620 And because we've seen, look, the Conservatives outfunded the Liberals in 2015.

01:06:57.120 They outfunded, the Conservatives outfunded the Liberals in 2019.

01:07:01.860 They still lost.

01:07:03.000 So what's important is appealing to mainstream Canada.

01:07:06.300 of not not worrying about how much money can we get in order to keep all kinds of office people

01:07:12.560 employed and big fancy staffs and all the rest of this stuff focus on where canadians are and

01:07:19.500 they might reward you with some votes all right david parker all right well i'll just say this

01:07:26.060 um there's only one man who cares more about this than anyone on this panel and his name is erin 0.99

01:07:32.680 O'Toole and if we all think that Aaron O'Toole just sitting around with his thumb up his ass 0.96

01:07:37.920 trying to figure out whether or not he's going to be able to win then you seriously underestimate 0.92

01:07:42.740 Aaron O'Toole okay Aaron O'Toole was seriously underestimated when he ran the first time and

01:07:50.240 he lost and you know what he learned from that he learned how to win and then he won and he won

01:07:55.800 against all odds and my money is that nobody here is right on erno tool and that he can be a winner

01:08:05.480 will he be a winner the beautiful thing about politics and stock markets is we're always going

01:08:11.880 to know one of us is going to be right and three of us is going to be wrong all right thank you

01:08:18.040 gentlemen i do appreciate that there have been a lot of comments i'm sorry we didn't discuss any

01:08:24.260 of them because a lot of them have been uh well frankly have been leaning in favor of the idea

01:08:29.540 that aaron is not a conservative but maybe those are a lot of the people that you as you mentioned

01:08:36.260 uh david parker that those people don't matter that much that the people who really matter are

01:08:41.380 the ones that they need to bring bring aboard come election time in the g in the 905 belt and

01:08:47.300 if you have to sacrifice one group in order to attract another thing you do it i think that's

01:08:51.380 your your argument is that correct just your name okay that's your argument you got to get rid of

01:08:56.340 those people in order to bring in get rid of them not get rid of them i don't i i would like everyone

01:09:01.060 to go conservative if cory decided to come and we can work on a campaign together cory and i would

01:09:06.100 be great campaigners together but the truth of the matter is if cory's decided that his you know hill

01:09:11.860 to die on is pierre pauliev not being the finance critic but instead being the guy who's leading the

01:09:17.940 jobs which is the entire messaging of the campaign well then corey can decide that but the truth of

01:09:23.140 the matter is i don't need 60 in alberta i need yeah well right now you got 41 and it's falling

01:09:31.140 so you know maybe the day will come where people say oh you know what maybe we went too far

01:09:35.700 we alienated so many don't forget what happened with the uh with the reform party right maybe

01:09:41.220 there's a time that the pc party yeah there was the pc party that maybe had the same idea well we

01:09:47.700 we don't need those. We know those Albertans will vote for us anyway. And we all know what

01:09:52.840 happened in 1993. They were obliterated. They were down to two seats. Anyway, guys, thank you

01:09:57.900 so much. Really appreciate this. And, you know, we had a very spirited discussion, which I'm

01:10:02.500 grateful. You know, the worst thing to do is when you get people who all think the same way and it's

01:10:06.740 just, you know, an echo chamber. And that certainly hasn't been the case. So I want to thank all of

01:10:11.420 the people who have tuned in to this transmission on the Western Standard Online. I want to thank

01:10:16.480 all those who made comments and i will have a look at those comments we're all welcome to do that

01:10:22.160 guys cory morgan clinton devoe david parker thank you so much really appreciate appreciate your time

01:10:28.400 and i appreciate your comments today and most of all i thank you out there who've tuned in

01:10:33.520 uh that's it for uh for us that's it for me mark petroni check out my show by the way on saga 960

01:10:39.040 a.m between 9 a.m eastern and 11 a.m eastern as well so we talk about

01:10:45.920 with these very similar issues time and time again so

01:10:49.360 have a great evening we'll see you next time bye bye for now

Western Standard - March 10, 2021

Is Erin O'Toole abandoning conservatives？

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