Western Standard - LIVE： Conservative Leadership Vote

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00:12:30.000 Good evening, welcome to a special edition of The Pipeline, a special broadcast for

00:12:59.100 the Western Standard, I'm Western Standard publisher, Derek Fildebrandt, joining you

00:13:04.020 this evening as we cover the Federal Conservative Party of Canada's leadership election vote.

00:13:10.980 Really looking forward to having everyone with us this evening. This is a really special

00:13:17.480 broadcast. We're going to introduce the whole team here right off the bat. Joining me in studio

00:13:24.240 today, as always, is Western Standard News Editor Dave Naylor, who's at the ready. How

00:13:28.820 you doing, Dave? I'm ready to go. Also joining us is Western Standard opinion editor, Nigel

00:13:34.060 Hannaford, someone who's been through many of these things. How are you? I'm well. Thanks very

00:13:38.580 much. Good afternoon. Okay. And we've also got joining us from our parliamentary bureau in

00:13:45.160 Ottawa, Western Standard parliamentary bureau chief, Matthew Horwood. How are you, Matthew?

00:13:51.020 I'm doing good. Good to be here. We'll just begin right away with Matthew, maybe. Matthew,

00:13:57.420 what's going on at the convention center i think the shaw convention center in ottawa

00:14:03.340 so right now we have people streaming into the event people are hanging out in the lobby getting

00:14:08.460 refreshments but the event is set to begin soon so people are starting to take their seats and

00:14:13.820 get prepared uh it's going to be a little bit subdued because of the passing of the queen

00:14:18.860 uh so there's going to be a lot more black attire we're not going to have confetti cannons going off 0.58

00:14:23.740 and there's going to be a moment of silence beforehand.

00:14:26.840 But, yeah, we're just about to get underway, and things are looking to heat up.

00:14:30.180 As you can see, the stage behind me here, within a couple hours,

00:14:32.540 we will know who is the next leader of the Conservative Party.

00:14:37.520 What's the feeling in the room? What are people expecting?

00:14:43.660 The feeling in the room is a little bit of, I'd say,

00:14:47.780 people are waiting to see what's going to happen.

00:14:50.040 They want to see the results.

00:14:51.380 I've seen a lot of Pierre Polyev signs out in the lobby, but I have not seen any for Jean Charest or Leslie Lewis.

00:14:57.960 That gives you an idea of what the support levels are for the frontrunner at this point.

00:15:02.560 But people are just ready to see who's going to be the leader.

00:15:05.080 And we're hoping that we're not going to have the delays that we had back in 2021 when it took another full day to figure out who was the winner.

00:15:21.380 Sorry, Derek, I think I lost you there.

00:15:45.120 all right derek uh how to fill dead air over uh over eight hours uh we finally just sort of shut

00:15:54.560 it down for a couple hours went for dinner came back and uh you know i will uh remind everybody

00:15:59.840 that uh we were the first news organization in canada to break the fact that uh who the new

00:16:05.840 leader was uh so that's uh that's i mean it was exciting that night i don't know whether tonight

00:16:11.920 is going to be as exciting or if it's going to be a coronation of Pierre Polyev.

00:16:17.940 But yeah, they have taken steps. Everything's digitized. They've been opening the ballots

00:16:22.680 for more than a week. And when they all go into the system, it should take less than

00:16:27.860 15 minutes, apparently. So knock on fake plastic goes as planned.

00:16:36.020 Well, I think this is expected to be a little less of a nail biter.

00:16:41.920 you know, whenever there's election coverage, the media will brag it out and pretend there

00:16:47.120 is more drama than it is because you've got to keep your ratings up. You've got to keep

00:16:50.980 people glued. And we want people to be watching, but we're going to try and do our viewers

00:16:55.140 a bit more of a service here and lay it out. I think we're all predicting that this is

00:17:01.100 less of a leadership announcement than a Pierre-Poliver unveiling. Nigel.

00:17:06.780 That's where the smart money is on Pierre Pollard.

00:17:10.220 And I know that's a Western perspective.

00:17:12.540 It may not be quite so strong in the East.

00:17:14.900 We're going to see, but that's what we expect.

00:17:19.020 The interesting thing, of course, is going to be, if it isn't,

00:17:22.720 then who is everybody's number two choice?

00:17:26.840 Well, I'm not sure we'll actually get to see many number two choices

00:17:29.480 if it's a single ballot.

00:17:31.960 You know, we were talking about this just Wednesday on the pipeline.

00:17:35.920 I think Leslyn Lewis and maybe to an extent Roman Babber are number two choices of people, but that doesn't mean they'll come in second.

00:17:44.880 It only works if it goes through a lot of ranked ballots and then they continue to move up at the points system.

00:17:49.320 As you said, that's unlikely.

00:17:50.980 Yeah.

00:17:51.880 Well, I'm going to get us all on the record officially here.

00:17:56.860 We've got, what I've got here is the office pool for the Calgary Bureau.

00:18:02.340 So the pool here, we've got employees and some folks who are no longer with us.

00:18:06.940 But we're going to put everyone on the record because even former employees, if they win the pool, they still get the prize.

00:18:13.300 That being said, since they're not here, if they lose, they can't really collect from them.

00:18:18.860 And I think it was just the one former employee who picked Jean Charest.

00:18:23.080 Yeah.

00:18:23.560 So, you know what, we'll just say former employee number one, former employee number two.

00:18:26.920 We don't want to embarrass them, but I think the one that's most off is a former person who was here who thought Jean Charest is going to win.

00:18:35.760 Questionable.

00:18:37.040 Highly questionable.

00:18:38.620 But what we did is we went through ranking.

00:18:41.480 So, first off, if you don't pick the right winner, the rules from the office pool here, it's – so it's everyone has to buy this guy.

00:18:49.880 The winner is – well, everyone buys a six-pack for them.

00:18:52.680 So it's a lot of beer.

00:18:54.060 If Oktoberfest is coming up, so I'm really open to win here.

00:18:58.840 You got to get all the rankings right.

00:19:00.500 And if you get the rankings right, then it goes to predicting the first ballot winner's percentage.

00:19:07.300 And we're doing percentage not in vote, but in points.

00:19:09.660 And there's a big distinction.

00:19:11.500 Actually, we'll talk about the point system in a bit here because it can be a bit convoluted.

00:19:18.320 So we'll go through.

00:19:19.020 So I was the first to put down.

00:19:21.320 The default, I'm just going to say default in general,

00:19:24.380 because a lot of people pick the same order.

00:19:27.040 I started with Pierre Paulver first, Jean Charest second, Leslyn Lewis third.

00:19:31.780 I had Patrick Brown in fourth, Roman Baber in fifth.

00:19:35.900 Now, everyone's Patrick Brown picks have been taken out,

00:19:39.260 because he was disqualified, so we're just taking him out.

00:19:42.480 That bumps up.

00:19:45.900 Much to my embarrassment, I forgot to put Scott Atchison on the list.

00:19:50.480 So, in general, I think that the common consensus, the default is that he'll probably be the first to drop off if there was multiple ballots.

00:19:58.700 Probably won't be.

00:19:59.980 But that'd be Scott Atchison in last place.

00:20:03.820 And I had Pierre Polyev at 60%.

00:20:06.420 Let's see, I got his name right.

00:20:07.480 Polyev.

00:20:09.040 You're learning after all these months.

00:20:10.600 Yeah.

00:20:11.480 It'll be hit and miss tonight.

00:20:13.280 And I predicted that on March 9th.

00:20:15.080 On March 9th, Dave predicted not actually the conventional.

00:20:22.480 You had Pierre Polyev in first, Lesley and Lewis in second, Sheree in third, then Baber and Atchison.

00:20:30.540 Can I change my vote?

00:20:32.600 Well, it will cost you another six-pack to update your vote.

00:20:35.200 That was the rules.

00:20:35.720 You can always add more, but you have to ante up again.

00:20:39.500 But I think Sheree is going to finish ahead of Lewis. 0.90

00:20:42.040 Not anymore.

00:20:42.600 like well like on paper you have lewis that's what you're committed to unless you want to add

00:20:48.620 another six pack to the to the pot no you gave me enough for beer no okay and you had poly of

00:20:54.580 at 59 the rules are even if he gets 59 still won't win because he didn't get the ranking right

00:21:00.140 uh we had cory morgan who will also be joining us uh some point this evening he went the

00:21:06.660 conventional, Polyev, then Sheree, then Lewis, et cetera, at 64%. James Finkbeiner, you guys don't

00:21:13.820 see him very much because he's more on the back end of the business, but he's our vice president

00:21:20.820 of operations. He had Polyev first, Leslie Lewis second, then Sheree, then Babber, then Atchison,

00:21:29.240 but Polyev winning on 70% on the first ballot. I think if it was done by Rob Vogts, he'd be maybe

00:21:35.580 70%, but on the point system, which we're going to get into, I think that's probably too high.

00:21:41.900 One reporter had the conventional ranking mostly, except Lewis in last place, and Polly with only

00:21:49.080 50% on first ballot. I don't think so. Another reporter we had had Jean Charest. First ballot

00:21:56.940 win with 53%. Go home, you're drunk. Not happening. New reporter with us. Let's just studio here.

00:22:08.220 Let's generally have the camera on the whole studio. Not just me. Everyone wants to see the

00:22:12.220 studio, not just me. Young new reporter with us, Jonathan Bradley. Now his vote came in later

00:22:20.000 because he's a newer reporter. So he got to put his votes down here. His was only on July 15th.

00:22:25.000 we all bet, you and I bet, on March 9th. But Jonathan Bradley had Pierre Polyev in first,

00:22:31.820 but on first ballot with only 47% of the vote. He has since attempted to recant, but he's on paper

00:22:37.760 here. And this is what counts when it comes to the beer money. So Jonathan has Polyver winning,

00:22:44.360 coming in first, but only 47% on first ballot, followed by the conventional. Nigel, you had,

00:22:51.020 And, well, somewhat unconventional.

00:22:54.580 You had Polyev winning 56% on first ballot,

00:22:57.820 but second place would be Lesley Lewis, followed by Charest.

00:23:01.220 Well, Lesley Lewis has got a huge following.

00:23:03.560 Let's not kid ourselves.

00:23:06.000 It's not usually a compliment to be called everybody's second choice,

00:23:09.860 but the way these ranked ballots work, it can be very helpful.

00:23:14.760 It would not surprise me to see Lesley Lewis coming in in second place.

00:23:20.360 It would surprise me a lot

00:23:21.740 if it was anybody other than Pierre Polyak, however.

00:23:25.340 Yeah.

00:23:26.640 Okay, well, we're on the record

00:23:28.280 and we're going to be held accountable tonight.

00:23:30.680 We have our own ranked ballot system.

00:23:32.640 Yeah.

00:23:32.940 There it is.

00:23:33.360 You know, based on this,

00:23:34.220 actually, I'm feeling pretty good.

00:23:36.520 I think Corey is actually my closest rival

00:23:38.540 to beat me based on the votes.

00:23:41.320 You can change your votes,

00:23:42.300 but it costs you another six-pack to update the pot.

00:23:44.880 I am not changing.

00:23:46.840 Rocksteady.

00:23:47.720 Rocksteady?

00:23:48.360 You bet.

00:23:48.800 So, Leslie Lewis in second?

00:23:50.800 Yes.

00:23:51.440 Okay.

00:23:52.260 Who knows?

00:23:52.880 Actually, she might get second in votes, but again, not in points.

00:23:55.040 Because last time, according to some, she was either second or possibly first in votes.

00:24:01.920 But because her votes were concentrated in the West, she didn't make the final ballot.

00:24:06.360 She actually could have won because she had tremendous.

00:24:08.860 She actually won the four Western provinces, I believe.

00:24:12.380 Really strong in Alberta, really strong in Saskatchewan.

00:24:14.640 but it was just too much. It was a lot of votes but concentrated and under the

00:24:18.420 point system it diluted it. That's the only reason why I have Mr. Poitier down

00:24:22.320 at 54% or 59 or whatever it was I put there because that point system... You got

00:24:27.600 them on 56. 56, right. Sorry I didn't mean to interrupt. As you know most

00:24:32.940 about it, why don't you explain the point system so people kind of know what

00:24:37.740 we're talking about. Let's get to this point system. It's a bit convoluted but

00:24:43.740 not as convoluted as people think. So there is what, 330 some constituencies in the country?

00:24:50.620 338 actually. 338. So that means, I suppose, that means there are 33,800 points available. So the way

00:25:04.060 this works is there are 338 constituencies in the country and each constituency has a hundred

00:25:11.500 points, and that's based on the percentage in each constituency. So if in, let's say,

00:25:18.300 Calgary Nose Hill, where Michel Rempel is the MP here, Pierre Polyev has 55% of the vote,

00:25:25.280 well, then he gets 55 points. And then Jean Charest has 15% of the vote, he gets 15 points.

00:25:33.200 Scott Atchison has 2% of the vote, two points, etc. And it's a point system. That means that

00:25:38.640 each constituency is effectively weighted equally across the country regardless of how many voters

00:25:44.800 are in it so calgary nose hill that we're talking about this is a calgary constituency with a pretty

00:25:50.720 organized mp it's going to have several thousand members in it it's going to have a lot of people

00:25:56.560 in it voting uh so let's say for sake of math it's got 4 000 conservative members voting uh

00:26:05.200 it still only counts for 100 points and then we'll go to uh you know let's say the labrador

00:26:10.560 constituency it might have 70 people voting in but actually in its case they have modified the

00:26:18.320 rules if you don't have 100 people voting then it actually only each vote counts as one percentage

00:26:23.920 point so if you have a constituency with 150 people voting in it each vote uh counts almost

00:26:31.520 as a percentage point. If you had, say, 70, then it comes down a little bit. It's a minor,

00:26:36.720 minor penalty to come in. And that goes back to some of the founding bargains that created

00:26:42.000 the Conservative Party of Canada out of the Canadian Alliance and the Reform Party.

00:26:47.920 Nigel, was that a fair summation of how this system works?

00:26:50.960 Well, I think you were going to just go on and say that, therefore, you've got

00:26:54.320 some very small riding associations can still push the final vote towards somebody who's

00:27:01.200 Many, many, many more votes from the general members.

00:27:07.000 Production, I'm told that the stream has started for the convention.

00:27:12.060 I think we're, maybe let's go to the floor of the convention and see what's happening here.

00:27:22.380 Well, we're going to need audio for that to work.

00:27:24.320 okay production you're gonna have to let us know i think they're singing oh canada or god save the

00:27:33.640 queen looks like maybe god save the king a god save the king yeah um still not used to that

00:27:41.000 it'll take a while production we're going to need sound coming from that convention otherwise

00:27:46.880 there's not much happening there okay well we're gonna keep uh thank you please remain standing

00:27:58.640 and i would like i can hear nothing in my ears rosemary siemens and eli bennett they've been

00:28:04.480 playing music for us earlier they are going to do an instrumental rendition of god save the king

00:28:16.880 protect the king by rose mary siemens and ellie bennett

00:28:46.880 Thank you.

00:29:16.880 Thank you.

00:29:46.880 Thank you.

00:30:16.880 so

00:30:46.880 Thank you.

00:31:16.880 Thank you.

00:31:46.880 What a royal send-off to Her Majesty, that was fantastic.

00:32:13.080 it. The Queen was named Queen on February 6, 1952. I was born July 1, 1952, and so I've

00:32:22.660 been thrilled that we've celebrated all our special anniversaries together. And I was

00:32:27.140 so sad to hear the news, but what a wonderful, wonderful Queen she has been to us. Please

00:32:32.480 remain standing and join our former Member of Parliament and the CPC Leadership Election

00:32:39.080 organizing committee that valerie and i both sat on a leoc member former mp nelly shin for the

00:32:46.120 singing of o canada veille rester debout et accueillir nemmy shin deputy de 2019 a 20-21

00:32:53.400 and members of the organizer committee of the election of the Chief to interpret our national anthem.

00:33:23.400 Oh, Canada, our home and maiden land.

00:33:41.940 True patron love in all of us commend.

00:33:51.860 God keep our land.

00:34:20.720 Glorious and free

00:34:24.920 O Canada

00:34:29.500 We stand on guard

00:34:32.560 For Thee

00:34:36.500 O Canada

00:34:39.600 We stand on guard

00:34:42.920 For Thee

00:34:46.500 Oh, Canada, we stand on guard for thee, for thee.

00:35:12.500 Yes.

00:35:16.500 she wouldn't tell you this but Nelly played the music in the background for her to sing

00:35:28.080 so another hand for Nelly wonderful good evening fellow conservatives and good evening fellow

00:35:40.800 Hello, Canadians. Bonjour, chers amis. 0.98

00:35:47.800 This is a great day and it's been a busy time. Yes, please be seated.

00:35:53.800 On behalf of our Conservative family, we also offer our heartfelt thoughts and prayers to the victims and their families of last weekend's horrific events.

00:36:04.800 We want to let people of Saskatchewan know that we are thinking about you.

00:36:09.800 we thank you so much we also wish to acknowledge that we are gathered here in

00:36:19.400 Ottawa built on unceded Ashinaabe Algonquin territory thank you we're

00:36:25.400 pleased to be joined by our party's vice president and the vice chair of Leoc

00:36:29.060 Valerie Asseline my fellow co-chair and our member yes yes let's give her a hat

00:36:39.800 all right uh so that was kind of introduction opening ceremonies actually joining us now is

00:36:57.960 western standard senior columnist cory morgan glad to have you with us yes glad to be in

00:37:03.080 it's a it's an improvement over the uh the night of the haunted desks and whatnot that we had during

00:37:08.360 the last time we did this when Aaron O'Doul won.

00:37:10.760 Well, so far, but the night's young.

00:37:12.200 So, I mean, we thought we were going to be done

00:37:13.860 in a couple hours the last time

00:37:15.080 we had a conservative race, too, didn't we?

00:37:17.500 You made your career on optimism, haven't you?

00:37:19.880 Oh, boy, I'm not a Catholic,

00:37:22.880 but I'm going to pray to God

00:37:25.740 that we'd never go through that again.

00:37:27.420 So we'll be celebrating a timely release

00:37:30.120 of the results today.

00:37:31.560 You know, that was one of the more beautiful renditions

00:37:33.400 of God Save the Queen that I've heard

00:37:35.500 in the last 10 years.

00:37:37.180 It was extremely well done.

00:37:38.080 extremely i'll be very interested i think they butchered oh canada not just because they did

00:37:41.840 justin trudeau's version of the lyrics i think they butchered oh canada on it but the god save

00:37:46.080 the queen was wonderful you know i will be very interested to see what the government of canada

00:37:50.080 or the other parties do in terms of a tribute to her majesty that's just but this certainly

00:37:54.800 was said exactly the right tone yeah get the meeting off to the right start absolutely um

00:38:01.360 yeah a wonderful tribute to the queen uh we also had up there um i don't know who the other lady 1.00

00:38:07.840 is speaking in French, but I know who Deborah Gray is. Deborah Gray, sometimes called the

00:38:13.040 Iron Lady of the West, was the first Reform MP ever elected in a by-election. That's right,

00:38:18.340 1987, I believe it was. I think it was Beaver River. Beaver River. Was it 87? It was right

00:38:24.240 after the 84, maybe even before 87, because she ran in the 1984 election for Reform, did not win,

00:38:33.180 no one for Reform won, because the party was about a year, maybe less old then. She didn't

00:38:37.740 win that one, but then the MP died even before taking his oath when he was re-elected, triggering

00:38:43.140 a by-election right after, which Jibber Gray won, and that was the first reformer ever

00:38:49.420 elected, and she was kind of the reform party's beachhead for the West in Ottawa all the way

00:38:54.500 until 93.

00:38:55.380 You know, she had quite a tough time at first.

00:38:57.560 They didn't make room for her.

00:38:59.420 The other parties just treated as another Western person of probably somebody who, today

00:39:06.200 we would say they had unacceptable views yeah yeah treated her very much as just some kind of

00:39:11.160 rube uh the pc party at the time did not see it as uh maybe we're maybe we're doing something

00:39:19.400 wrong in the west and we should readjust they just utterly ignored her treated her like like dirt and 0.99

00:39:25.320 uh well we know how that ended for the pcs in 93. okay um just so you know cory uh before you uh

00:39:34.440 joined us in here we we went through we've got everyone on the record written you you placed

00:39:39.880 your bets on the same day as me march 9th you had uh here polyev see i'm continuing to get it right

00:39:48.120 uh first uh you actually had the conventional ranking same as me

00:39:52.200 uh but you had him with first ballot on 64 i was looking high at that time yeah i've got him at 60

00:39:59.080 um i i actually think you're my greatest threat to beating me in this uh i still think i'm gonna

00:40:06.680 be right with 60 but i i can see it getting 64. but as we were talking before you joined us here

00:40:12.680 um i think he's going to beat his percentage in votes his percentage of the vote i think

00:40:19.000 could extend towards 70 plus but points charay is going to be stronger point wise in quebec

00:40:27.080 and probably in the Atlantic provinces as well. So I think, you know, that's going to penalize

00:40:33.240 him. What do you think? Do you think Dick Polliver is going to underperform in points relative to his

00:40:37.900 vote? Yeah, I mean, it won't be as strong. But I think, personally, I still think he's going to

00:40:43.460 have a very definitive win, even with the weighted system and with the point system. And we saw some

00:40:47.740 exciting rallies on every part of the country, wherever he went, he was a rock star. It didn't

00:40:52.980 matter whether it was Toronto or the Maritimes or BC or Alberta. I mean, he's certainly got

00:40:57.600 many more members out here than he does out there, but he campaigned wisely. They spread

00:41:02.140 their support around. You know, the interesting thing, Corey, is that we often say that when he

00:41:05.620 was here in Calgary back in April, there were 5,000 people down at Spruce Meadows. Those were

00:41:10.720 the ones that were in the room. There were 3,000 orbiting in their cars trying to find a parking

00:41:14.820 space. So, I mean, that's the kind of numbers that he's got. But I still say that you two are

00:41:20.280 Both could be coming to my desk, ask him for a beer at the end of it.

00:41:25.160 Well, okay, so the thing is, Nigel had Polyev winning 56% of first ballot, but you had Leslyn Lewis coming in second.

00:41:37.380 The thing is, I think a lot of people who voted for Leslyn Lewis last time, because she was probably the only strong actually conservative candidate,

00:41:44.600 Erin O'Toole was lying about it the whole time, as is now clearly evident in why they're having a race at this moment. 0.99

00:41:53.600 But I think a lot of people who voted for her, a good chunk of them I think are going to go to Polyev because they saw her as the only viable conservative last time.

00:42:02.740 I think she's probably not going to do as strongly as last time.

00:42:05.980 But we'll see.

00:42:08.400 Really, I guess the race here is how big is Polyev's first ballot going to be?

00:42:14.460 everyone agrees it's going to be first ballot. I've been wrong before, but I think we all at

00:42:19.800 least are expecting a first ballot. The real question is the race for second place and how

00:42:23.840 strong is that second? Well, how strong is that second? And also, you know, if Mr. Charest is

00:42:33.020 second, what does that mean? If Lesley Lewis is second, what does that mean? I cannot imagine

00:42:39.620 and how Mr. Charest would stay on in conservative politics

00:42:45.260 if he loses this, but perhaps he will.

00:42:47.620 If he does, where does he serve and how does he serve?

00:42:52.380 Same question, of course, for Leslie Lewis.

00:42:54.760 Well, Jean Charest is not currently an MP,

00:42:58.140 so it's less awkward.

00:42:59.460 He's not expected to be there.

00:43:01.480 There's this weird thing in Canadian politics

00:43:03.660 where we say, well, even if you lose,

00:43:05.500 you need to run anyway and serve under the next leader.

00:43:08.860 I actually think that's pretty misguided.

00:43:11.460 In all honesty, the new leader probably doesn't want them around

00:43:14.960 because they're, you know, rival centers of power.

00:43:19.460 It's a cause of dissent and dissension in the caucus.

00:43:21.960 I would bet that if Jean Charest won, he wouldn't want Pierre Paul over there.

00:43:28.120 Mr. O'Toole didn't, didn't he?

00:43:29.880 Pardon?

00:43:30.360 Mr. O'Toole did not.

00:43:31.960 No, no.

00:43:33.300 Mr. O'Toole also did not want Peter McKay,

00:43:35.460 even though ideologically they were virtually the exact same.

00:43:38.860 He had no choice with Lesley Lewis because she was elected an MP anyway, but he demoted her right to the back benches.

00:43:46.220 He refused to put her in the shadow cabinet, even in a minor shadow cabinet position, put her right into the back benches.

00:43:52.860 Now, I think that some of that was also just her refusal to disclose her vaccination status, which I suppose Mr. O'Toole didn't think was appropriate.

00:44:05.420 But again, another reason he's not there today.

00:44:07.820 Right.

00:44:08.580 Exactly.

00:44:10.840 So, okay, look, Corey, do you think Sheree sticks around, runs as an MP?

00:44:16.140 No, and kind of like you said, I wouldn't hold it against him anyways.

00:44:18.620 I mean, he's put in his time.

00:44:19.980 This is his reach.

00:44:20.940 I mean, he's been a premier to suddenly go back to member of parliament.

00:44:24.360 Not that it's, you know, a dishonorable trade or anything, but it is a point in life.

00:44:28.300 This is his last kick in a leadership.

00:44:30.740 He's been a premier.

00:44:31.600 He's been a cabinet minister.

00:44:32.620 He's been the deputy prime minister for like a month.

00:44:34.640 just going to move on to a statesman status or many things he could still potentially do,

00:44:38.500 but I can't see him sitting in the caucus. And as I said, I don't think, you know,

00:44:42.980 Paulie would really want him back there, especially, I mean, you got to watch it if

00:44:47.060 you've got an up and comer. You think of even going way back, you know, when Turner won and

00:44:50.980 he had Khrushchev still nipping on his heels. And that led to the Liberals ripping themselves up

00:44:55.640 from within because Khrushchev was constantly working to take out Turner. So you want those 1.00

00:45:00.260 rivals, you want to appeal to that segment to the party, but you also don't want that rival sitting 0.97

00:45:04.900 there visibly next to you the whole time. Yeah, there are certain things that could be done with

00:45:09.440 Mr. Charest. Maybe it's a little premature for us to be talking about it, but if he does not win,

00:45:17.100 the next leader of the Conservative Party, if he becomes Prime Minister, would likely want a man

00:45:23.520 with Mr. Charest's linguistic abilities and his experience.

00:45:27.300 And frankly, he's well-liked, very gracious, a gentlemanly sort.

00:45:32.600 Make a wonderful ambassador somewhere.

00:45:34.380 Oh, certainly.

00:45:34.980 He'd be an asset in a number of ways.

00:45:37.140 Even if, you know, were I a member, I don't think he'd fix my ideology

00:45:41.140 to the point where I would vote for Charest,

00:45:43.480 but I still respect him as the political participant he is.

00:45:47.820 He's not a member.

00:45:48.500 absolutely uh maybe we're gonna just tune back in for a moment to the uh conservative convention

00:45:54.980 uh something being said from the floor uh so let's uh let's take it over there jonathan

00:45:59.140 Peace.

00:46:29.140 all right let's uh let's turn off that okay well uh as uh most western standard readers and viewers

00:46:51.300 will know we don't speak french uh now do you speak french actually you worked in ottawa oh

00:46:55.940 not very well. They tried to teach me, but

00:46:57.880 I'm afraid I'm not very good at it. Can you

00:46:59.820 say, God save the Queen in French?

00:47:04.520 Oh...

00:47:05.080 ...

00:47:05.640 ...

00:47:07.640 ...

00:47:08.480 ...

00:47:08.980 No.

00:47:12.340 I can say in German.

00:47:15.180 That's a terrible thing to admit.

00:47:18.580 Anyway.

00:47:19.820 Okay.

00:47:21.420 Well, I have no idea what she was

00:47:23.720 talking... Well, I heard majeste and

00:47:25.580 stuff, so they might still be talking about the Queen. Okay, God save the Queen, but we're mostly

00:47:32.360 here today for the Conservative leadership. So, Sheree, yeah, I don't think any of us really

00:47:37.500 expect him to be hanging around after. Lesley Lewis, though, I think is different. There's not

00:47:43.000 been anywhere near the vitriol between Lewis and Polyev. In fact, if there's been any harsh words

00:47:50.460 in the debates and whatnot between Lewis and Polyev,

00:47:54.460 it's been her accusing Polyev of kind of jumping on the freedom bandwagon

00:47:58.680 late when it became politically convenient, her saying that she

00:48:02.380 stood with people against mandates and forced vaccination

00:48:06.340 and all these things before it was cool. I think that's the

00:48:09.960 extent of what we've seen for any conflict

00:48:14.460 between those two camps. Well, she did do that, no question about it. On the other

00:48:18.480 hand, Mr. Poliava has been very consistent on freedom since before Ms. Lewis was elected as

00:48:26.320 a member of parliament. But anyway, he did not spend a ton of time talking. Before the Freedom

00:48:32.740 Convoy, it was somewhat subdued. It wasn't kind of front of mind for what he'd be speaking about.

00:48:40.200 He was the finance critic, to be fair, you know, not the health critic or anything, but he wasn't

00:48:45.860 talking about mandates that much until the freedom convoy came and that, you know, blew up

00:48:51.300 Ortuval's leadership. But then he really did talk about it. Yes. You know, he's been a freedom man

00:48:55.560 since, you know, years and years ago when I was in Ottawa. So it just wasn't an issue at that time.

00:49:03.880 I think it's a reasonable thing for her to say. If I were running a campaign, I'd say the same

00:49:08.120 thing. But yeah, I think Mr. Polly Everett is going to weather that criticism very easily. 0.99

00:49:13.500 Yeah. And what do you expect? What do you expect of her future if Polyev wins? Do you think she gets kind of a front row seat and comes out of the back benches or does he want to keep her lower profile? I mean, she's a social conservative. She's pro-life. That is considered among polite society in Ottawa to be extremely taboo now.

00:49:35.280 Yes. You know, I think Polyev is probably going to make a good head to head against Trudeau.

00:49:42.040 But there's a there's a dark part of me that would have really just loved to see a debate between Lesley Lewis and Justin Trudeau and him call her a racist, misogynist, white supremacist.

00:49:54.000 Yes, that would have been a fun debate. I don't think it's going to happen.

00:49:56.980 And what I I wouldn't want to second guess what Mr. Polyev is going to do with her, but she can't be ignored.

00:50:04.640 there are just too many people who have put too much energy into supporting her they will be

00:50:11.840 expecting that she will be respected and that she will be listened to and by extension that they

00:50:18.960 will be respected and that they will be listened to and if mr poliev can do that if he can at least

00:50:24.640 ensure that the social conservatives as they have become known i don't think that's a fair

00:50:30.640 appellation but anyway whatever it is if people who think that way only want to expect to be

00:50:38.880 listened to expect to be heard and not told that our opinions are unacceptable that was that we're

00:50:44.560 outside the game so she needs to needs to have an important role well i think there was a strong

00:50:50.320 expectation there last time she uh arguably by popular vote won the last conservative leadership

00:50:57.360 didn't win because of the point system and her Western votes didn't count as much. 1.00

00:51:02.080 There was a strong expectation. She was going to be on the front bench. She was going to be a real

00:51:05.900 member of the team. But O'Toole did not. He put her straight to the back bench, told her to shut 0.99

00:51:11.940 up. You saw very little of a role for her in that caucus, at least as granted by the leader.

00:51:19.840 Corey, what do you expect to see of Lewis, assuming that Polyev takes tonight?

00:51:26.080 Strategically, I mean, for consolidation of his leadership, he's got to give her a prominent role and treat her with respect.

00:51:31.200 I think people with views that I guess, you know, whatever way we might want to label them as socially conservative,

00:51:36.660 are pragmatic enough to know, too, that, look, abortion is not on the table.

00:51:41.200 Gay marriage is not on the table. 0.80

00:51:42.840 It's, you know, same-sex marriage isn't up anymore.

00:51:45.320 They're not there, even if they have personal issues with that.

00:51:49.060 They know the party's not going to embrace those stances.

00:51:51.180 But that portion of the party, if they could be respected and treated well and allowed to carry on their lives, you know, without participating in those things, that keeps the party unified and doesn't have that element ticked off.

00:52:04.160 You know, Corey, there's even an upside there that's available to whoever wins the leadership race.

00:52:11.540 That is that you have a number of people in focus right now who are very reflective of the current societal consensus.

00:52:20.460 You have somebody like Ms. Rempel there, who's made her views very clear.

00:52:25.380 You have somebody like Melissa Lansman, who's a rising star in the Conservative Party. 0.97

00:52:32.200 She would not describe herself as a social conservative in any way.

00:52:37.260 So you have that side of the party represented on the front bench,

00:52:41.120 but you can also have that social conservative side represented on the front bench.

00:52:46.640 Big tent.

00:52:47.780 Is there something wrong with a big tent?

00:52:49.580 I know. And it makes it all the more important to have Lesley up there and not, we're not talking tokenism.

00:52:55.000 I'm not talking the race part. I'm talking the socially conservative part in that it's a respected presence.

00:53:00.680 It's a part of your bench. It's not someone there to just to toss a bone to that segment to the party.

00:53:05.460 I mean, to realize that she's bringing a view of a segment of the party that needs respect.

00:53:10.540 Yeah, you bet.

00:53:12.240 Well, Roman Babber has, okay, for someone exiled,

00:53:17.380 he was exiled from the Ontario PC caucus for opposing Doug Ford's repeated constant lockdowns.

00:53:26.780 And he has taken a very, you know, there's a few ways you can go about,

00:53:31.300 most people just leave politics.

00:53:32.980 Once you're out of your caucus, you're pretty done.

00:53:35.320 Sometimes they cross the floor.

00:53:37.200 They go to another party.

00:53:37.940 uh that was clearly not what uh he wanted to do um he sat as an independent but he's taken a very

00:53:48.820 unconventional way uh sorry we got a little background noise from uh outside our studio here

00:53:54.920 but um he his way back into political graces was to say screw being a provincial member of parliament

00:54:02.480 i'm running for prime minister uh runs for the conservative leadership of the conservative

00:54:06.780 Party of Canada. I don't think he really stands any chance of winning here tonight. I don't think

00:54:11.800 they have any expectation of winning, but he does appear, he has gained some traction. I think a lot

00:54:19.860 of Polyev voters really like him. I think they're going to mark him second. Those second choices,

00:54:25.000 I don't think, are going to get counted because Polyev will just win on first ballot. No matter 0.91

00:54:28.780 what, he'll be on the last ballot. But Babers really made a name for himself as kind of the

00:54:34.520 most strident kind of anti-lockdown, anti-mandate candidate. What do you think the future holds

00:54:43.760 for him here? I think the future looks good for him. He's a decent man. He's not a flake.

00:54:50.960 And this is one of the ways you get yourself forward. You know you're not going to win,

00:54:56.760 but you do a good campaign. You play fair. You don't offend anybody. And at the end of the day,

00:55:03.420 you see how you do and now you are a known name it's worth putting in cabinet to do something

00:55:11.500 or into the shadow cabinet definitely i mean from a political perspective it was a very smart

00:55:16.940 strategy as derek was saying when you've kind of gone on the outs of a provincial caucus it

00:55:20.860 can be the end of a career but he's actually rebranded himself into a federal politician

00:55:24.940 and as nigel said too once people got to see him because i didn't know much about him and

00:55:28.140 So how old are you?

00:55:29.700 13, okay.

00:55:31.160 He's quite rational.

00:55:32.480 He's not a flake, as you said,

00:55:34.560 and he could become a very solid part of the party.

00:55:37.120 And what better way to let them know?

00:55:39.020 You know, you're not some unknown person

00:55:40.300 pursuing a nomination somewhere now.

00:55:41.960 You've been a leadership candidate

00:55:43.040 who was never a contender for the win,

00:55:45.300 but you got some profile

00:55:46.920 and people realize that you're worth respecting.

00:55:49.240 So a very good move on this.

00:55:50.580 Okay, well, we're going to go to Matthew Horwood,

00:55:53.500 our Parliamentary Bureau Chief in Ottawa right now.

00:55:56.100 he's uh standing by with Wyatt Sharp apparently a uh aspiring young reporter uh Matthew can you hear

00:56:03.880 us okay Matthew Matthew apparently cannot hear us hello everybody I have got Wyatt Sharp here

00:56:13.200 Wyatt is a very young reporter how how young are you Wyatt uh 13 13 years old so what uh tends to

00:56:20.080 be with a lot of kids they want to be nowadays playing Fortnite learning TikTok dances what

00:56:24.180 made you want to get into politics at such a young age? I think it's the awareness of some

00:56:28.060 of the issues that are being faced by people on a day-to-day basis. I think being in journalism

00:56:33.400 allows you to tell those stories for people. People benefit from it. And in my case, with my

00:56:39.040 show, The Wyatt Sharpe Show, I've been able to interview lots of different people. So I interviewed

00:56:42.940 Prime Minister Justin Trudeau back in September during the election campaign. I've interviewed

00:56:47.560 NDC leader Jagmeet Singh, several premiers as well from across the country, and lots of

00:56:53.120 international folks, too. I've interviewed the former Prime Minister of Finland, so lots of

00:56:57.040 different people. I do a show every Monday to Friday, and I think, again, it's just being able

00:57:00.380 to tell some of those stories that are quite relevant in the lives of everyday folks.

00:57:04.480 Absolutely. So tell me, Wyatt, how did you get into journalism, and how did you manage to work

00:57:08.940 your way up to interviewing these big-name politicians? What was that like?

00:57:13.860 Again, I think it was just telling those stories, being able to tell those stories,

00:57:17.960 I think is a beneficial thing. And in journalism specifically, being able to chat with people,

00:57:24.660 interview people that are relevant to the everyday news cycle and can speak on issues that people care about.

00:57:29.880 Now, when you interview like Jagmeet Singh or Justin Trudeau, do you have a particular, let's say,

00:57:34.180 style or line of questions that you try to get at them? Certain issues that you really want to focus on?

00:57:40.260 I think it's the issues that are important to everyday folks, the climate change, the environment,

00:57:43.460 the rising cost of living. We have lots of issues as well with, well, again, the cost of living,

00:57:49.400 but many other issues like airport delays have been something that people have been talking about

00:57:54.460 recently, obviously. And then there's also interviews that I do that are on like very

00:57:59.740 relevant topics to kind of a one-day issue. So say someone announces their run for whichever

00:58:05.880 position, a federal position, provincial position, whatever the case may be, I'll

00:58:09.440 request an interview with them. So it's kind of, I joke sometimes I'm my own chase producer and

00:58:14.480 anchor at the same time. So kind of doing everything all at once. And again, interviewing

00:58:18.280 those people that are relevant to the everyday issues. Yeah, you certainly seem to do it all.

00:58:22.680 What are your thoughts on the conservative leadership race and how it's been so far? And

00:58:26.820 do you have any predictions on who might come out as the winner? I think one thing that a lot of

00:58:31.520 people can kind of come to a consensus is that Pierre Paglias, who many people describe as the

00:58:37.060 frontrunner in this race, has not been doing very many media interviews. Many people say that he's

00:58:41.880 doing that on purpose to kind of avoid accountability or avoid the public. So, I mean,

00:58:47.460 there are those criticisms. I think definitely if you want to be the Prime Minister, you definitely

00:58:52.480 need to make yourself available to Canadians, which obviously Mr. Kaliyev has not done as well

00:58:57.440 as some of the other candidates have done. I think when looking at the leadership of the

00:59:01.260 Conservative Party, he's obviously the establishment favourite as to, you know, he has the most caucus

00:59:06.000 endorsements. He has a lot of endorsements from just everyday folks, too, who are members of the

00:59:10.980 Conservative Party. So lots of different people that are definitely relevant. But I mean,

00:59:14.800 Jean Charest has lots of endorsements, as do all of the other candidates. So I think it's a matter

00:59:17.940 of looking at all of them and ultimately seeing who has the most support, which we'll find out

00:59:21.820 later tonight. For sure. Do you have any thoughts on when the next election might happen? How

00:59:26.860 Justin Trudeau versus Pierre Polyev lineup might look like? Do you think Trudeau would have a good

00:59:32.280 shot at getting re-election or do you think pure poly would have it in the bag i think it kind of

00:59:36.400 depends i mean you can't really you can't really give a definitive answer to that until you see

00:59:40.580 you know pure poly of his elected as the party and then you know which type of policy he puts

00:59:44.860 forward many people are questioning whether or not he's going to have to pivot whether or not

00:59:49.120 he's going to flip flop i've actually had a lot of people tell me that they don't believe he can

00:59:52.760 pivot because um he hasn't really like he can't right now be pinpointed to a certain spot on the

00:59:58.040 political spectrum. So it would be hard for his critics to say, well, he pivot or he flip-flopped,

01:00:02.320 like some people said about Aaron O'Toole. Because again, Pierre doesn't really fit on

01:00:08.580 the political spectrum necessarily. So lots of interesting things. And I mean, I think in an

01:00:12.540 election campaign, we'll just have to wait and see. For sure. And I got one more question for

01:00:16.460 you here, Wyatt. What are your thoughts on defunding the CBC, which Pierre Polyevus talked about? Do

01:00:21.340 you think that that is a good move? What are your thoughts on that? Look, Canada's public broadcaster

01:00:26.500 is a very important, you know, company and corporation.

01:00:30.560 I mean, it's something that brings the news

01:00:32.540 to everyday Canadians.

01:00:34.160 You know, I think doing it is something

01:00:36.420 that might seem good as political strategy.

01:00:38.820 I think it ultimately needs to be talked about

01:00:41.000 a little bit more rather than just saying

01:00:42.920 we're going to defund it.

01:00:43.940 I think, again, it's the public broadcaster.

01:00:46.400 It's very important.

01:00:47.760 And without it, many Canadians may not get the news

01:00:50.140 in the same way they currently do.

01:00:51.520 So lots of conversations to be had,

01:00:53.200 and I'm sure people will have those conversations

01:00:54.940 in the days and weeks to come.

01:00:56.500 Absolutely. And just to quickly wrap up, where can we follow you online?

01:00:59.760 Just YouTube, The Wyatt Sharp Show. So if people want to go and check it out,

01:01:03.800 again, I do interviews with people from all political parties on an everyday basis,

01:01:07.180 so they can check that out.

01:01:09.340 There you go. Wyatt Sharp, ladies and gentlemen, back to you in Calgary.

01:01:21.780 Sharp by name, sharp by nature. I was with him right up until he said he didn't want to

01:01:25.740 defend the defense. He was going so strong. He was sharp at his age because he sees a potential

01:01:32.480 career trajectory. There's one thing that he did say that I thought, boy, how did he get that smart

01:01:39.000 that young? He said that he enjoyed interviewing and talking about what? The issues. Who talks

01:01:48.840 about the issues in the mainstream press anymore? It's all about the process. It's all about who's

01:01:53.520 fighting with who trying to get a trying to get an honest discussion going about clearly we're not

01:01:58.420 talking about uh who's fighting with who tonight no i would anyway good for him i'm yeah i think

01:02:04.720 that was a worthwhile couple of minutes well if we can get him to readjust his thinking on the cbc

01:02:09.340 maybe one day when he's uh been through a bit more school maybe he'll have a job here yeah

01:02:14.120 okay rely on him um well right now uh they will put it up in silent on the side if we can but

01:02:20.840 Aaron O'Toole is saying something, you know, we've got him on mute, I can't hear him, but

01:02:26.820 Aaron O'Toole is giving his pre-recorded video, I imagine, talking about how great a leader he was,

01:02:36.600 probably thanking members for having had the time to serve, the privilege of serving.

01:02:43.460 Obviously, this is happening, this leadership race that's going to be decided in just a little

01:02:49.160 over an hour, is happening because he was pushed out by his caucus, I think, as his leadership

01:02:56.760 just totally imploded as the Freedom Convoy arrived in Ottawa. Corey, what legacy, if any,

01:03:06.280 do you think Aaron O'Toole is going to have in the pantheon of conservative leaders?

01:03:10.220 He'll be forgotten. He came and went. He didn't make much of a mark. He was status quo. If anything,

01:03:16.480 he taught a lot of us, you know, don't talk right and act left because it just infuriates

01:03:21.940 your members and you paid the price for it. I mean, now he's not even there in person

01:03:26.040 to give his farewell speech. So I understand. I mean, he's uncomfortable as giving a speech

01:03:29.700 at your ex-wife's next wedding or something, but all the same, he blew it. And he wasn't

01:03:36.280 even in long enough that I think people are going to make much note of him over time.

01:03:39.900 The thing was the real harm there was the disappointment and failure to live up to

01:03:45.240 expectations because when he was a member of parliament former air force officer people who

01:03:49.960 served with him who talked to me about him said he was a great officer uh you know nothing to be

01:03:54.920 ashamed of there so naturally you come in and he said the right things at the right time all voted

01:04:01.400 for him or none of us did i guess and then he didn't do it um it was you know how many lifetimes

01:04:09.400 like that can you can you have when they got us quit listening to those model-headed staffers in 1.00

01:04:16.060 their ill-fitted suits who say you've got to out-liberal the liberals to win you can't no

01:04:20.300 come in and be a bloody conservative if it's going to be on liberal turf the liberals are going to

01:04:24.480 take it every time so if you've got O'Toole basically giving a carbon copy of what Justin 0.58

01:04:29.720 Trudeau is saying they say well we know Trudeau will deliver we don't know what the heck O'Toole

01:04:32.940 is going to he threw his members under the bus maybe he'll throw the voters under the bus the

01:04:36.200 day after. No, he was not consistent. One thing you see from the Toronto Star and some of the

01:04:40.780 more left-leaning press is an attempt to now lionize Aaron O'Toole as the right kind of

01:04:46.640 conservative. Now, during the election, they said, he's a right-wing, dangerous guy, blah, blah,

01:04:51.600 blah, blah, blah, blah, and all these, you know, insert all the isms and phobes, etc. But

01:04:58.620 since he was pushed out, you know, the star types and other media like that have said,

01:05:04.700 that's a good respectable conservative now all the people who are trying to lionize him

01:05:08.880 none of them would ever vote conservative even while he's leader um but i think we've seen kind

01:05:15.440 of an attempt to try and paint him as the good old days of when the conservatives were uh were

01:05:20.920 sane before the wackos like uh pair polyev came in um uh i think i'll remember him most clearly

01:05:28.740 if I do at all, as

01:05:30.820 the first conservative

01:05:32.800 to campaign on a carbon tax

01:05:34.680 and how well that went.

01:05:37.620 Well, I mean,

01:05:39.380 they will do that.

01:05:41.520 This is part of

01:05:42.860 the problem with the media today

01:05:44.980 that they are no longer

01:05:46.240 reporters gazing down

01:05:49.200 from the mountainside

01:05:50.400 that the cliche used to be that they gaze down from the mountainside

01:05:53.440 and shoot the wind, the wounded.

01:05:55.360 They don't even gaze down anymore.

01:05:56.800 they are part of the process. And I would be very suspicious of somebody who had been

01:06:05.140 criticizing any conservative leader while they were actually in office. And then as soon as

01:06:12.800 they're gone saying, well, that's the kind of leader you wanted. Well, what's the messaging here?

01:06:18.240 The only good conservative is a dead conservative? I don't know. But it's,

01:06:22.280 I am not at all surprised.

01:06:26.140 They just want to present conservatism

01:06:28.400 as a less worthy choice than liberalism,

01:06:32.340 but essentially the same thing.

01:06:33.860 Yes, it's the beating.

01:06:35.580 And if anything, also,

01:06:36.680 it's maybe whether it's consciously or unconsciously,

01:06:39.000 it's throwing a little more division into the party.

01:06:40.620 Absolutely.

01:06:41.200 It's saying, you see you guys,

01:06:43.420 you're swinging the wrong way,

01:06:44.560 you're going to lose again.

01:06:45.740 Again, part of, I think,

01:06:47.860 what some people want to see

01:06:49.060 when you're coming from conservatism too

01:06:50.700 is confident conservatism, not

01:06:52.540 apologetic conservatism. I'm not saying

01:06:54.680 that conservatism is a necessary evil.

01:06:57.040 You've got to present it as

01:06:58.220 it's got good principles that are good

01:07:00.500 for everybody. And all the time they play

01:07:02.600 defensive because this mainstream media is

01:07:04.540 constantly demonizing it

01:07:06.440 as if it is, as you said, a less than

01:07:08.520 worthy choice, and it's not.

01:07:10.620 Do you ever get

01:07:11.240 puzzled by the depth

01:07:14.520 of the animus that there is in

01:07:16.160 certain parts of the press corps towards

01:07:18.640 conservatives generally?

01:07:20.220 The more I read and hear about what's going on in our post-secondary institutions, and we see the graduates that go into journalism and in the mainstream, no, I'm not that surprised at all anymore.

01:07:28.160 These aren't people who lived in the real world.

01:07:29.840 These aren't people who had to work in the common market for jobs or pay bills like others.

01:07:35.980 So they don't understand what's going on on the ground.

01:07:38.180 They have their instilled liberal education that they want to share with the world, and they're dominating the legacy media outlets.

01:07:46.760 Well, that they are.

01:07:49.760 Okay, well, we're going to go to the floor of the convention for a moment here

01:07:54.480 and just check in what's happening on the floor of the Conservative Leadership Convention.

01:08:06.120 ...that most Canadians have ever known.

01:08:08.760 We celebrate her commitment to Canada, her lifetime of service,

01:08:12.680 and the example she set for us all.

01:08:15.720 20 years ago, in her annual Christmas broadcast,

01:08:18.740 her majesty said,

01:08:21.340 each day is a new beginning.

01:08:23.440 I know that the only way

01:08:24.980 to live my life

01:08:26.080 is to try to do what is right

01:08:28.140 to take the long view

01:08:30.140 to give my best

01:08:31.980 in all that the day brings

01:08:33.700 and to put my trust in God.

01:08:37.280 One of the conservative party's

01:08:39.040 guiding principles

01:08:39.860 is a belief in the constitutional monarchy

01:08:42.620 the institutions of parliament

01:08:44.480 and the democratic process.

01:08:46.820 Tonight,

01:08:47.180 We are doing our part to support Canada's

01:08:50.720 constitutional monarchy, the institutions of

01:08:53.220 parliament and the democratic process.

01:09:03.300 As we mourn the passing of Her Majesty the Queen

01:09:05.660 and mark the beginning of a new reign of His

01:09:07.900 Majesty the King Charles III, we follow the

01:09:11.140 example she set to live our life, to do what is

01:09:15.480 is right, take the long view, and give our best in all that the day brings.

01:09:45.480 Mes collègues encore tout bénévoles au comité organisateur de l'élection du chef présidé

01:09:53.140 par Ian Brody. Le personnel au bureau national mené par notre directeur général, mon ami

01:10:04.040 Wayne Benson. Les parlementaires du Parti conservateur, les députés et les sénateurs

01:10:15.460 later in our program we will say thank you to my friend and a man and a friend to many

01:10:33.700 okay well uh we were just hearing there from robert batherson uh president of the uh federal

01:10:43.540 Conservative Party of Canada. We're now joined in studio by Western Standard reporter Jonathan

01:10:53.580 Bradley. Yes. Sorry, I was just distracted by your tie. Yeah, it's an order. It's a work in

01:11:00.320 progress. Yeah, we got in there. Okay, Jonathan, actually, before I let you speak, we got you in

01:11:07.040 front of us here. So we got your records. Now, you got to be a late entry here. July 15th,

01:11:12.700 your numbers went down. Yes. You, other than the reporter we had who predicted Jean Charest was

01:11:20.020 going to win on first ballot, insanely, you're the only person who predicts that we've got in

01:11:26.100 the office pool here that Polyev will win, but not on first ballot. You've got him at 47%,

01:11:31.860 then followed by Charest in second, Louis, Baber, then Acheson. Explain yourself, sir.

01:11:39.300 Well, I think it's because even though Polyev does have this massive support, I do think

01:11:44.660 that Jean Charest will pull some sizable support probably in the low 20s.

01:11:49.580 Even Leslie Lewis herself, she's obviously going to draw from social conservative wing 1.00

01:11:53.040 at the party, and she'll probably do well, not probably in the 20s, but maybe in the

01:11:58.060 high teens, I'm thinking.

01:12:00.000 So I think that'll probably be a factor.

01:12:03.400 I do believe that Scotch Atchison will drop off first.

01:12:06.100 I think I'll probably get, you know, maybe like two, 3% of a vote.

01:12:09.440 And then once he drops off, that'll probably thrust Polyev up and he'll win him a second ballot.

01:12:16.180 All right.

01:12:17.160 You sticking to that?

01:12:18.180 I'm sticking to that.

01:12:19.520 That's your final answer.

01:12:20.860 Final answer.

01:12:21.740 You want to call a lifeline?

01:12:23.980 I'm not going to call a lifeline.

01:12:25.080 You're not going to use a lifeline.

01:12:25.960 Okay.

01:12:27.520 Well, you're going to owe someone a six pack tonight.

01:12:30.080 All right.

01:12:30.600 Possibly.

01:12:31.000 You know what?

01:12:33.340 I'm going to give you a double or nothing.

01:12:34.440 uh i you know i'm just gonna give you odds i'm gonna give you odds because you you've taken uh

01:12:40.600 an unconventional one here if you win i'm buying you a 12 pack but you have to the deal is you

01:12:47.160 have to drink it all in front of me we'll see what happens uh jerek you know me i'm uh one drink limit

01:12:52.880 yeah well you're gonna have to man up you're at the western standard now you might be new around

01:12:57.360 here but you're gonna have to learn to drink more than one here okay um of course do you think

01:13:03.460 there's any chance of anything but Polio first ballot victory tonight? Politics are a weird

01:13:09.100 thing. I mean, it's certainly a world I, you know, you use the cliche, but never say never.

01:13:13.760 I think it's pretty unlikely, but stranger things have happened. I mean, it's not just all on Sheree,

01:13:19.860 but it depends on what sort of votes the other three candidates were cornering as well that

01:13:23.980 could be bringing it in. And I mean, I still, I mean, the only thing that could possibly save

01:13:29.020 Sheree though would be a first ballot win for him. Because when you look at the other three

01:13:32.160 candidates after Polyev. I can't see too many of their supporters picking Charest as a second

01:13:37.140 choice. It's all or nothing for Jean Charest, I think. But it would be interesting. It's not

01:13:43.780 impossible. Unlikely, I think, but not impossible. Now, so, you know, we've had the tribute for

01:13:50.160 Aaron O'Toole. We've had some words here. You know, I try not to bully my views around here

01:13:58.020 and make sure everyone shares them.

01:14:00.600 But I think it's pretty widely shared

01:14:02.380 that he was a dismal failure.

01:14:05.200 Complete failure as a conservative leader.

01:14:07.600 Didn't, you know,

01:14:08.680 you can't see the quadrant I'm drawing here right now,

01:14:11.540 but I've built the quadrant of just the political sweet spot.

01:14:17.060 This applies to conservatives, socialists, liberals, anyone.

01:14:19.800 There's four things that can happen in politics

01:14:22.460 and try to picture this in four quadrants.

01:14:24.940 in the worst quadrant is losing on something that is not principled. You do something that's

01:14:34.120 not principled to win and you're lost anyway. Put Aaron O'Toole in that quadrant. That's the worst

01:14:40.060 possible quadrant. The next quadrant is winning, not on principle. Put Brian Mulrooney in that

01:14:50.860 quadrant, or Jean Chrétien in that quadrant. In fact, put 90% of politicians in that quadrant,

01:14:59.580 winning, or 90% of winning politicians in that quadrant. You're winning, but you're not doing

01:15:03.620 it on principle. But hey, winning's pretty good. Then there is losing on principle. Put

01:15:11.900 Preston Manning in that quadrant. Put on the left, Jack Layton.

01:15:17.840 What about Maxime Bernier?

01:15:20.460 Yeah, Maxime Bernier losing on principle.

01:15:22.940 And you can go back to the conservative leadership race that he at least officially lost.

01:15:29.720 Took some hard principles, especially around supply management that clearly cost him the leadership.

01:15:34.020 And then there's the sweet spot, and that is winning on principle, which is admittedly kind of rare.

01:15:42.280 But that, I think, is where you really want to be.

01:15:44.560 You want to win on principle.

01:15:45.780 Well, you could say Doug Ford did that in 2018.

01:15:49.600 Perhaps.

01:15:51.940 Yeah, definitely not the last time around.

01:15:55.600 Doug Ford, last time around, was winning not on principle.

01:15:59.120 His first election, you could argue, he was winning on principle.

01:16:02.520 Yeah, you know, he had that rah-rah, we're going to fire a $6 million man, we're going to scrap the carbon tax, we're going to stand up for small businesses. 0.97

01:16:10.580 And then in 2022, I mean, let's be honest, he's a mediocre white man. 0.95

01:16:15.620 you could say. He only won because we had Stephen Del Duca, who looks like Dr. Evil from Austin 0.92

01:16:22.360 Powers and had no charisma, and Andrew Horvath, who was in her fourth election as Ontario NDP

01:16:28.720 leader. Yeah. Okay. So yeah, Erin O'Toole, slam dunk in the losing without principle category.

01:16:37.540 But now, you know, they're doing a tribute to Candace Bergen, or is it Bergen? Bergen. Bergen.

01:16:43.520 Bergen. Candice Bergen, I think by most measures, she has served ably. I don't think she's,

01:16:53.120 she hasn't got quite the raving reviews that Rona Ambrose got when she served as interim

01:16:56.760 leader, but I'll give Candice Bergen this. She didn't intervene in the ongoing leadership race 1.00

01:17:02.760 attacking the likely winner or the front runner, something that is all too clear here in Alberta.

01:17:07.880 you've got the outgoing premier Jason Kenney throwing an absolute hissy fit that the candidate

01:17:14.260 running probably strongest against his legacy, or at least tied for strongest against his legacy

01:17:18.920 with Todd Lowen. I'm talking, of course, about Daniel Smith. Throwing a hissy fit that the

01:17:24.840 person, at least leading the race right now to succeed him, is her. Candice Bergen, I think,

01:17:32.440 has shown some class. She's shown, for lack of a better term for a woman, statesmanship,

01:17:36.460 or state's womanship, maybe we can call it. 1.00

01:17:39.820 You know, I think she served pretty ably.

01:17:42.280 When she starts speaking, we're going to cut into her pretty soon.

01:17:46.460 What I'm curious to know is where Polyev stands

01:17:48.560 on the upper unit Conservative Party leadership race.

01:17:51.660 I know that I went a few weeks ago to a rally for Polyev in Calgary,

01:17:56.220 and Daniel Smith was present, and Polyev said himself,

01:17:59.180 I'm not endorsing anyone in this race, but he said,

01:18:01.980 but I admire Daniel Smith.

01:18:03.080 yeah i suspect it's her who he's endorsing i mean i think it'd be interesting i'm not sure i think

01:18:09.320 ideologically and kind of spiritually they're probably the most aligned yes but i think that

01:18:16.640 a you know i know polyev is an albertan by birth and i think he's probably sympathetic with the

01:18:22.020 alberta cause but as a national conservative leader trying to win votes nationally i feel

01:18:27.320 like he doesn't like the idea of the sovereignty act that the sovereignty act he fears could become

01:18:32.540 a boogeyman in the rest actually already is a boogeyman the rest of the country it's a boogeyman

01:18:36.920 on more the left side of the ucp already uh in alberta yeah we've seen uh lila here rajansani

01:18:42.860 and yeah but also ranz yeah but you know actually let's talk about that i think uh you know polyev

01:18:49.100 slam dunk tonight danielle smith is leading the race but i don't think she's a slam dunk yet 1.00

01:18:53.480 uh maybe it becomes that but right now i don't think she's a slam dunk um so let's talk about

01:18:59.120 what that quite possible alignment looks like. Danielle Smith and Pierre Polyev. Corey, do you

01:19:06.320 think Pierre Polyev, you know, so let's say in October, it's October 10th, I don't know, whatever

01:19:13.380 the date is in October, Danielle wins. Do you think the next day Polyev calls and says, hey,

01:19:18.880 Danielle, congratulations, really want to look forward to working with you, but this sovereignty

01:19:23.480 thing, it's gonna, that's gonna cost me seats in Toronto. Could you ixnay that? You think that's

01:19:30.180 gonna happen? I try. But I mean, if she did that, she'd be as dead as O'Toole when you flip flop on 0.99

01:19:35.280 your prime policy plank on your way in. I mean, you know, I could see some action to try and water

01:19:41.500 it down or say that we don't, you know, we'll put it in place, we don't have to pull the trigger

01:19:44.780 until we absolutely have to, things like that. I think politically, Polyev would much rather see

01:19:50.260 Taves who's a you know a rational uh steady as she goes sort of leader in the conservative end

01:19:55.320 of things Danielle's a potential hornet sitting in Alberta that will be used as a foil in the 1.00

01:20:00.020 federal election against them even if she said personally one-on-one over coffee oh they're

01:20:03.180 going to agree on 90% of what they talk about yeah but when it's dealing with that he doesn't

01:20:07.080 want to get into a fight with a conservative premier in or or be forced to have to distance

01:20:12.200 himself from a conservative leader in Canada when you're going into a federal election we're going

01:20:15.500 to go to Matthew in Ottawa in just one second. But yeah, it certainly wouldn't be the first time

01:20:20.680 that an Alberta conservative leader has been used as a foil in the rest of the country in the screw

01:20:25.320 the West. We'll take the rest liberal strategy. This obviously happened with Ralph Klein repeatedly

01:20:29.940 through the 90s and 2000s, even when Stephen Harper was running. They did it with Kenny even.

01:20:34.660 I mean, yeah, yeah. Okay, well, we're going to go now to Matthew Horwood in Ottawa. He's our

01:20:41.540 parliamentary bureau chief uh he's standing by with uh ashton arsenal uh yeah ashton arsenal uh

01:20:50.980 let's so let's bring matthew in right now matthew let's what's happening there

01:20:58.900 so i'm here with ashton arsenal he is the vice president with uh crestview strategy and he has

01:21:04.500 quite a uh political history uh ashton good good to have you here thank you yeah could you talk a

01:21:10.180 a little bit about how you got into politics, how you got with the Conservative Party?

01:21:13.660 Yeah, for sure. So I'm originally from Prince Edward Island, funny enough, not necessarily

01:21:17.960 known as a Conservative bastion. I moved to Ottawa about 10 years ago, and I originally

01:21:22.740 started working in politics in the provincial official opposition at the time, so PC party.

01:21:28.880 And then I quickly actually started volunteering for Pierre Pogliot.

01:21:32.680 Interesting. I understand that you were a campaign manager in 2015 for Conservative

01:21:37.920 And could you want to talk about that and how that went?

01:21:40.100 Yeah. So 2015, as I'm sure many of your viewers would understand, was a change election.

01:21:47.340 Unfortunately, we did not win that riding. We did not win that election.

01:21:51.180 I was coming out of a minister's office at the time.

01:21:53.260 It was an absolute pleasure. Fantastic candidate in Andy Wang that we had a chance to run.

01:21:57.820 And unfortunately, it was just not our night.

01:22:00.500 Learned a lot. And I suspect the next federal election is going to be a little bit different.

01:22:04.780 For sure. Do you see any of the lessons you learned coming into play during this conservative

01:22:09.780 leadership race? Well, I'm actually going to draw an analogy instead of a lesson. Change. 0.99

01:22:15.560 It's a change election. This prime minister, unfortunately for him, stale, tired, Canadians

01:22:21.840 not getting ahead. Debt is piling up. People cannot afford rudimentary things like a place

01:22:28.860 to lie their heads, groceries, gas. It's all spiraling out of control. And unfortunately,

01:22:34.260 Unfortunately, in 2015, again, similar.

01:22:36.920 We had a prime minister that was in office for 10 years.

01:22:39.860 And I think, again, the next election can be very different.

01:22:43.800 For sure.

01:22:44.080 For sure.

01:22:44.920 When you were volunteering for Pierre Polyev's campaign, did you get to meet him and get to see how he is?

01:22:51.460 Yeah.

01:22:51.800 So I was actually working in Pierre Polyev's Hill office on Parliament Hill at the old Valor building just up the road.

01:22:59.020 You know what?

01:22:59.400 Pierre Polyev has been the same for as long as I've known him.

01:23:02.240 He works harder than anybody else.

01:23:04.260 He will continue to work harder than anybody else.

01:23:07.020 And if you've had the pleasure of actually campaigning with Pierre, he is the most energetic person in the room.

01:23:12.840 Frankly, I don't know where he gets all of his energy.

01:23:16.560 This guy will run door to door.

01:23:19.060 Literally run.

01:23:19.920 There's photos of him sprinting house to house.

01:23:21.820 He will run door to door.

01:23:23.220 Those are not staged photos.

01:23:24.820 That's just Pierre Paulyet.

01:23:26.880 And if you've had the pleasure of working alongside him or trying to get him elected on his behalf,

01:23:32.080 a remarkable human being. And I'm very hopeful that it's going to be a special name.

01:23:38.140 Of course. And we don't know for sure who is going to win the leadership contest. But if

01:23:42.460 Pierre Polyev does become the candidate, do you think he has any flaws or any drawbacks that might

01:23:46.700 potentially hurt him? Flaws or drawbacks? No, I wouldn't say that at all. I would say that

01:23:52.760 if you are somebody that is assuming a role that you've never had before,

01:23:57.300 there's always some curiosity about, will this individual be up to their challenge?

01:24:02.080 And every single time I've been in a situation that involved Pierre Paulyev, not only was he up to the challenge, he actually exceeded it by a considerable margin.

01:24:10.380 So I would have a lot more fear about many more individuals, assuming this role, than Pierre Paulyev.

01:24:16.880 Not going to name any names about candidates?

01:24:18.900 Not going to name any names.

01:24:19.980 Fair enough, fair enough.

01:24:21.260 And last question here is, what do you think of the state of Canadian politics as a whole compared to 2015?

01:24:27.520 Do you think it's, some people have said it's gotten a little bit more divisive, a little more fiery.

01:24:31.500 Would you agree?

01:24:32.080 I wouldn't necessarily agree with that. I think a lot of people are angry, and they have reason to be angry. I think our current federal leadership under Prime Minister, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been short sighted, narrow, and, you know, he takes care of his buddies and his allies in order to get reelected. And I think we're now looking at a pivot. I think it's going to be a change election. I think there will be a blue wave that crosses the country. And I think Canadians ultimately will be better off.

01:25:00.840 For sure. Okay. Thanks, Ashton, for coming on. Back to you guys.

01:25:05.940 Thank you, Matthew. That's Matthew Horwood, our Parliamentary Bureau Chief, joining us live from the convention in Ottawa. He'll be back on the convention floor itself as things are really heating up there now, but he has since moved to a quieter corner of the convention centre in Ottawa. It's pretty loud, so we've got him there for some better audio.

01:25:28.440 We've got Western Standard Opinion Editor Nigel Hannaford back with us. Nigel, right now they're going through a tribute to Candice Bergen. We were just talking about her. I think you overheard some of the comments. I think she's conducted herself pretty well.

01:25:44.320 Candace Bergen has always been a class act. She was, obviously, she was active while I was in Ottawa and observed her. She's 100% one of us, I would say. Strong supporter of rural rights, strong supporter of gun owners. And I'm sorry to see that she's dipping out of the political scene altogether.

01:26:06.920 But I can't say you don't deserve to have some time off, madam. 0.99

01:26:12.160 She has done a stellar job in this last episode as the interim leader,

01:26:18.800 has just validated every good thing she ever said or did.

01:26:23.540 Yeah.

01:26:24.920 Can't speak highly enough of her.

01:26:26.420 You know, I mean, it is a way to go out on a high note.

01:26:28.620 Knowing when to leave politics is the toughest decision in politics.

01:26:32.400 Very, very few people get it right.

01:26:34.540 But, I mean, serving as interim leader of the opposition is a pretty big deal, and she, you know, unless she becomes the permanent leader someday, this is probably the high point of her career. 0.89

01:26:50.400 It's a good time to go out, and she's served for some time now.

01:26:53.120 Well, you know, never forget that anything can happen while you are interim leader.

01:26:57.140 usually it doesn't

01:27:00.260 but you can have a national crisis

01:27:01.880 just come on you out of nowhere

01:27:03.400 and then you're basically doing the job

01:27:05.780 that the leader would be doing if

01:27:07.720 he were in place

01:27:08.780 actually we've got Candice Bergen going to the mic right now 1.00

01:27:11.820 so we're going to flip over to her

01:27:13.600 and see what Candice Bergen

01:27:15.340 the outgoing interim leader has to say

01:27:17.460 wow

01:27:18.080 thank you very much

01:27:20.600 so nice

01:27:21.880 wow

01:27:23.960 thank you so much I I do want to begin by saying how saddened I am at the

01:27:33.640 passing of our beloved Queen Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the second she served

01:27:39.780 with honor she really was our Queen and I've no doubt that her place will be as

01:27:45.680 as great as that of Queen Victoria in the story of Canada.

01:27:53.220 May we all, friends, may we all strive to emulate the dignity and the grace that she

01:27:59.200 personified throughout.

01:28:01.620 Michael and I are praying and are thinking of the royal family during this time.

01:28:06.540 Long live the King.

01:28:08.840 Wow.

01:28:12.900 Thank you so much, Dawn, for your incredibly kind and generous words and introduction.

01:28:18.780 My heart is truly filled with gratitude.

01:28:21.280 Dawn, you and I have been very good friends for many years as we've worked together in

01:28:26.500 our party.

01:28:27.500 And like many good Conservatives, we did disagree occasionally, but we always respected each

01:28:34.320 other.

01:28:35.320 We've been intensely loyal to our friendship and our cause.

01:28:39.040 And that's what Conservatives do. 0.67

01:28:41.720 many laughs, sharing some tears, many dinners, and late night talks. And because of that,

01:28:48.180 Dawn, you and Betty are lifelong friends to Michael and I, and we're very grateful for

01:28:53.220 you. And thank you all. I look across this room and I say thank you all. I know so many

01:29:03.220 of you. It's wonderful to see your faces, to see your smiles, to see so many people

01:29:08.900 that I've seen at conventions and campaigning

01:29:12.380 and throughout the country.

01:29:13.620 So thank you very much for your kindness and your welcome.

01:29:18.160 I know I speak for Michael as well

01:29:20.220 when I say thank you for the appreciation

01:29:22.980 we have felt from all of you, not only this evening,

01:29:26.120 but over the last seven months.

01:29:28.500 Whether in airports or restaurants, out at the mall

01:29:31.900 or at EDA events, through phone calls and emails

01:29:36.020 and even some social media posts,

01:29:38.880 I'm hearing a strong message

01:29:41.400 that our grassroots Conservative memberships,

01:29:44.760 the foundation of our party,

01:29:47.000 you are hopeful,

01:29:48.540 and you are excited about the future,

01:29:50.700 and you are proud to be Conservative.

01:29:59.620 You, you are proud that we stand

01:30:02.880 for fiscal responsibility,

01:30:05.080 national unity, law and order, and freedom of expression and belief.

01:30:13.160 Freedom. Not Liberal-lite, but Conservative. And in addition to that, literally hundreds

01:30:21.000 of thousands of more Canadians have joined our party and are feeling that same optimism

01:30:26.520 and excitement. So, thank you for helping confirm to me and our entire Conservative Caucus

01:30:34.360 That we were on the right track by being a strong consistent conservative voice in all

01:30:40.540 that we have said and all that we have done.

01:30:48.860 My heart is filled with gratitude as well to my incredible caucus.

01:30:53.920 First of all, my leadership team made up of Luc Berthold, my deputy leader.

01:31:03.120 Thank you to Blaine Calkins, our Whip, John Broussard, our House Leader, as well as MPs

01:31:08.180 Tom Kamich, Melissa Lantzman, Leanne Rood and Warren Steinle.

01:31:13.440 You are all extraordinary leaders and I thank you.

01:31:17.880 And to the rest of our caucus, including senators who work day in and day out in Ottawa

01:31:22.940 and their ridings.

01:31:24.580 And we come to Ottawa every week and bring advice and strategy and passion on how to deal

01:31:31.040 with issues of the day.

01:31:33.100 you to my caucus. Thank you to our caucus chair, Scott Reid, who has done a fantastic

01:31:39.940 job over the last several months. Ladies and gentlemen, our caucus is made up of so many

01:31:46.900 smart, experienced, wise and compassionate individuals. And if there's one piece of advice

01:31:55.100 I want to give to the new leader, whoever it is, it's this. Respect, listen to, and

01:32:02.940 trust our caucus they will not let you down

01:32:12.780 now you know every leader leaves the mark

01:32:16.860 and that pertains also to the those who serve

01:32:19.980 as in in the interim capacity leaders in the interim

01:32:23.660 and i'm thinking of people like deb gray

01:32:27.980 give deb a hand she's doing a great job emceeing tonight

01:32:31.980 She opened the doors to Stornoway, using it as a working home and starting the wise practice

01:32:37.900 of meeting frequently there with MPs, supporters and staff to hear and understand more thoroughly

01:32:44.060 what they had to say. One of Deb's marks was openness and outreach. Or the other one I'm

01:32:51.980 thinking about is Ronna Ambrose, my dear friend Ronna.

01:33:00.380 Ronna took over our party after our party suffered a difficult defeat. She brought hope

01:33:06.300 and optimism to our party. With a broad appeal, Ronna attracted people to us and she lifted women 0.99

01:33:13.580 like me into positions of leadership, not as tokens, but because of merit. Ronna is a builder

01:33:20.540 who lifts people up and then there was John Reynolds now rumor has it John

01:33:29.720 finally got the decaying kitchen redone at Stornoway nobody wanted to take the

01:33:34.760 political hit but as urban legend has it he accidentally put his foot through a

01:33:39.980 rotten floorboard at Stornoway and when he did he said enough is enough I'm

01:33:43.700 gonna do it and he left the official opposition residents with some new

01:33:47.960 floors and a sturdy durable chopping block kitchen counter built to last. John

01:33:54.460 Reynolds left his mark as a steady and experienced leader. And then there was

01:33:59.600 Dr. Grant Hill. Grant was our first interim leader after Stephen Harper and

01:34:05.060 Peter McKay led us to unification. Grant's mark was the solid sober

01:34:10.640 professionalism that was so critically required in the early days of a new

01:34:15.860 party and so to all of my predecessors all of the leaders of our party all who

01:34:22.580 have left their mark both permanent and leaders in the interim you have our deep

01:34:27.920 and respectful appreciation for the strength and the success of the party

01:34:33.200 that you helped build so yes go ahead give them all a hand we all leave a mark

01:34:43.280 and we want it to be lasting and we want it to be a good mark and I hope I've

01:34:48.440 been able to leave my mark as well. I want to be remembered as a leader who

01:34:58.600 helped bring unity and pride to our Conservative Party. I want to be

01:35:03.560 remembered as a leader who helped us move away from identity politics and

01:35:08.040 labelling in our party and towards unity in disagreement. Unity while still

01:35:14.160 holding different views. Unity not uniformity.

01:35:22.520 So my friends, my fellow Conservatives, as I leave I want to once again ask you

01:35:29.120 please don't allow yourself, whatever kind of Conservative you are, to be broken

01:35:34.800 into groups and labeled. Do not descend into the cauldron of identity politics

01:35:41.020 and division in our own party. Do the opposite.

01:35:48.980 Live, talk and walk unity even when you disagree with each other. Actually

01:35:56.280 especially when you disagree with each other. Unity as conservatives and unity

01:36:01.680 as Canadians. I love this party. I love this party. It was so interesting, Dawn, as you talked about

01:36:13.320 what I've done and how I started as a volunteer. And, you know, I cannot imagine, I cannot believe

01:36:19.660 that I stand here before you as your leader. It has just been an incredible experience and I feel

01:36:25.900 so blessed to be able to be here but to be able to tell young people the opportunity that they have

01:36:32.620 not just young people people of all ages be able to get involved and make a difference for their

01:36:37.980 country and in their party so it was with mixed emotions that i announced earlier this week that

01:36:44.380 i will not be seeking re-election after 14 remarkable years and five elections i've decided

01:36:52.220 it's time to open new doors and pursue other interests and passions but no matter where i am

01:36:58.620 my friends or what i am doing i will always be a proud conservative doing all i can for our leader

01:37:05.820 and our party and now speaking of leader tonight is the night tonight is the night we're going to

01:37:16.620 find out who our members have selected to be the next leader of the Conservative Party of Canada.

01:37:23.340 I want to thank each one of the candidates, Jean, Leslyn, Pierre, Roman, and Scott,

01:37:29.420 for putting your names forward and the great work that you and your teams have done. Thank you so

01:37:35.180 And friends, that's awesome, I have no doubt we will support our new leader.

01:37:59.180 We will buttress the new team, we will help them, we will prop them up

01:38:04.180 them up and advise them.

01:38:06.120 We'll give our new leader the chance to

01:38:08.120 flourish and pave the way for a new federal

01:38:11.120 conservative government.

01:38:15.560 Now, I have served federally for 14

01:38:18.000 years and on one hand, it does seem like a

01:38:20.460 long time, but on the other, it really goes

01:38:22.840 by in a flash.

01:38:24.500 I started as a volunteer and as I said, I'm

01:38:27.040 leaving from this stage as the person in whom

01:38:29.340 has bestowed the trust of leadership.

01:38:32.240 And so I want to say a special thank you to Manitoba, to my constituents, to my home, to my home, to the people of Portage-Lisgar.

01:38:44.800 Manitobans are great people.

01:38:46.820 They are resilient, innovative, compassionate, hardworking, and generous.

01:38:52.140 And I want to thank all of those who supported me, not only in the last seven months, but those who helped bring me to Ottawa in the first place.

01:38:59.840 Over the last several months, a very special thank you goes out to Mr. Wayne Benson, the

01:39:06.840 Executive Director of our party and a fellow Manitoban.

01:39:12.460 Wayne came out of retirement in PEI and he took on the job of Executive Director at my

01:39:18.160 request during a very difficult time.

01:39:21.000 In fact, it was literally when the Emergencies Act had been called.

01:39:23.960 So, in the literal middle of a so-called emergency, Wayne Benson came forward.

01:39:30.040 What a hero he was to me.

01:39:33.820 And with the help of Rob Batherson, Ian Brodie, James Dodds, and a host of staff and volunteers,

01:39:41.980 they guided us through this leadership race.

01:39:44.440 And I want to say thank you to each one of you.

01:39:47.300 To my family, my siblings, and especially my children, Lucas, Delaney, and Parker, and your children, thank you for sharing your mom and Grammy, your daughter and sister with the country.

01:40:01.720 And to my husband, Michael, who has been a true partner and companion to me through this entire journey as leader, he has worked with me, he has served, and his love he gave to me and I can give to you.

01:40:17.140 And I want to thank you so much, my love.

01:40:23.720 And finally,

01:40:24.640 listening to uh we were just listening to uh candace bergen outgoing interim leader of the

01:40:36.020 conservative party of canada i think she's in the last few minutes of of her leadership uh she

01:40:41.360 stepped up and what she said was the so-called national emergency it was quite a time to step

01:40:47.040 into a national role like that uh gentlemen your biggest takeaways from uh candace bergen's uh

01:40:53.320 Good farewell speech.

01:40:54.800 Well, you know, if they only want one thing to delineate themselves,

01:40:58.900 to draw the line between the conservatives and the liberals,

01:41:01.720 take what she said when she advised her colleagues,

01:41:04.640 don't descend into identity politics.

01:41:09.080 That is the thing that will kill this country quicker than anything.

01:41:12.560 I just, there was a lot of takeaways in there,

01:41:15.020 but that was the one that resonated with me very, very strongly.

01:41:19.640 Yeah, and we're going to have the results very, very soon.

01:41:23.320 We're expecting them at 5.30, possibly sooner, but knowing these guys, possibly later.

01:41:28.140 But Corey, your biggest takeaway from Bergen's farewell speech.

01:41:32.740 Well, likewise from Nigel, that's a great point because, I mean, it's identity politics.

01:41:36.340 It takes them sick to death of it.

01:41:37.540 It's divisive.

01:41:38.160 It's bad for all of us.

01:41:39.240 And it's bad enough that the Liberals have basically made that their main focus.

01:41:43.480 They need a counterpoint and just don't even start down the road into it.

01:41:46.760 So it's great advice on Ms. Bergen's way out.

01:41:49.960 The other part, she reiterated unity a number of times.

01:41:52.320 So that's true. If the party is fighting with themselves from within, the liberals will march right back in there. When this race is over, they've got to get it together and they've got to stay unified. And she's obviously been feeling that as an interim leader.

01:42:04.040 so uh we've got a quick comment from drew knight uh he says 5 30 when well what do you mean when

01:42:11.240 it's mountain standard time we're in calgary for god's sakes we're at the center of the universe

01:42:16.200 and the center of the universe at the time right now is 5 20. i don't even need to say local you

01:42:21.320 should know it's mountain standard time my apologies though if you're in saskatchewan

01:42:25.000 manitoba or bc your time zones are valid as well valid they're valid they're valid time zones uh

01:42:32.600 Anything outside of those four time zones, three or four time zones.

01:42:38.400 Good reminder, we've got viewers and listeners, though, from across the country.

01:42:41.480 We do appreciate our Eastern Bastard listeners as well.

01:42:46.340 We understand we've got some kindred spirits out there, and we welcome them to come.

01:42:50.900 I'm just saying your time zone is not valid.

01:42:54.720 Okay, so, yeah, they're just wrapping up with Candice Bergen right now.

01:42:58.800 So one guy we haven't gotten too much yet.

01:43:02.940 We've gone through all the different candidates,

01:43:04.740 but we're going to get to the guy on our list here.

01:43:07.280 We've got, we forgot even to mention,

01:43:13.040 but he's kind of been ranked by everybody in the pool,

01:43:15.520 regardless of where they're ranking.

01:43:16.680 The one consistent is that he's expected to come in last

01:43:20.860 in what I think is now, is that fifth or fourth place?

01:43:24.620 One, two, three, four, five, fifth place.

01:43:28.520 Scott Atchison, expectations tonight and expectations for what you expect?

01:43:36.080 What role might he play going forward?

01:43:38.400 Well, he'll play a role.

01:43:39.420 He's a decent man.

01:43:41.280 I don't really know what he stands for.

01:43:43.860 His message never got through to me.

01:43:46.440 Maybe I should have paid more attention to him,

01:43:48.180 but it just never seemed that he was on the field.

01:43:52.680 I do think that he was, however, he's got a place.

01:43:59.200 He is minister material.

01:44:01.020 It's a way to put it.

01:44:01.980 I mean, you look at two different things, like between Roman Baber and Atchison.

01:44:07.540 Baber, we could see, is being ascended.

01:44:09.080 He might even turn into something much more down the road.

01:44:11.760 I see Atchison is establishing himself.

01:44:13.540 Okay, he's a good, solid guy.

01:44:14.880 He took part in the race, and he'll get a junior cabinet portfolio,

01:44:17.740 maybe even a senior spot on the bench.

01:44:19.360 But he just didn't stand out.

01:44:20.720 But to his credit, and he didn't get enough, you know, well, that's one of my pet issues, but he didn't get enough credit for it.

01:44:25.580 He came out against supply management.

01:44:27.480 He was the only one.

01:44:28.080 Every leadership candidate I had, I cornered them on that one, and they would not condemn supply management.

01:44:33.380 And I tell you, I'm just going to go on my quick rant.

01:44:35.480 That's the most odious policy that somebody can, they got to blush when they call themselves a conservative and support that piece of socialism.

01:44:41.300 And at least Atchison had the courage to say, I oppose it.

01:44:44.680 I understand the political reasons that others don't want to get into it with that thing.

01:44:49.040 But he did do that.

01:44:49.820 And it kind of shows it doesn't get you political interaction opposing that either.

01:44:53.320 It didn't do him any favors by doing it.

01:44:54.640 Well, he didn't make it a centerpiece maybe the way that Maxime Bernier very notoriously did

01:45:00.140 when he ran for the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada.

01:45:03.180 Well, let's actually talk about this.

01:45:04.100 This issue gets under my skin.

01:45:05.520 Now, when he said he was against supply management,

01:45:07.780 I think that announcement came on your show here when you were on Triggered.

01:45:12.680 I think that's where it came from.

01:45:14.180 Well, just prior, actually, I think.

01:45:16.000 Now, on the other side, Pierre Polyev, if there's a big knock to his conservative credentials, it's on that. And, you know, you can't say it's a principled conservative position to support a Soviet-style supply management system. You cannot do it. It's not a real thing.

01:45:37.100 An answer I might grudgingly accept, not like, but maybe grudgingly accept is, you know what? Maxime Bernier tried it and it resulted in defeat. It's just not politically possible. It's outside of the Overton window right now until, actually, it probably is inside the Overton window.

01:46:00.340 The problem is that it's such a powerful lobby, it has so much political influence and money that we can't politically do it.

01:46:06.920 So if the answer is, you know what, it's just not politically smart to do and will result in defeat on all the other issues that matter, I'd say that's a problem.

01:46:16.620 That might be a case of cowardice being the better, discretion being the better part of valor, perhaps.

01:46:23.160 But you can't look me in the eyes and say that that's a conservative principle thing to do the way Andrew Scheer famously did.

01:46:28.280 No, right to the taking the glass.

01:46:32.460 No, look, I mean, if you're the person picking up the butter,

01:46:36.060 the cheese, or the milk from the supermarket,

01:46:39.060 this discussion of dairy prices is very much within that famous Overton window

01:46:44.020 which describes what you can talk about and what you can't talk about,

01:46:47.440 which is over here.

01:46:48.900 I have never understood the strength of this lobby.

01:46:51.540 There's 3,000 farmers.

01:46:52.980 There's 3 million people who buy milk every day.

01:46:56.320 it defeats me but

01:46:58.560 it is proved

01:47:00.520 to be the stumbling

01:47:02.520 block for conservatives because it is

01:47:04.440 not a conservative principle

01:47:06.340 and I think this is going to be a hard thing

01:47:07.960 for somebody like

01:47:09.940 Mr. Poilier and

01:47:12.340 the people who are most likely I think

01:47:14.220 to be close to him

01:47:15.800 if he ever forms a cabinet

01:47:17.620 this is going to be a hard one for them to

01:47:20.340 wrap their heads around because none of them

01:47:22.320 are going to like it and everybody

01:47:24.140 is going to be telling them no you can't

01:47:26.260 touching. Hold on. I want to make sure we're just not missing anything here. Let's just quickly go

01:47:32.600 back to our feed live from the floor in Ottawa. I think we've got, that might be Ian Brody. He's

01:47:37.820 the chair of the leadership election committee.

01:47:41.700 Every member of the right service committee is unfolded.

01:47:56.260 Under the watchful eye of our Chief Returning Officer and his Deputy Chief Returning Officers

01:48:22.820 and from the personnel on loan from the party.

01:48:25.520 Nous devons remercier les personnels du parti

01:48:29.000 pour les langues de l'heure et le dévouement.

01:48:32.260 Nous tenons à leur exprimer notre gratitude

01:48:35.400 ainsi qu'à leur famille

01:48:37.360 pour tout ce qui a permis de rendre ce processus

01:48:40.980 aussi fluide pour tout le monde.

01:48:43.500 Thank you to the party staff, the party volunteers

01:48:46.380 who helped get us to this point this evening.

01:48:52.820 It was our remarkable range of candidates, and there are thousands of organizers and volunteers from coast to coast that recruited all of these new members to our party.

01:49:06.620 Each candidate and their teams and their experienced volunteers brought ideas to recruit Canadians.

01:49:14.040 The party staff processed the hundreds of thousands, half a million new memberships added to our party.

01:49:22.820 We got more than 670,000 ballots out to our members.

01:49:32.100 We got them all back to be counted, and it all went as smoothly as possible.

01:49:36.880 I want to thank the candidates and their teams for their hard work.

01:49:40.260 I hope every candidate and every volunteer is proud of the work they did during this race.

01:49:45.660 I would also like to thank National Council for the confidence that they showed in our

01:49:56.660 committee and our team and along with that our thanks to Candice Bergen for her extraordinary

01:50:02.980 support and her personal friendship to me.

01:50:11.500 I would be remiss if I did not thank my predecessors as LIOC co-chairs of the past, Dan Nolan and

01:50:18.500 Lisa Raitt, for their extraordinary work and for the inheritance of the expertise and track

01:50:24.100 record that we got when we got our flying start.

01:50:28.260 Thankfully together we met the challenge of a record-breaking membership along with the

01:50:32.100 trust of our members.

01:50:34.420 At this time I'd like to invite my fellow volunteer, Don Nightingale, our Chief Returning

01:50:40.300 officer and a director of the Conservative Fund Canada and my dear friend Wayne Benson,

01:50:45.020 the executive director of the party, to come forward and review some of the relevant rules

01:50:49.340 and outline the role of Deloitte. Don and Wayne are both former three-term national councillors

01:50:54.780 of our party and like me, somehow when the call comes they just don't know how to say no.

01:51:01.500 I can testify that they are both extraordinary loyal and committed members of our party.

01:51:06.540 they put in tireless hours to deliver this race and i am personally thankful

01:51:10.780 that they did agree to serve when they were asked don and wayne please

01:51:18.060 try not to be nervous i remember well that evening in february when i answered the phone

01:51:38.940 hi wayne it's canvas i need you to come to ottawa as executive director of the party

01:51:47.340 this was not how i planned to spend the next seven months of my retirement

01:51:53.500 i inherited a staff at headquarters that for the most part had been working from home for

01:51:59.660 the better part of the previous two years personally i had a very steep learning curve

01:52:06.940 ahead of me however i will say this without the commitment dedication and unwavering support

01:52:15.980 of our staff, we would not be where we are today.

01:52:28.140 Staff stepped up each and every day, faced the challenges that come with any leadership

01:52:35.460 contest with determination and resiliency, and got the job done as they had already done

01:52:43.880 twice before.

01:52:45.980 But let's not forget, this time, our membership tripled in size, and every task along the way, yes.

01:53:01.020 Every task along the way was similarly magnified.

01:53:06.180 Every single member of our party needs to know how valuable our staff is and was to this undertaking.

01:53:15.160 I am fortunate and honoured to have become part of their team.

01:53:21.320 I want to thank them from the bottom of my heart.

01:53:24.360 We could not have done it without each and every one of you.

01:53:35.960 Thank you, Wayne. When you asked me to serve on your team as

01:53:40.440 chief returning officer i said to myself this is going to be really interesting but i had no idea

01:53:47.080 how interesting it turned out to be i didn't foresee and i don't think any of us foresaw

01:53:53.080 the unprecedented interest of canadians in this leadership race and the historic numbers

01:54:00.920 my bicycle not working let me go here and the historic uh membership numbers in the conservative

01:54:07.640 party oh you're right don it's been quite a ride and i want to add to that despite the many

01:54:18.120 challenges we faced over the past seven months it has been an absolute pleasure to work with you

01:54:26.200 and ian on this leadership race i think we were a really good team

01:54:37.640 yes i wholeheartedly agree with that wayne it was a real pleasure

01:54:41.400 i'd like to say a few words ladies and gentlemen about my duties as chief returning officer

01:54:47.640 the duties of the chief returning officer in this leadership race are primarily to monitor the

01:54:53.080 process to ensure compliance with our constitution and with the rules and procedures determined by the

01:55:00.680 leadership election organizing committee and i'd like to take a moment to remind everyone

01:55:07.480 of a couple of the more important rules in this race first our constitution requires 0.90

01:55:14.520 that this race will be conducted on a one member one vote point system

01:55:22.200 but what does that mean it means that each of the 338 writings in canada are allocated 100 points

01:55:31.880 the constitution however states that only writings that would have achieved a minimum of 100

01:55:38.520 valid votes cast will receive the full complement of 100 points. Leadership candidates are allocated

01:55:46.900 points based on the percentage of votes they receive in each riding. 30% of the votes means

01:55:54.600 30 points. To win, a leadership candidate must attain a majority of points from across the

01:56:01.860 country. If no candidate receives a majority of points on the first ballot, we will hold

01:56:08.580 a second ballot. This is what is called a single transferable ballot.

01:56:15.140 On the second ballot, the candidate receiving the fewest points is dropped and that candidate's

01:56:21.140 points are reallocated to the second preference, with the point totals being recalculated for

01:56:28.280 all the candidates this process is repeated until one candidate receives the majority of points

01:56:35.960 and is declared the winner i would like to add that the point totals at the close of voiding

01:56:43.880 voting are verified by dawn as cro and independently by deloitte llp the results

01:56:52.680 are then reported to ian chair of leoc and ian will then announce the results here at this podium

01:57:02.040 one excerpt from our constitution in part states national council or the leadership election

01:57:10.120 organizing committee will engage an independent third party to count the ballots in the votes

01:57:17.480 specified leoc pursuant to their rules appointed deloitte to monitor and verify the leadership

01:57:26.680 election process and result and then deloitte llp was retained by conservative fund canada

01:57:36.120 the leadership election organizing committee and the chief returning officer to act as an

01:57:42.760 independent advisor and observer for the 2022 leadership election conservative fund canada

01:57:51.880 will be and was solely responsible for the provision of oversight and staff for carrying

01:57:59.720 out activities adhering to all applicable election rules including the credentials rules and counting

01:58:08.200 rules. Well, ladies and gentlemen, the moment has arrived. Ian and I and Wayne are going

01:58:28.700 to walk over to the results room and obtain the vote results for round one. Assuming everything

01:58:36.620 goes according to plan we will be back here on stage in 10 to 15 minutes with the results they

01:58:46.300 they have not been calculated yet they're ready to press the button on the computer

01:58:50.940 and give us the results so don't go away

01:58:53.980 Okay, well, the moment you've all been waiting for.

01:59:06.620 Ladies and gentlemen, I am going to walk to a room and observe things,

01:59:13.760 and I'll be back here in 10 to 15 minutes.

01:59:16.060 This is 20 minutes of foreplay, then I'm going to go to the bathroom. 0.96

01:59:18.860 I'll be back in 10 minutes to finish you up.

01:59:20.980 God, what are you guys doing?

01:59:22.000 That's a classic Cory Morgan.

01:59:24.280 I love the way of putting it.

01:59:25.560 These guys that they're nitpicking and self-important bureaucrats.

01:59:28.880 And, you know, just give me results.

01:59:31.060 You know, I get that they've got to go through some of the formal stuff.

01:59:34.520 There's formal stuff involved.

01:59:35.560 It's a big deal.

01:59:36.440 You don't want people thinking it was funny business. 0.99

01:59:40.100 But holy crap, Nigel. 0.98

01:59:42.000 Talk about... 0.99

01:59:44.000 This is political blue balls.

01:59:47.620 They've got free TV time until 6 o'clock.

01:59:51.220 Yeah, I do think they really want to give any of it up. Because once they say what the result is, then viewership is going to start falling away and the new leader, whoever it is, is still going to make their speech.

02:00:05.860 I'm as frustrated as, maybe not as frustrated as the woman you were talking about.

02:00:14.180 It's amazing she's still with me.

02:00:17.540 But I am somewhat irritated that I'm going to have to wait for another 10 minutes.

02:00:24.060 Yeah, and I'm looking at the comments.

02:00:26.960 I know you guys are too.

02:00:30.080 Good God.

02:00:31.020 I mean, why didn't they go to the room 15 minutes earlier and walk out with it?

02:00:37.260 As Nigel said, though, I mean, they're milking it out.

02:00:39.420 This is a big moment you want to dominate the news.

02:00:41.320 It's Saturday night.

02:00:42.020 People's attention is going to turn pretty quickly once they know who won.

02:00:45.480 Yeah, and we want you all to stay with us.

02:00:47.700 And I swear to God, we're not going to milk this out any longer.

02:00:51.060 And we know what the Tories did last time.

02:00:53.780 We had an eight-hour broadcast.

02:00:55.520 We were done.

02:00:55.880 We literally took a dinner break.

02:00:57.540 It was so bad.

02:00:58.260 We came back.

02:00:59.360 Still nothing.

02:01:00.060 We locked ourselves out during that dinner break, too.

02:01:02.300 We had to call security to let us back into the building.

02:01:05.940 It was a comedy of errors, that.

02:01:07.920 Yeah, yeah.

02:01:08.780 It was not good.

02:01:11.060 And then at the end, we still didn't have an answer.

02:01:12.960 We had to wait until 1.30 in the morning, at least Eastern time, I think.

02:01:17.640 You know, maybe I'm being a little too pessimistic about the level of interest that is going on here.

02:01:24.400 I'm going to share the numbers we were just talking about.

02:01:26.760 Yeah, why don't we go through that?

02:01:27.700 So the population of Canada is 38 million.

02:01:31.780 27.3 million of them are eligible to vote.

02:01:34.800 That's the Elections Canada 2019.

02:01:37.600 Go with that figure.

02:01:39.760 670,000 Canadians are members of the Conservative Party.

02:01:44.940 That's like nearly 2.5% of the people eligible to vote.

02:01:49.400 Oh, yeah.

02:01:49.780 No, no.

02:01:50.100 I've been calculating.

02:01:51.280 We had one.

02:01:52.400 That was on the total population.

02:01:53.500 Oh, if you go by eligible to vote.

02:01:55.060 Yeah.

02:01:55.740 Eligible to vote.

02:01:56.180 Most among general Canadian eligible voters.

02:01:58.220 Absolutely. 27 million people eligible to vote, and 670,000 of them are members of this party.

02:02:05.440 Almost, I think, except the Conservative Party and all political parties I'm aware of

02:02:10.260 do allow a significant number of people who are not eligible to vote in general elections to vote here.

02:02:16.000 That includes youth, I think, down to the age of 14 or so.

02:02:18.840 And it includes permanent residents who are not yet citizens.

02:02:22.100 So if you're an immigrant and you're not a citizen but you're a permanent resident,

02:02:25.560 You could be a member of the Conservative Party of Canada,

02:02:28.540 Liberals, New Democrats.

02:02:29.900 So they're not the exact same, but I take your point.

02:02:33.100 This is a huge...

02:02:33.960 It is a huge, yeah.

02:02:34.660 Like, I don't know what the membership of the Liberal Party is offhand.

02:02:37.000 I'm just being pedantic.

02:02:38.480 I'm just...

02:02:39.460 But I think typically in Canada, yeah,

02:02:41.100 there's only about 2% of the whole population are members of any party.

02:02:44.840 Combined.

02:02:45.320 Yeah, so we're not a good country for party membership, realistically,

02:02:49.040 but, I mean, that's been consistent with us,

02:02:50.780 and for CPC to sell that many memberships,

02:02:54.420 And these are sold memberships, not free ones like the Liberals tried giving away.

02:02:57.260 Yeah.

02:02:57.600 That's pretty impressive.

02:02:59.300 Yeah.

02:02:59.780 You know, and it is astounding that political party membership is so low in Canada.

02:03:04.520 I get why.

02:03:05.600 Is, you know, people get involved in parties and they volunteer, they knock on doors, hammer in signs, give money.

02:03:11.260 And you're generally not that listened to.

02:03:14.260 But there are cases where, you know, grassroots involvement does have a significant effect.

02:03:19.280 It was grassroots involvement that threw out the Premier of Alberta not very long ago.

02:03:24.080 it's thrown out several premiers of Albert over the last decade. And so political party membership

02:03:30.000 is a way to have influence, but it's what you do with that membership. If you're just simply a

02:03:34.920 member of a party. Active memberships, and then there's memberships. And that'll be the interesting

02:03:38.420 thing to see the turnout, because it's one thing to sell a few hundred thousand memberships with

02:03:43.340 a bunch of, well, it's a big thing, but to get them actually to come out and cast their ballot

02:03:47.500 and mail that in, that's the whole second stage of these races. And that's a lot of work, because

02:03:51.340 You got a lot of people that they're buying it out of politeness because a volunteer kept nagging them so much and they don't get around.

02:03:56.220 So let's talk about this kind of brings me, I think, to Patrick Brown, disqualified for some alleged breaking of some fundraising and financing rules.

02:04:08.300 Now, he claimed to have sold by far the second most number of memberships and somewhere in the name of it of 100,000 or so.

02:04:16.420 if that was true, that is a huge number that would normally actually probably win you a

02:04:21.540 leadership race. Now, he made no bones about it that those were to new Canadians, to immigrant

02:04:27.980 communities, maybe first and second generation. You know, Patrick Brown went out of his way to

02:04:35.200 say, I'm not interested in actually winning over conservatives. I'm going just for the immigrant 1.00

02:04:39.540 vote. And it's a very different kind of politics. It tends not to be at least as ideological,

02:04:45.000 if not sometimes non-audiological at all, a lot of it's just kind of going to the right,

02:04:51.720 you go to the right church, right, Gujarat, great mosque or temple or whatever, synagogue,

02:04:57.240 you go to these things and it's a glad-handing kind of politics. It might involve promises that

02:05:03.780 are kind of, you know, scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. It's often more transactional

02:05:07.900 rather than ideological, like, I will do this because this is something.

02:05:15.040 We don't know exactly how much that is, but he did claim a significant portion of it,

02:05:19.500 and it wasn't that strongly disputed. It wasn't nearly as much as Polyev, but it was a lot.

02:05:23.620 But I'm expecting those Patrick Brown people are probably not going to vote in terribly big numbers.

02:05:32.440 If they're the guys not there, do you expect them to turn out in significant numbers

02:05:37.560 but maybe back, you know, Patrick Brown more or less insinuated,

02:05:42.440 well, you should vote for Shere now.

02:05:43.940 Do you expect him to do that?

02:05:45.040 So the way this tends to work is that the person who is selling himself

02:05:52.300 to the immigrant community often is really talking to a very few people

02:05:57.700 who are influential within that community.

02:06:01.320 So that, think of it from the perspective of somebody who has moved into Canada

02:06:06.780 a country where English is not the first language, you're still finding your feet,

02:06:11.120 you're still trying to figure out what's going on, and they, and so who do you look to? You look to

02:06:16.880 somebody who is of the same nationality, but speaks English better, understands the system,

02:06:23.200 that person says you need to vote for this candidate, that's probably what you're going

02:06:27.580 to do. So now you've got the candidate who sold the memberships out of the, out of the race,

02:06:34.280 and they probably aren't going to bother

02:06:37.960 because they don't really,

02:06:39.700 unless they get an instruction

02:06:40.880 from the person, the community leader,

02:06:44.420 and that community leader, by the way,

02:06:45.840 this relates to what Derek was saying

02:06:47.300 about things being transactional.

02:06:50.300 Those political parties tend to look after

02:06:52.600 those community leaders very well.

02:06:54.600 Yeah, and a lot of those memberships were sold.

02:06:56.380 I mean, we can't assume that every individual

02:06:58.020 in the community, you know,

02:06:59.100 some will take it up seriously and look,

02:07:01.280 but now they're dispersed.

02:07:02.720 They're going to look at all of the candidates

02:07:04.220 somebody could say, well, maybe I'll test for that person or that. Most will probably stay home.

02:07:07.980 So the impact potentially that could have been there when Brown was in is definitely gone.

02:07:12.700 You know who really picks up points in immigrant communities is anybody who can solve 1.00

02:07:18.380 the paperwork jam when they want to bring somebody else in. Whoever can do that.

02:07:22.700 And that's a great point because that's a huge issue. It should be a huge issue in Canada right

02:07:26.540 now. The only thing worse than passport renewals is immigration processing. I mean, we've got a 0.97

02:07:31.580 terrible backlog and the liberals have really dropped the ball and they should be twisting that

02:07:35.100 knife. Well, that's one. So Jason Kenney, you know, a lot of people out east don't understand

02:07:39.880 why Jason Kenney got into so much trouble in Alberta. It's because a lot of people out east,

02:07:43.320 they remember the other Jason Kenney, the Jason Kenney that was popular, that got elected premier

02:07:48.560 and USP leader in Alberta. And, you know, by most accounts, he was an incredible immigration

02:07:54.360 minister, probably the most well known. How often does anyone know that as a household name, the

02:08:00.420 name of the immigration minister. And he did that kind of ethnic and religious minority.

02:08:05.460 He would do three events a night. Minister of Curry in a hurry. Yeah, you say what you like

02:08:09.600 about Mr. Kennedy, he is premier of the province and people will do. But in that particular role,

02:08:15.840 he was a huge asset to the Harper government, often would get to three different ethnic events

02:08:21.320 at night, give his speech, move to the next one. I don't know when he ever slept. That was his

02:08:26.720 But he did the kind of glad handing. He did the glad handing part of it very well. But he actually did some of the real work of it well, like, you know, on streamlining these things.

02:08:40.280 He was very effective.

02:08:41.780 Yeah, you know, he made some changes.

02:08:44.620 Some people might not expect of him, but he, you know, he would, you know, he brought in the refugee program for persecuted gay and other sexual minority groups coming from Iran and places like that.

02:08:58.940 He had some real concrete action on it that backed up kind of the glad-handing curry circuit that he did. 0.99

02:09:04.840 And, you know, Patrick Brown, well, I guess didn't have the opportunity because he wasn't the Minister of Immigration.

02:09:12.300 But, yeah, I don't think we're going to see many of those votes cast because they were for him.

02:09:19.880 Also, that kind of transactional politics tends to have a low water turnout as well.

02:09:25.660 Jason Kenney, again, he played to that as his strength during the leadership review vote.

02:09:29.960 he really focused his membership sales and leadership lead up to that on minority communities.

02:09:36.540 And that's one reason they thought they were kind of a lock to keep Kenny.

02:09:40.300 And their voter turnout was so low, which often happens when you're selling memberships

02:09:44.820 because people are often sometimes buying for them.

02:09:48.240 As I said, it's sometimes more transactional.

02:09:50.420 I don't think we're going to see a lot of those people here.

02:09:52.260 And I think that's going to mean proportionally a lower voter turnout in this race here.

02:09:59.040 because Patrick Brown's people, some of them are going to vote,

02:10:02.060 but I think mostly we're just going to see them stay at home.

02:10:05.300 And some of these races do always have notoriously low turnouts.

02:10:08.340 Okay, so we're actually going to go to Matthew Horwood now

02:10:10.380 on the floor of the Conservative Convention in Ottawa.

02:10:13.980 He's got an update for us.

02:10:15.400 We're expecting the results very, very soon.

02:10:18.380 Let's bring Matthew in right now.

02:10:23.460 Hi, guys.

02:10:24.100 So, yeah, we are experiencing a little bit of a delay here.

02:10:27.660 We should know in about five to ten minutes what the results are going to be.

02:10:31.160 A little bit of griping among the audience members.

02:10:33.560 Somebody made a joke that perhaps they ripped the ballots again like they did last time around, which could be resulting in these delays.

02:10:39.280 But generally, everybody groaned when it was announced, and everybody just wants to see who's going to be the leader, which most people are expecting is going to be Pierre Polyev.

02:10:50.120 Matthew, what's the mood like on the convention floor?

02:10:52.800 people uh i know last time people got angry because it went on uh literally for more than

02:10:58.960 half of a day waiting uh obviously the wait is not as long this time uh you know we had some

02:11:05.740 words around here in the calgary headquarters uh making fun of them saying now for the moment

02:11:10.620 you've all been waiting for where i am going to walk away for 10 to 15 minutes to a room and get

02:11:15.380 the results uh people were i think people are pretty recently a little bit miffed about that

02:11:20.320 But how are people feeling there?

02:11:21.380 Are they fine?

02:11:22.000 It's just kind of a party atmosphere or are they frustrated?

02:11:24.720 What's going on?

02:11:26.380 Yeah, they did kind of screw with our expectations when they said now is the moment and then walked away and gave us another 10 or 15 minutes.

02:11:32.380 But generally, you know, people are a little bit they were a bit upset because I think people still remember what happened last time around.

02:11:38.660 And so they don't want to repeat of that.

02:11:40.160 But generally, you know, it's a festive atmosphere.

02:11:42.440 Lots of people have been drinking.

02:11:43.700 They're just walking around chatting with each other.

02:11:45.740 But people want to get the show on the road.

02:11:47.140 they want to know who the leader is going to be and any sort of delay is going to be not well

02:11:51.340 received. Have you got an estimate on when we're expected to get these results? How long are we

02:11:59.580 going to be waiting here? They said we would know in about 15 minutes, about 10 minutes ago, but I

02:12:04.220 imagine there'll be a little bit more of a delay, but certainly I'd say it shouldn't be, you know,

02:12:09.300 by eight o'clock we should have some idea of who the leader is going to be. Hopefully, I mean,

02:12:12.300 we'll see. I don't think you heard me earlier, but Eastern Standard Time is not a valid time

02:12:17.720 zone for the Western Standard, I'll have you know. That's eight o'clock your time, bud.

02:12:25.600 So yeah, that'd be around six o'clock, I think, Mountain Standard Time. Okay, Matthew,

02:12:33.080 just be standing by. We're going to come to you pretty soon, I think, at the very least,

02:12:40.020 after we hear the speech from Pierre Polyev.

02:12:43.840 Sorry, I mean, whoever they happen to announce

02:12:46.460 as the leader in eight to nine minutes.

02:12:50.660 Okay, sounds good.

02:12:51.860 Thank you.

02:12:52.200 Thank you.

02:12:55.160 Okay.

02:12:57.760 Gentlemen, so you've heard here,

02:13:00.740 is the Conservative Party capable of staying on time?

02:13:05.180 Is this possible?

02:13:06.840 I don't think any party can control this kind of thing.

02:13:10.020 unless it's rigged, unless one isn't.

02:13:12.420 So there's going to be glitches.

02:13:14.100 There's going to be things that go wrong.

02:13:17.180 And heaven knows we have our own equipment issues,

02:13:20.880 and we've got to be a little sympathetic to the party.

02:13:24.380 I don't accept that.

02:13:26.260 I think it shows incompetence.

02:13:29.200 What is it, their 100th leadership race?

02:13:31.220 I mean, come on.

02:13:31.960 It's not like this is a wheel that's being invented.

02:13:34.240 I mean, we've got modern mechanisms.

02:13:36.040 We've had an incredibly long timeline.

02:13:38.700 We've had a close-off for the votes.

02:13:41.100 You knew how many memberships were sold.

02:13:43.240 You should know how many volunteers have to open those.

02:13:45.920 We've got 2% of the voting population of Canada they've got to go through.

02:13:50.420 And that's a lot.

02:13:51.500 And you had the time and the resources and the ability to do it.

02:13:54.400 Well, look, this is the fourth race being conducted under these pretty much exact rules for the Conservative Party of Canada.

02:14:01.620 Before then, there were similar-ish rules, minus the point system for the Canadian Alliance,

02:14:06.400 two races of the Canadian Alliance, one for the Reform Party before then, and then infinitely under,

02:14:12.020 admittedly, a different set of rules for the Progressive Conservative Party and Conservative

02:14:16.520 Party before that. I mean, some of this is in the hands of the bean counters at Deloitte. And just

02:14:23.120 so some of you know, Deloitte is not Dominion. It's not a vote counting system. They're an

02:14:28.020 accounting for an auditing, sorry, they're an auditing firm. Oversight. Yeah, they're trustworthy.

02:14:33.900 Now, it depends what role they're given. They're generally not counting the votes themselves,

02:14:39.400 but it's kind of an oversight. I know there was a lot of controversy when Andrew Scheer was

02:14:45.420 declared the winner. In that case, they bizarrely destroyed the ballots before even announcing who

02:14:51.000 the leader was. And even if there was nothing afoot, that's strange optics. I think since then,

02:14:59.380 the Conservative Party has said, yeah, we're not going to do that. We're going to keep the ballot.

02:15:04.360 You should keep them on the side. This way, if there is a dispute, there's actually a paper

02:15:08.620 trail. I think it's generally considered fairly trustworthy. If there is ever meddling in the

02:15:14.000 race, it'll be more on the administrative side and padding the number of memberships and that

02:15:20.220 kind of thing. It's not going to be in the counting itself for the most part. That's going

02:15:25.240 to be overseen by Deloitte, which is, I think, considered pretty reputable. I know we've got

02:15:29.880 some people in the comments taking issue with it, but I don't see it.

02:15:33.480 Well, and Nigel's right, and like a clean race, yeah, you can get the hiccups, you can get things

02:15:36.640 that happen, because you're honestly going into it. The problem is, though, when you get these

02:15:39.860 delays, the conspiracy theorists are already putting them out there, guys, and the longer

02:15:43.260 you drag it out, the worse it looks, even if there's no basis to it. It could be a simple

02:15:47.720 mistake, but these things are costly, and I really wish they'd iron out some of that.

02:15:51.540 Apart from anything else, we all want to move on to the next thing, don't we?

02:15:55.740 Well, yeah, I've only got so many foreplay jokes in me.

02:15:58.460 Well, it's probably a good thing, but more than likely.

02:16:04.980 Okay, so we're also going to have Steve Outhouse on soon.

02:16:10.400 He is a representative from the Pierre Polyev campaign.

02:16:14.120 I think we're going to be standing by for him.

02:16:17.420 Matthew Horwood's going to have him soon from the convention floor in Ottawa.

02:16:24.840 Before we go to that, though, what do we expect from Pierre Paliab's speech in a few minutes?

02:16:31.180 Sorry, I correct myself again.

02:16:33.380 The eventual winner announced in a few minutes.

02:16:35.460 What do we expect from Pierre?

02:16:36.560 Well, whoever wins is going to have to make a speech in which he thanks everybody, says something kind.

02:16:45.700 Oh, sorry, let me rephrase the question.

02:16:48.420 So a lot of you don't know.

02:16:50.080 Nigel was the chief speechwriter for Stephen Harper.

02:16:53.060 You managed a speechwriting office for Stephen Harper,

02:16:55.460 the prime minister's office from 2009 to 2015.

02:17:00.800 Yeah.

02:17:01.160 I mean, if it was the speeches, then I'm the guy who lost the 2015 elections.

02:17:05.900 Well, arguably helped win the 2011.

02:17:08.180 Well, that certainly did.

02:17:10.040 We could look at it one way or another.

02:17:11.520 So if you were, let me rephrase the question.

02:17:14.860 I'm sorry to interrupt.

02:17:15.700 Let me rephrase the question. If you were Pierre Poiliev's speechwriter tonight,

02:17:20.340 what are the really big key points you need to put in?

02:17:22.740 All right. If I were writing for Pierre Poiliev, I would go hard on his authenticity.

02:17:31.300 You know, one thing about Mr. Poiliev is that you may or may not agree with what he says,

02:17:38.100 but you can be in no doubt that he believes what he says. And not only that, that that will be the

02:17:44.500 basis for what he does next. So many, I mean we were talking earlier about Mr. O'Toole,

02:17:51.380 Mr. O'Toole is not alone in being a politician who tells you what you want to hear, gets the job,

02:17:59.060 and then doesn't follow through with what he promised. I think that Mr. Poilier, if he lands

02:18:08.420 the top job, will attempt to do what he has said he is going to do. And he has been very,

02:18:17.760 very sympathetic to young people who are facing problems of affordability. They can't buy

02:18:24.880 a house. Some of them are barely able to pay rent. And it is that that he is going to talk.

02:18:31.460 He talks about inflation. He talks about housing costs. He talks about opportunity and how

02:18:37.780 he is going to put that out and you know that is what people want to hear about in the years

02:18:45.540 leading up to an election it's fine to talk about airy fairy things fine to talk about climate change

02:18:51.940 as mr trudeau loves to do it is fine talk about all the other virtue signals that mr trudeau

02:18:59.140 sends out but you can't eat climate change and you can't run your car on it and you need

02:19:07.060 opportunity. Mr. Poliev will not have an easy ride. Wherever your true north is, there will be swamps

02:19:13.940 and mountains between you and it. But I have no doubt that he knows where he wants to go and that

02:19:19.220 he will do everything in his power together. That's what he will say in his speech and he will say it

02:19:24.020 far better than I have. So speaking of saying things well, I did not say the right thing well.

02:19:28.980 I'm pretty sure actually Steve Outhouse is from the Leslyn Lewis campaign. I think I mixed that

02:19:34.100 up. But Matthew Horwood, when he comes on with Mr. Odaos, he'll disabuse me of whatever misinformation

02:19:40.580 and fake news I have just spread. Corey, you have not been a speechwriter to a prime minister,

02:19:45.300 but let's pretend you're the speechwriter for Pierre Polyev. I'm assuming they've probably

02:19:51.820 written a victory speech for tonight. I don't even know if they've written a concession speech,

02:19:55.880 but let's, although actually, I don't think the losers get to give a concession speech

02:20:00.140 at these things, because you never know. They might make it as an opportunity to go on some

02:20:04.880 unhinged rant. But let's say you're Mr. Polyev's speechwriter, and you've written the speech that

02:20:11.240 he is probably about to give in a few minutes. What are the key points you're putting in?

02:20:15.100 Well, I mean, the first part, again, is the unity aspect. I mean, really be gracious to the other

02:20:19.420 candidates. Really reach out. Try to build that unity right off the bat. Because even if the other

02:20:25.120 candidates haven't had a chance or won't get a chance to come up and lob bombs, if that's what

02:20:28.880 they were inclined to do. Some of their supporters are going to. Some other people are going to be

02:20:32.440 turning on their heel and stomping out of the room. So the sooner you can collect them in

02:20:35.780 and make them feel welcome, the better. And then, yeah, the campaign for the next election starts

02:20:41.120 now. So where is he coming from? And as Nigel was saying, no climate change, these ideological

02:20:47.120 things, they've served Trudeau fine this far, but we're coming on some tough economic times. And I

02:20:53.480 think most people would agree you can trust Polyev on the economy. If you looked at traditional

02:20:58.360 polls, quite often with people in general, if they're swinging votes, they say, I like the

02:21:01.620 Liberals, but I trust the Conservatives more on the economy. When times get tough, they turn to

02:21:05.360 the Conservatives, you know, because they trust them to balance the budget and fix their wallets.

02:21:10.180 It's kind of when we can afford Liberals that people tend to drift towards them. So there's

02:21:14.700 quite an opportunity. And if Paulyev can focus on that, focus on steady, I guess you could say

02:21:21.520 reliable government in tough times, he can really start scoring points.

02:21:24.820 So it's not in the comments section, but I actually just got an email from Troy Hybean.

02:21:31.880 I'm going to read this one.

02:21:33.320 You know, I always love to read the negative comments, but I like this one because it's

02:21:36.960 a positive comment about my negative comment.

02:21:39.400 I thought I was getting some hate mail because the subject says EST, Eastern Standard Time,

02:21:44.360 not a valid time zone at Western Standard.

02:21:47.040 Oh, we're going to go over.

02:21:48.760 Forget what I'm saying here.

02:21:49.780 We're going to go straight live to the results coming in now.

02:21:54.820 I just want to I just want to say we would have been up here much sooner

02:22:24.800 except the elevator was in use.

02:22:36.740 Mesdames et Monsieur, ladies and gentlemen,

02:22:38.480 could you take your seats please?

02:22:54.800 Mesdames et messieurs, ladies and gentlemen, j'ai des résultats, I have some results.

02:23:07.600 It's my great privilege to announce the results. Nous avons un nouveau chef.

02:23:13.360 We have a new leader, the next Prime Minister of Canada,

02:23:17.120 and the Premier Minister of Canada, the Honourable Pierre Polyeva and Anna Polyeva.

02:23:47.120 Thank you.

02:24:17.120 Thank you.

02:24:47.120 Thank you.

02:25:17.120 Thank you very much before before I begin thank you very much before I begin

02:25:36.020 introducing my husband allow me to express my sadness at the passing of

02:25:40.240 our Queen may she rest in peace long live the King my husband and I

02:25:45.640 My husband and I share the same values, although our background is a little different.

02:25:58.640 I was born in Caracas, Venezuela, and my family immigrated to Canada in 1995 in a working-class neighborhood in the east end of Montreal.

02:26:15.640 My father, he went from wearing business suits and managing a bank, to jumping on

02:26:45.640 back of a pickup truck to collect fruits and vegetables because that's what he had to do to

02:26:51.240 feed his family. The Galinda family present here tonight taught us hard work and that there is no

02:27:14.520 greater dignity than to provide for your own family.

02:27:36.200 Years later, here we are. My father is a small business owner and my siblings

02:27:42.040 went all from their humble beginnings including me working at mcdonald's to being a renovator

02:27:49.480 a registered practical nurse a proud member of the canadian air forces

02:27:55.400 and here i am left three the point at home standing in front of you by my husband's side

02:28:01.320 my husband's story is a little different he was born in calgary to a teenage mother who had just

02:28:18.840 lost her own mother she gave pierre for adoption to two wonderful school teachers from saskatchewan

02:28:25.140 and again they're all present here tonight

02:28:27.960 L'histoire de mon mari est un peu différente.

02:28:35.360 Il est né à Calgary d'une mère adolescente qui venait tout juste de perdre sa propre mère.

02:28:40.400 Elle a donné pierre en adoption à deux merveilleux professeurs d'école élémentaire provenant de la Saskatchewan

02:28:44.960 et ils sont présents ici ce soir.

02:28:48.140 So, we both grew up the same way.

02:28:52.160 Our families living paycheck to paycheck.

02:28:54.840 Knowing that filling your tank of gas, it is not a luxury, but a way of transportation to go to work and to bring your children to school.

02:29:04.840 Donc, nous avons grandi très similairement, nos familles vivant toujours en attendant le prochain chèque de paie,

02:29:14.840 en sachant que faire le plein d'essence n'est pas un luxe, mais un moyen de transport pour aller travailler ou amener vos enfants à l'école.

02:29:23.840 So ladies and gentlemen, mesdames et messieurs, a principled man, a good son, a wonderful father, and a loving husband.

02:29:37.300 This, this is the new leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, et votre prochain premier ministre, my husband, Pierre Poilievre.

02:29:53.840 Thank you, Anaïda, je t'aime.

02:30:21.440 I begin on behalf of everyone here, expressing my sorrow at the passing of our beloved Queen.

02:30:31.760 Two tiny words, the Queen, yet on every continent, those two words conjure up more than a picture.

02:30:41.940 They also express an idea, the idea of decency and duty.

02:30:47.280 Elizabeth II, though she might have recoiled at the thought, was the world's most famous woman.

02:30:55.760 Yet she was our queen, our sovereign, for almost half of our nation's existence.

02:31:01.520 In her 22 visits here, yes indeed, and her 22 visits here and her dealings with 13 prime ministers,

02:31:08.840 she exhibited the virtues we most cherish, dignity, civility, humility, candor, and above all else,

02:31:19.380 service. That's why her death, though not unexpected, is nonetheless shocking. We felt

02:31:27.260 we knew her. We felt that her strengths were ours, the strengths of a country which by good fortune

02:31:32.980 and God's grace we call home.

02:31:38.840 And that, perhaps, is why I feel a small catch in my throat when I utter the words that no

02:31:49.580 leader has stated in this country for over seven decades, God save the King.

02:32:06.580 begins the journey to replace an old government that costs you more and

02:32:11.920 delivers you less with a new government that puts you first your paycheck your

02:32:16.700 retirement your home your country by tackling liberal inflation we'll put you

02:32:31.480 back in control of your life and your money.

02:32:34.520 Le travail commence ce soir pour remplacer ce vieux gouvernement qui vous coûte plus

02:32:44.200 cher et qui vous apporte moins avec un nouveau gouvernement qui vous place en premier votre

02:32:50.920 And it is about you. This is not my victory, it is yours, and I have so many people to

02:33:15.240 Thank you to Scott Acheson for running on ideas like simplifying and lowering taxes.

02:33:35.920 Thank you very much, Scott.

02:33:42.900 you to Roman Baber for standing up for and making sacrifices for freedom for

02:33:49.020 everybody and thank you thank you to his wonderful partner Nancy for championing

02:33:59.580 children with autism thank you thank you to Leslyn Lewis for standing for

02:34:07.740 family faith and freedom

02:34:17.740 and to her husband john for supporting her along the way

02:34:21.820 yes and thank you and thank you to jean chariot for your service to our

02:34:28.140 country and for ensuring that we still have a country that is united in which

02:34:45.120 we can call ourselves home thank you for fighting for Canada John when the

02:34:49.480 nation's back was against the wall in the 1995 referendum you stood with

02:34:54.640 courage and passion. You defended our country, and our nation will ever be grateful for your work.

02:35:00.480 Thank you.

02:35:05.680 Absolutely.

02:35:16.720 It's about 40 years that Jean is in politics, provincial and federal level, and it's hard.

02:35:22.960 And that's why I recognize Michelle.

02:35:32.360 For those four decades, there have been countless occasions when her husband was fighting causes

02:35:38.520 on behalf of all of us, when you had to carry the extra load and take the extra sacrifice.

02:35:45.400 Countless invisible sacrifices.

02:35:47.640 And we as a nation, we as a party, we thank you, Michelle.

02:35:51.640 To supporters of all of these fine candidates, I open my arms to you.

02:36:05.720 Now, today, we are one party serving one country.

02:36:21.640 Most importantly, thank you to my brilliant and beautiful wife.

02:36:27.640 Thank you to my beautiful and brilliant wife.

02:36:34.640 To have been my anchor, my pillar, throughout this crazy adventure, you have made it possible.

02:36:44.640 You are my best friend and the love of my life.

02:36:48.640 to the family of Anaïda who took care of our children when we were on the road.

02:36:56.640 You made this possible.

02:36:59.640 Thank you very much to the family of my husband and for your contribution to Canada.

02:37:12.640 So that's all the Spanish I speak.

02:37:14.640 If you ever come over to our house for one of our grand family gatherings, it's usually

02:37:20.320 20 Latinos and Latinas arguing, telling jokes, telling stories in Spanish, and one guy standing

02:37:27.900 around having no idea what anyone else is saying.

02:37:33.680 My wife's family not only raised this incredible woman, but they came to this country from

02:37:38.640 venezuela with almost nothing and they have since started businesses raised kids served in the

02:37:45.440 military and like so many immigrant families built our country and i want to thank yes

02:37:58.000 i want to thank my brother patrick my father don his partner ross my mother marlene and even

02:38:03.840 And my biological mother, Jackie, is here today, yes.

02:38:15.000 We're a complicated and mixed-up bunch, like most families, like our country.

02:38:19.520 I want to thank my parents, though, in particular.

02:38:22.880 I want to thank my parents' two schoolteachers who adopted me from a teenage mother.

02:38:28.880 They taught me that it didn't matter where I came from but where I was going.

02:38:32.900 It didn't matter who I knew, but what I could do.

02:38:35.580 That is the hope I want my kids to inherit.

02:38:51.440 But that hope has melted into worry for many.

02:38:56.820 Today, people feel like they've lost control of their pocketbooks and their lives.

02:39:02.900 The cost of government is driving up the cost of living.

02:39:07.120 This government, this liberal government, has doubled our national debt, adding more debt than all previous governments combined.

02:39:15.380 That means another half trillion dollars bidding up the cost of the goods we buy and the interest we pay.

02:39:23.280 Inflationary taxes increase those costs further.

02:39:26.480 Now, they plan to triple the carbon tax on gas, heat, and everything else.

02:39:33.480 The cost of the government increases the cost of life.

02:39:38.480 This government has added to our national debt more than all other governments in the history of our country.

02:39:45.480 That means $500 billion that adds to the inflation and increase the interest rates.

02:39:51.480 It is the most expensive government in history, and the more they spend, the more things cost.

02:40:01.240 The result? Families downgrade their diets to cover the 10% year-over-year jump in food prices.

02:40:09.720 Seniors delay their retirements and watch their life savings evaporate with inflation.

02:40:17.960 30-year-olds who did everything we asked them to do, got degrees, worked hard, are trapped 0.79

02:40:24.960 in 400 square foot apartments, or worse, their parents' basements, because house prices have

02:40:29.460 doubled under this government.

02:40:34.340 And those who do own homes are paying more interest on their mortgages, even though this

02:40:39.620 government promised interest rates would not rise for years.

02:40:44.460 mères monoparentales mettent l'eau dans le lait de leurs enfants pour pouvoir se permettre la

02:40:49.920 hausse de 10 % de la nourriture d'une allée à l'autre. Les personnes âgées voient leurs

02:40:56.340 économies s'évaporer avec l'inflation. Des jeunes de 30 ans qui ont fait tout ce que nous avons

02:41:02.580 demandé d'eux, obtenir un diplôme, travailler fort, vivre dans le sous-sol de leurs parents

02:41:07.200 parce que les prix des maisons ont doublé. Et ceux qui ont une maison fait davantage d'intérêt

02:41:13.860 No wonder people are worried. Most are lucky to be just getting by. Many are falling behind.

02:41:22.860 And there are people in this country who are just hanging on by a thread. These are citizens of our country.

02:41:31.860 We are their servants. We owe them hope. They don't need a government that sneers at them, looks down on them, calls them names.

02:41:38.860 names they don't need a government to run their lives they need a government that can run a

02:41:43.260 passport office they need a prime minister who hears them and offers them hope that they can

02:42:01.100 again afford to buy a home a car pay their bills afford food have a secure retirement and god

02:42:07.340 forbid even achieve their dreams if they work hard they need a prime minister who will restore that

02:42:12.140 hope and i will be that prime minister we will rekindle the hope that people's paychecks and

02:42:29.820 savings can again buy a decent life we will make government affordable so that life is affordable

02:42:34.140 we'll cap spending and cut waste to reverse inflationary deficits and taxes that includes

02:42:39.660 axing new taxes on your paycheck gas heat and other essentials

02:42:48.140 it means fighting climate change with technology and not with taxes

02:42:58.060 we will restore hope that hard work will again pay off do you know

02:43:01.900 that today if a single mom with three kids earning 55 000 a year goes out and earn another dollar 1.00

02:43:09.820 she loses 80 cents of it to taxes and clawbacks so she can't get ahead 1.00

02:43:15.980 i will reform programs and cut taxes so that when that single mother and people like her 1.00

02:43:20.860 earn more they keep more and hard work always pays off in this country

02:43:31.900 Instead of creating more cash, let's create more of what cash buys.

02:43:50.140 Think of it.

02:43:51.140 If you've got 10 loaves of bread and $10, well, it's a buck, a loaf.

02:43:57.780 If you double the number of dollars to 20, but you still have 10 loaves of bread, well,

02:44:01.780 then it's $2. You see, spending more doesn't get us more. We need to make more. So instead

02:44:09.060 of doubling the money, let's double the bread. Let's, yes. Let's remove the government gatekeepers

02:44:18.000 to build more homes, grow more food, and produce more energy right here in Canada.

02:44:23.480 we need to restore the hope of home ownership right now youths and newcomers can't get a home 1.00

02:44:36.260 because local government gatekeepers block housing with heavy fees and long delays for

02:44:40.800 building permits leaving us with the fewest houses per capita of any country in the g7

02:44:46.380 even though we have the most land to build on a poly of government will require big cities that 0.85

02:44:53.080 want federal infrastructure money to speed up and lower the cost of permits and to approve

02:44:58.420 affordable housing around all transit stations so that our young people can live there and don't 1.00

02:45:03.960 even need to afford a car. We will also sell off 15% of the underutilized 37,000 federal buildings

02:45:14.020 to turn them into housing and use the proceeds of sale to reduce our deficit. In other words,

02:45:18.560 stop printing money, start building homes for our people.

02:45:25.140 Speaking of homes, we must make stuff here at home again, here in Canada.

02:45:33.220 Look, trade is great. Trade is just great.

02:45:36.920 But we learned during COVID that we can't count on the rest of the world to take care of us.

02:45:40.820 That is why we must be the best place on earth for workers and businesses to build factories,

02:45:45.700 mine critical minerals for electric cars and develop other resources right now we lose wages

02:45:52.000 because we import 130 000 barrels of overseas oil mostly from dictators every single day even though

02:46:00.440 we have the third largest supply right here in canada and that is all because our government

02:46:05.660 prefers dirty dictator oil to responsible Canadian energy.

02:46:14.700 We will repeal this government's anti-energy laws and replace them with a law that protects

02:46:20.460 our environment, consults First Nations, and gets things built.

02:46:28.620 We will greenlight Newfoundland and Labrador's planned increase in oil production, which will

02:46:34.060 will allow us to fully replace every single barrel of oil we're importing from abroad.

02:46:39.560 And within five years, we will set the goal to end dictator oil in Canada altogether.

02:47:04.060 projects like GNL Québec. We all know that the Québécois have a

02:47:09.180 own source of energy, hydroelectricity, that they can use to liquidate the natural gas

02:47:15.420 without emissions. The Europe needs to buy gas. This is the choice.

02:47:20.380 Some prefer that the natural gas money finance the war of Putin's arms.

02:47:26.220 I want this money to finance the payche for Jean-Marc Tremblay, the soudor of Saguenay.

02:47:34.060 We will green light mining and manufacturing of minerals like lithium, cobalt, and copper to make electric cars and batteries.

02:47:42.060 We will allow for technology to be unleashed here instead of our money to go to foreign dictatorships.

02:47:47.060 And that also includes repatriating food production by standing with our farmers here at home.

02:47:53.060 here at home. This government's high energy taxes and proposed fertilizer cuts will only

02:48:06.240 drive food production abroad to more polluting first foreign jurisdictions, which would have

02:48:11.980 to then burn fuel to ship, train and truck that food back to us. But didn't we learn

02:48:18.000 how irresponsible it was to rely on the rest of the world

02:48:21.600 to provide us with our essentials during COVID.

02:48:24.180 A poly of government will repeal these taxes

02:48:26.980 and fertilizer mandates to get out of the way 0.99

02:48:29.200 and off the backs of our farmers

02:48:30.680 so that we can grow affordable food,

02:48:32.540 feed our people and be the breadbasket of the world.

02:48:42.820 We will restore to First Nations more control 1.00

02:48:45.880 their land, money, and decision-making. And those communities that want to develop resources and

02:48:52.600 invite commerce to fight poverty will have an ally rather than an obstacle in me.

02:49:01.880 We must remove other unneeded barriers by axing the disastrous Arrive Can app.

02:49:07.640 and and by ending the remaining covid vaccine mandates to let people work and travel freely

02:49:22.040 thank you

02:49:33.800 we will we will bring hope we will bring hope to doctors nurses engineers and others

02:49:41.620 who are immigrants to this country but are blocked from working in their professions for

02:49:46.600 no other reason than that they come from another country we'll team up with provinces to guarantee

02:49:51.560 that within 60 days, an immigrant applying to work in their profession will get a yes or no 0.53

02:49:56.600 based on their tested abilities, not based on where they come from.

02:50:03.780 We will back up 30,000 small study loans for those in need of time off work to study up to

02:50:12.500 the Canadian standard. Enough talking. Remove the gatekeepers to get more doctors, more nurses, 0.98

02:50:18.360 more engineers, and more inflation-proof paychecks for our brilliant immigrants.

02:50:26.200 And we will restore the hope of safe streets, a hope that has turned into fear in all too many

02:50:35.680 places after killings in Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto, and most recently, Saskatchewan.

02:50:44.000 Weakened laws allow chronic and violent re-offenders out of prison early at great danger to our people.

02:50:53.120 Instead of spending a fortune targeting licensed and law-abiding, trained and tested firearms owners,

02:51:00.820 conservatives will bolster the laws, bolster the borders, and put the real criminals in jail.

02:51:14.000 And we will return the hope to Quebec so that they can take control of their decisions 0.99

02:51:20.640 and their lives instead of being controlled by a central and woke government in Ottawa.

02:51:27.400 You know, you know, you know, the French language has a special place in my heart.

02:51:37.560 Mon père, qui a des origines canadiennes-françaises et qui vient d'un village françasquois, m'a

02:51:43.740 transmis l'importance de préserver le français dès mon plus jeune âge.

02:51:48.060 En grandissant à Calgary, malheureusement, j'avais trop peu d'occasion de le parler,

02:51:54.020 donc j'ai beaucoup de travail à faire.

02:51:57.060 Maintenant, je continue de perfectionner cette langue que j'aime, langue fondatrice de

02:52:02.580 of our country. With my daughter, Montréal, we will transmit our children who are going

02:52:12.220 to the francophones. Our children, Baby Cruz and Valentina, will have the French language

02:52:21.140 as the first language, the second language, of course, Spanish, and after that, the third

02:52:27.340 l'anglais. Je vais aller plus loin en parlant du Québec. Je dirais que les conservateurs

02:52:34.820 de partout au pays ont beaucoup d'apprendre des Québécois. Les Québécois défendent

02:52:39.540 leur patrimoine, leur culture et leur langue. Ils ne s'excusent pas. La nation québécoise

02:52:45.820 Tient tête au hawkisme. Mon gouvernement ne va pas se mettre le nez dans tout. Un état fédéral plus petit va faire grandir des citoyennes du Québec et du Canada.

02:53:04.900 small government makes for big citizens who own their homes, build their dreams, raise their

02:53:12.320 families, look out for their neighbors, and earn powerful paychecks and savings free from inflation

02:53:18.480 and over taxation. We will restore Canada's promise in a country where it doesn't matter

02:53:24.320 who you love, or if your name is Smith or Singh, Martin or Mohammed, Chang or Charles,

02:53:29.880 A country where the dreamer, the farmer, the worker, the entrepreneur, the survivor, the fighter, the ones who get knocked down but keep getting back up and keep going can achieve their purpose.

02:53:42.100 A country where the son of a teenage mother adopted by two teachers can dare to run for Prime Minister of Canada.

02:53:57.200 Absolutely.

02:53:59.880 In the words of the great Canadian Prime Minister, John Diefenbaker, I am a Canadian, a free

02:54:08.520 Canadian, free to speak without fear, free to worship God in my own way, free to stand

02:54:14.280 for what I think right, free to oppose what I believe wrong, free to choose those who

02:54:18.980 shall govern my country.

02:54:20.900 This heritage of freedom I pledge to uphold for myself and all of mankind.

02:54:26.520 Merci beaucoup.

02:54:27.840 Thank you very much.

02:54:52.420 Well, we've just heard now from the new leader

02:54:55.760 the Conservative Party of Canada, Pierre Polyev.

02:55:00.300 I'm going to really work on getting that if he's the leader of the opposition.

02:55:04.340 I'll be saying that name a few more times.

02:55:05.420 Polyev.

02:55:07.780 Polyev.

02:55:09.380 Okay, Pierre Polyev thumping, smashing win tonight.

02:55:15.760 We're going to get into this.

02:55:18.460 We'll go into that in a second.

02:55:19.620 We're going to just first reactions here.

02:55:21.560 that uh we're gonna go to uh our young new reporter uh jonathan bradley still working

02:55:27.660 on doing epitaph correctly but uh jonathan we're gonna get first first thoughts from you your

02:55:33.500 initial reaction i'm kind of stunned that one by that much i was starting over the last few days

02:55:40.120 i'm starting to think i was starting to think you know what maybe he's gonna win on the first ballot

02:55:43.820 but i was thinking it was gonna be tight you know like 54 but to see something like 68 that really

02:55:49.320 shows the parties behind him uh yeah uh it's a thundering victory uh cory uh initial reaction

02:55:57.980 he's got a very strong mandate from the members so i mean unity concerns which were my concerns

02:56:03.180 shouldn't be as much so i mean people can't pretend he ran away with it they can't pretend

02:56:08.360 he's not representing what the membership is again now goes on to seeing how if he can represent

02:56:12.140 what canadians as a at large do but his speech i thought was uh fantastic he's on the right track

02:56:17.160 Nigel, we were chatting just kind of side while Polyev was speaking. Polyev is, you know, 68.2%. There's been four leadership races in the history of the modern Conservative Party of Canada. Only two now have won on the first ballot. The two who never won an election, Andrew Scheer, Aaron O'Toole, won way down the ballot.

02:56:44.440 Scheer in particular lost 12 ballots before being declared winner on the 13th, I think it was.

02:56:50.200 But now Stephen Harper, Pierre Polyev, I could be mistaken. I think Polyev one even bigger mandate

02:56:55.880 than Stephen Harper did. Your impressions of what that means? Well, I take that to mean that

02:57:05.480 people are responding to certainty and to clarity. When you have got a leader

02:57:13.540 elected after, what did you say? 11? 12? Shear lost 12 ballots before

02:57:21.580 declaring leader on the 13th. And O'Toole, I don't even know if he

02:57:26.400 won any ballots until the last, well, by points. He won by the second ballot was

02:57:32.120 when it shifted because the first ballot was Peter McKay was 35%, O'Toole was 33% and then

02:57:37.900 it shifted after that and it was like something like O'Toole 47%, McKay 45% and then on the last

02:57:45.520 ballot he won. What I'm saying is that when you have those kinds of compromises being made within

02:57:50.100 the leadership, within the party, in order to put somebody at the top, you don't have a clear

02:57:56.420 mandate before he was saying he has one he can now do the things that this was actually the first

02:58:03.540 campaign speech in the next election he laid it all out there and i'm expecting that he will stay

02:58:08.340 with that program that's what people want what i'm hopeful for though is that uh polyev includes

02:58:14.180 his opponents in his cabinet like i think uh it would be wise of him to put leslie lewis

02:58:18.980 in a portfolio maybe uh be attorney general and justice critic because she is a lawyer

02:58:24.820 uh same with scott atchison i could see him being put in a portfolio possibly jobs in industry

02:58:29.700 because he really talked about like you know the economy and taxes things like that maybe even

02:58:33.060 finance i say agriculture let him deal with supply management perfect yeah um okay well uh actually

02:58:40.580 i've got a very interesting number here uh anthony koch of the polyev campaign i think he's the press

02:58:47.300 secretary for it. He's put out a statement saying that Polyev has won 330 of 338 constituencies in

02:58:58.820 the country. So, sorry, I need that back. Sorry, someone just tried to leave our studio with

02:59:04.420 something I very much need. But yeah, Mr. Polyev has, according to his spokesman, Anthony Koch,

02:59:12.820 won 330 of 38 constituencies in the country. Meaning on the final, actually we can't say

02:59:20.820 final ballot, I'm going to assume that second place runner-up Jean Charest probably won the

02:59:27.060 other eight, but you know, Jean Charest, Leslie Lewis is a lot closer to Jean Charest than Jean

02:59:33.300 Charest was to Pierre Polliver. In fact, last place Scott Atchison is closer to Jean Charest

02:59:38.980 than Jean Charest was to Pierre Pauli. I said both versions there. 3.30 of 3.38. Assuming that

02:59:47.360 checks out, I think that says that he has won every part of the country, including Quebec,

02:59:53.680 which was supposed Jean Charest had claimed was a lock, right? Yeah, he's campaigned wisely. I

03:00:00.160 think he didn't take the Western support for granted. Again, it's not a first-past-the-post

03:00:04.100 type of uh election or one member one vote and he held some appeal in every one of those i mean it

03:00:09.620 wasn't a lost cause you weren't diving in it i mean one of the things i gave sure a credit for

03:00:13.300 was calgary alberta was his weak spot but he would come out and take his lumps and come out and try

03:00:17.700 and get those votes out here but it didn't really work out uh polyev went and campaigned broadly and

03:00:22.980 obviously he appealed to people in every portion of this country at least in a member wise that

03:00:27.140 actually is an astonishing statistic that checks out 30 out of 338 because always the knock was

03:00:33.380 well you'll do well out in they'll like him in alberta maybe maybe bc and saskatchewan but you

03:00:39.220 wait till they get back east it's all gonna fall apart we had that very discussion very beginning

03:00:44.340 obviously it was not so i i've got a tweet here from prime minister justin trudeau he says

03:00:50.020 congratulations pierre polyev on being elected leader of the conservative party tonight

03:00:54.740 parliamentarians we must work together to deliver results for people across the country

03:00:58.900 Canadians expect and deserve nothing less. Now, that's the official statement from the Prime

03:01:03.700 Minister. I think we're going to probably see some different statements from his surrogates,

03:01:11.620 members of the Liberal Party caucus cabinet, and then further surrogates and the media and whatnot.

03:01:18.420 The framing... Check the general thoughts feed. Yeah, I would watch that. Now, I think the media

03:01:25.140 and the Liberals have for some time assumed he's got it. So I think the framing began long before

03:01:30.340 tonight. It's not, you know, the Conservative equivalent was when Stéphane Dion won. The

03:01:36.580 Conservatives had kind of attack ads and different messaging prepared because they didn't know who

03:01:40.140 was going to win that race. That was wide open. Stéphane Dion also did not win on first ballot.

03:01:44.920 He kind of came up the middle on gradual ballots. But, you know, when Michael Ignatieff won,

03:01:54.100 It was expected he'd be the leader, if he was effectively already the leader, the way that weird thing worked.

03:02:00.200 But, you know, it's now kind of a tradition that the main other party will begin framing their opposition pretty much the day they're elected.

03:02:09.340 I think that already began, though.

03:02:11.140 Would you expect anything to change now that it's official?

03:02:15.820 No, I wouldn't, because it has been so obvious for so long that Polyev was going to win.

03:02:23.800 I mean, I'm sure Jonathan's view, I didn't expect it to be quite that spectacular, but nevertheless, that was the expectation.

03:02:33.880 And, you know, the media are going to be going home today thinking, this is great.

03:02:37.700 Now we've got somebody to pick on right now until the next election. 0.60

03:02:42.500 Because he is different from the consensus of the responsible media.

03:02:49.020 They will enjoy mocking his ideas.

03:02:53.600 The thing is, the people of this country, I think, are going to really respond to his ideas.

03:03:02.460 They're going to like somebody who actually talks about inflation and higher prices as a problem.

03:03:07.420 They're going to like to talk about somebody who talks about lowering the gas taxes.

03:03:12.940 They are going to want somebody who will say, I will put you first.

03:03:17.640 rather than somebody who wants to put some airy-fairy notion of the planet first.

03:03:24.220 Absolutely, and we're seeing that.

03:03:25.600 We're seeing it in polls lately.

03:03:27.080 It seems almost disappointment when they're reporting it in the legacy media

03:03:30.900 that, well, Canadians, by and large, are most concerned about inflation

03:03:34.500 and climate change and other issues are way down lower on that scale,

03:03:40.260 and they're worried about paying the bills.

03:03:42.940 Meanwhile, Trudeau is saying, I don't like thinking about the economy.

03:03:46.400 He's weak.

03:03:47.220 And, you know, the other thing that might be interesting, though, is, I mean, they're going to come out guns blazing for Polyev.

03:03:52.520 That's a given.

03:03:53.060 The establishment's going to the Liberals.

03:03:55.060 But the Sharks have got to be circling under Justin Trudeau.

03:03:57.780 Like, he is not the strongest.

03:03:59.500 He certainly doesn't carry the weight that he did a few years ago.

03:04:02.260 And they might be thinking their better chance is going to be getting a fresh face at the head of the Liberals.

03:04:07.340 And I tell you, they are ruthless political players.

03:04:10.100 He's got to be sweating a little right now.

03:04:11.380 So I read the short little tweet from Justin Trudeau.

03:04:15.900 I said, well, I expect surrogates to take a different tone.

03:04:19.220 In fact, they already have.

03:04:20.780 We've got statements now from senior liberal, I think they're both ministers, Dominic LeBlanc and Rachel Bendeian, issuing their congratulations to Pierre Polyev.

03:04:31.880 Our country continues to rebuild from the global pandemic and Canadians need their elected politicians to work together to make life affordable, fight climate change, strengthen our economy and grow the middle class.

03:04:41.380 Justin Trudeau and our Liberal team will continue to collaborate with all willing political parties to deliver real results for Canadians and we hope the Conservative Party will join us in that work.

03:04:51.040 At the same time, we will stand up and speak out against the reckless policies of Pierre Polyev has been pushing since the start of his leadership campaign and during his nearly 20 years as Conservative Insider.

03:05:02.100 While Mr. Polyev and the Conservative Party to promote American style politics and try to stand in the way of our progress for Canadians, we'll remain focused on moving Canadians forward.

03:05:11.380 Well, it sure didn't take long for the surrogates to strike a remarkably different tone than the prime minister.

03:05:16.780 But I think that this is what you would expect.

03:05:18.480 The prime ministers could try to look, at least temporarily, a little above the fray.

03:05:23.460 And then you set your minions to do the work for you.

03:05:26.260 Well, that's the classic tactic.

03:05:28.720 But what they're trying to say, the next thing is they're going to say he's just like Trump.

03:05:32.220 And, of course, that's not.

03:05:33.960 Well, they've been saying that the whole time.

03:05:35.500 They have, you know.

03:05:36.660 And the thing is you shouldn't conflate style and substance.

03:05:40.180 The, you know, if you just go through it, Mr. Polyev supports immigration.

03:05:46.980 He defends the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

03:05:50.500 Trump has never talked about housing or cryptocurrency, Mr. Polyev has talked about nothing but.

03:05:57.740 Some people say, well, he's getting in front of the parade.

03:06:00.800 Well, I guess all politicians do it or they try to do it.

03:06:06.280 But the difference is that Mr. Poliev has the gift of making people understand why they

03:06:14.260 are in a parade.

03:06:16.280 Why they're in it.

03:06:17.280 And you know, the knock is that his supporters are angry, but he didn't create that constituency.

03:06:25.520 The person who created that constituency was the one who called vast swaths of the people

03:06:31.560 of Canada, misogynists and racists, holding unacceptable ideas. Talk to people like that,

03:06:40.200 but they're going to return on you. So I want to talk about Polyev's speech. So we watched it there.

03:06:46.420 I think pretty much everyone's with us right now watched it as well. I could have missed it,

03:06:52.140 because we had our odd little side chat, but I think we caught pretty much all of it.

03:06:58.200 In every Polyev rally that I was aware of, and certainly when he came to Calgary,

03:07:03.960 he talked about defunding the CBC.

03:07:07.440 Unless I missed it, I did not hear the CBC uttered in his speech tonight.

03:07:12.400 I think this would be the first speech of his leadership campaign,

03:07:15.500 if we include tonight's speech in that campaign.

03:07:18.100 It would be the first speech where he does not talk about defunding the CBC.

03:07:20.900 I think he did talk about freedom, but he used the term a hell of a lot less than at his rally.

03:07:27.380 At his rallies, it sounded like he was William Wallace getting ready to charge the fields of Bannockburn or something.

03:07:38.880 So that raises the question.

03:07:41.600 And this has been kind of speculated on before tonight.

03:07:44.800 Is Pierre Polyev going to pivot?

03:07:47.900 So I'll put that maybe first to you, Corey.

03:07:50.640 Was tonight's speech at least a bit of a pivot?

03:07:53.380 I wouldn't go as far as calling it a pivot, maybe a reprioritization.

03:07:56.380 prioritization. He hasn't flip-flopped or said he's ended any promises to defund the CBC or that

03:08:01.820 he doesn't steal back. He's just not going to hold those at the front of his speeches.

03:08:06.680 But technically, like I'm going to play devil's advocate here. Aaron O'Toole claimed he was still

03:08:12.720 against the carbon tax when he announced he supports the carbon tax. He said, I didn't break

03:08:17.320 my promise. This is just a better version of something and it's not a tax. I'm just not going

03:08:21.440 to read much into it. I mean, the ballots are still warm from being open in the envelope. So

03:08:25.260 we'll give it a little time and see where he goes uh there was only so much time in that speech and

03:08:29.080 it was like but I mean again for people like us I mean we love taking a slap at the CBC so we'll

03:08:33.400 notice that when the state broadcaster hasn't because we are eagerly looking forward to the

03:08:36.800 defunding of that dinosaur of an institution uh that would be a huge flip-flop because he's been

03:08:41.660 so definitive on it though again we did see that before with a big flip-flop with O'Toole

03:08:45.120 but I think it would feed it would serve him very poorly to start turning around on it again he's

03:08:50.120 gotten a very strong mandate. And that means stick to what you've been doing. But he's getting to

03:08:55.500 that meat and potatoes. He's got now to pivot in the sense that he's got a campaign to everybody.

03:08:59.780 And you saw that when he's talking about young people trying to find their way into a housing

03:09:03.100 market, other people having difficulties making the bills, the meat and potatoes stuff. And like

03:09:08.060 Nigel was talking about too, another mistake we're going to see from the liberal elites,

03:09:11.140 the old Laurentian elites. If they keep talking down to people, there's where they underestimated

03:09:15.760 Trump. Look where

03:09:17.920 his support was. He was winning in rural

03:09:19.780 Pennsylvania. He was winning in Ohio

03:09:21.540 because it was the working people and they

03:09:23.800 were sick of the academics talking down

03:09:25.880 to them.

03:09:27.520 I'm not saying

03:09:28.380 Polioff is Trump-like, but I'm saying the opposition

03:09:30.680 can make the same mistake when they're dealing with Polioff.

03:09:32.860 He's got a constituency. He's reaching out

03:09:34.800 and he's engaging and they'd be very

03:09:36.720 poorly served to keep shooting at him like this.

03:09:38.620 They've got to figure out how to reach that much.

03:09:40.120 So Nigel, I'm going to come to you more or less on the same thing.

03:09:44.200 Every

03:09:44.600 speech. Unless I missed something, I don't think he gave a speech anywhere between Victoria and

03:09:50.160 Gander that did not talk about defunding the CBC. And I never counted how many times he used the

03:09:55.940 word freedom when I heard him speak in Calgary, but I would not be surprised if it was in the

03:10:00.100 100 range. He used the word, I think, tonight, but it was certainly at a different level than

03:10:08.460 previous previously is he you think this is a pivot or you know i i i to some extent

03:10:17.900 a degree of pivot is okay if you're not actually changing what you're doing but acknowledging

03:10:21.980 you're speaking to a broader less ideological audience when you're trying to win the canadian

03:10:27.180 public at large it is a different kind of race um so there i think tonight was a change it was a

03:10:35.020 change, but it didn't contradict anything. But generally, when someone changes their positions,

03:10:39.100 they don't just throw it out that openly. Would you consider tonight a pivot of at least some kind?

03:10:46.860 No, I actually don't. I think it's sort of consistent with staying on the message that

03:10:53.900 you want people to understand you. He is talking about the cost of living. He is talking about

03:11:00.700 about young people trying to get ahead and not even being able to get started.

03:11:07.820 The CBC needs to be defunded, yes, however, defunding the CBC doesn't help a struggling

03:11:16.220 student pay off his loan or get his first car or his first house.

03:11:21.440 Those are the things that he's going to be judged on, go with your strengths, you got

03:11:24.980 too much out there you can't you can't focus and if he wins the next election so I believe he will

03:11:33.380 but if he wins the next election it is by talking to people about what's on their hearts

03:11:38.980 not what's on his what's on their hearts and I don't think that the CBC is the top of the list

03:11:45.300 no pivot just a change of emphasis so I I don't want this to be uh maybe discussion on just the

03:11:51.540 the defund the CBC issue. I'm kind of using it as a... You didn't talk about firing the Bank of

03:11:55.560 Canada, Governor, either. No, no, he did not. Although, he did talk about doing it for a bit,

03:12:01.320 but then he kind of de-emphasized it even during the campaign where the votes were still up for

03:12:06.880 grabs. I would expect the priority of what you talk about and some of the language he uses

03:12:12.500 to change. That wouldn't be unusual. Trump surprised everyone when he didn't change

03:12:16.880 anything at all. Trump just ran as Trump. I know there's a famous moment when Barry Goldwater won

03:12:22.560 the 1964 Republican nomination, signaling kind of the beginning of the conservative revolution

03:12:27.640 in the United States. And he gave his famous speech where kind of the famous line was,

03:12:34.000 he said, moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue, and extremism in pursuit of liberty

03:12:43.640 is no vice. And one of the most famous US broadcasters said he rocked back in his chair

03:12:51.420 and says, good God, Goldwater is going to run as Goldwater. Now, notoriously, Goldwater got

03:12:56.740 destroyed in 1964. But it's a different time, a lot of different context around it, imperfect

03:13:03.140 candidate. But Trump did win as Trump. Do you think there's any danger that even if he doesn't

03:13:11.880 changes his positions on these things, like say you still have CBC in the platform, but it's not

03:13:16.660 as high, still lots of freedom stuff, but it's not as prevalent. Is there a danger then that he kind

03:13:22.700 of loses that advantage he's got right now in authenticity that he's seen to maybe to an extent

03:13:28.040 do what O'Toole did, which is grab the votes of the party and then just kind of ignore it and move

03:13:33.400 on? I think there's less worry about here because Polyev has a record as more of a hardcore

03:13:39.860 conservative than O'Toole perhaps did. But do you think there's a risk that if he does this a bit

03:13:44.820 too much, that he risks damaging that authenticity advantage he might have right now?

03:13:51.780 Well, depends how much he does it. Of course, there's a risk. There is always a risk. But

03:13:58.340 you do need to focus. You're facing divisions. You don't go up against all of them at once.

03:14:08.100 you pick the weak spot and you go there. So I think that he has recognized that

03:14:13.940 defunding the CBC, popular though it is, tempting though it is, and necessary though it certainly is,

03:14:21.780 may not be the message to put out there right now because what people are interested in is

03:14:31.700 a reduction in the gas tax. Okay, so we're going to change gears a little bit.

03:14:35.940 You bet. It's like a media for talking process too much, not the issues. We're going to talk

03:14:41.520 process for a second because it still matters. You really want me to do this? Talk process?

03:14:48.000 We're going to have to talk process for a second here. Sorry, we're lost.

03:14:52.080 So before they announced, remember before the pinheads said, now for the moment you've all

03:14:58.600 been waiting for. I am going to walk away from the podium into a room and receive an envelope. And

03:15:06.480 they went through a bunch of process stuff just to be efficient. Essentially, they were giving

03:15:12.180 all the fine print on a podium. And then they came back to the podium ready to announce. And

03:15:16.980 then they skipped a bunch of process stuff that was actually important. Like, what was the voter

03:15:23.060 turnout? How many ballots? How many eligible voters were there versus what they told us

03:15:28.240 eligible voters way before in the night, around 670, 670,000. But normally you say, well, how

03:15:35.100 many ballots were cast? What was the voter turnout? They didn't at all. We have no idea

03:15:41.740 how many ballots were cast. It could have been theoretically 100 votes cast, or it could have

03:15:46.640 been 100% of the votes cast. Give them a break. They were still traumatized by being stuck in

03:15:51.720 the elevator. Yeah. So assuming you all get the reference, they came back and they said, I'm

03:15:57.760 sorry, we were delayed. We were stuck in the elevator. It was an attempt at humor, I suppose.

03:16:05.140 For an auditor, I suppose it was a pretty great joke. I think they recognized, and I can imagine

03:16:11.380 the texts and the phone calls and the things, as soon as there was even clearly a delay, a problem,

03:16:15.320 a hiccup, after the catastrophe of last time, there was a lot of pressure. And I think they were,

03:16:20.300 okay, we've got the results. We're confident in them. Let's not drag people along further. Let's

03:16:25.740 not string it. I don't need a hundred more angry texts. Get up there and let people know what's

03:16:29.600 happening because that's why they're here. And we know we're getting grumpy here. I'm sure every

03:16:33.080 newsroom in the country has been getting grumpy with them when they're waiting and waiting. Is

03:16:36.240 this going to be another six hour delay? Let's just get to the point. Yeah, you got a bunch of

03:16:39.940 newspapers set up on the press just waiting for the last story. Insert number here.

03:16:44.320 Insert number. Yeah. Okay. We're actually going to go to Matthew Horwood. He's on the floor of

03:16:52.760 conservative convention in ottawa right now let's let's bring matthew in uh matthew uh you've got

03:16:57.840 someone uh joining you right now matthew okay well matthew is apparently going to have someone

03:17:06.760 in a moment uh we're gonna keep matthew on standby uh but uh before his guest comes in

03:17:12.340 you know just it's it's normally uh normally the way it works is they'll announce kind of

03:17:17.420 the down balance stuff well okay so last place was scott atchison 1.06 percent of the vote oh

03:17:22.260 actually i think we're uh we've got matthew horwood standing by right now with i think looks

03:17:27.500 like andrew sheer the former leader of the conservative party of canada okay i'm here with

03:17:31.840 andrew sheer the former leader of the conservative party andrew what are your thoughts on what just

03:17:35.840 happened it's just incredible i am just elated we were quietly confident of a strong and decisive

03:17:43.740 mandate a clear result but this blows away even my expectations you know that 68 of the points i

03:17:50.940 just found out over 70% of the popular vote went to Pierre. That's an incredible result and it

03:17:57.120 shows that our movement, our party overwhelmingly endorses his message. That's amazing. Now you

03:18:03.400 joined his campaign early on in about March. What did you see in him? What made you join on? What

03:18:09.780 do you like about him? What I like about Pierre is he is consistent and he is authentic. He believes

03:18:16.280 firmly in core conservative principles of free markets and individual liberty and less government

03:18:21.680 interference in our lives. And he's always, he's not just true to that, he's assertive about it.

03:18:30.080 You know, there are a lot of conservatives who believe that, you know, we have to be kind of

03:18:34.320 bashful about what we believe in. And Pierre said, no, you can make the case to Canadians. You can 0.73

03:18:39.400 make the case to Canadians that free market economics lift more people out of poverty

03:18:43.620 than socialist policies that just redistribute wealth.

03:18:46.900 You can make the case to Canadians that the world needs more clean, ethical Canadian energy,

03:18:51.360 not more oil and gas from Vladimir Putin's Russia.

03:18:55.040 And he's an incredible communicator.

03:18:56.800 So he's authentic, he's consistent, and he's able, he's capable of taking those messages

03:19:01.940 and those principles and talking to Canadians about them in a way that really makes a connection.

03:19:07.380 All you have to do is look at his social media posts where he gets over a million views sometimes

03:19:12.240 when he's explaining inflation or he's talking about how Trudeau's deficits led to rising prices,

03:19:17.700 people respond to it because he's such a clear communicator.

03:19:20.300 So that's the recipe for success in this leadership race.

03:19:23.000 And I believe it's going to be the recipe for success in the general election too.

03:19:26.160 For sure.

03:19:26.540 Could you give your thoughts on Jean Charest?

03:19:27.900 I personally was a little bit shocked to see that Lesley Lewis was pretty close to the amount of votes that he got.

03:19:32.980 He didn't quite do as well as maybe some of us would have expected.

03:19:35.500 What are your thoughts on Jean Charest?

03:19:36.340 Well, you know, I've always known Jean Charest to be a decent fellow, and he's obviously dedicated his life to Canada.

03:19:45.860 You know, I really appreciated Pierre's message of thanks to Jean Charest for his role in the 1995 referendum,

03:19:52.080 helping, you know, helping keep Canada united, fighting for a united Canada.

03:19:56.380 So, look, you know, obviously the membership has spoken.

03:19:59.820 I respect what Jean Charest brought to the race.

03:20:02.620 I respect what all the candidates brought to the race.

03:20:04.820 Having been a leadership contestant myself, it's not easy.

03:20:08.060 All of them spent time away from their families and put themselves out there.

03:20:12.360 So I respect that.

03:20:14.100 And so I'm glad we had a competitive race, and I'm glad that we had a clear result.

03:20:18.700 There have been some people talking about whether Pierre Polyev might have to shift his a little bit more to the left for the general election.

03:20:25.320 Do you think that he will or he should do that, or do you think he should stay true to his principles, how he's been since he was in high school?

03:20:31.060 Yeah, well, I really do believe that's a narrative that comes from the government-subsidized media more than anybody else.

03:20:37.140 Most likely, yes.

03:20:37.720 Yeah, no, but really, you know, a lot of people at, you know, the state broadcaster, the CBC,

03:20:42.640 they don't understand how people can be conservative because they're not conservative.

03:20:46.920 But what I saw in this race was Pierre bringing hundreds of thousands of new people into our party.

03:20:52.260 If you went to any of his events to cover them, you would see there are hundreds and hundreds of people at each one of those rallies

03:20:58.400 that have never been to a political event before at all.

03:21:01.420 Some of them had never even voted.

03:21:03.220 And so when you're talking about winning a general election,

03:21:05.640 it's not about a pivot.

03:21:06.700 It's about continuing to do what's been working.

03:21:09.140 He's already taken the first steps to grow our party beyond our traditional race. 0.94

03:21:13.620 Our party's never had as many people in it as it has now.

03:21:17.840 Over 600,000 people have joined the Conservative Party of Canada,

03:21:21.000 in large part because of Pierre Paglia.

03:21:22.840 So I just believe that we need to continue doing what we're doing.

03:21:26.560 Just get the message you heard here tonight in front of as many Canadians as possible.

03:21:30.420 That's the key to success.

03:21:32.060 It's not about doing something differently now.

03:21:34.720 It's not about pretending to be something that we're not.

03:21:36.780 It's just about continuing to bring that inspiring message in front of as many Canadians as possible.

03:21:43.000 And that's how we're going to win.

03:21:44.200 Speaking of the mainstream media, there's been a lot of talk about Pierre Polyev meeting with certain characters that the media has found to be unsavory,

03:21:50.320 like Jeremy McKenzie, and a lot of op-eds I've seen about how Pierre Polyev is kind of hoarding

03:21:55.240 these radical conspiracy theorists and the conservative part. What do you make of that?

03:21:59.060 Well, there really is a desire. The government subsidized legacy media in Canada doesn't even

03:22:06.780 try to hide their bias anymore. And they're now trying to make Pierre responsible for like two,

03:22:13.620 three, or even sometimes four degrees of separation between himself and people that he may have met.

03:22:18.880 At the same time, nobody at the CBC accuses other Liberals of being racist just because they've appeared in photos with a Prime Minister who's committed racist acts by putting blackface on so often that he lost count how many times he's done it.

03:22:34.520 So there's a real stretch there, and I really do believe that Canadians are losing credibility in the mainstream media for that very reason.

03:22:44.200 The bias has become so obvious that the media only hurts its own credibility when it tries to make those types of leaps of logic.

03:22:52.580 We've got a prime minister that is divisive.

03:22:54.360 We've got a prime minister that has performed racist acts.

03:22:56.780 Justin Trudeau has openly questioned whether or not we should even tolerate people who disagree with him.

03:23:03.440 That's nasty.

03:23:04.520 That's divisive. That's where the problem is. Pierre's message is positive and unifying and brings people together and gives people the ability to make their own choices and control their own lives. That is a hopeful message for the future. And when the legacy media in this country tries to fabricate this nonsensical narrative around Pierre, it just hurts their own credibility. It doesn't hurt him.

03:23:27.360 For sure. I have a question about the vaccine mandates, getting rid of them and ArriveCan.

03:23:32.160 That got a huge amount of cheers from the crowd.

03:23:33.860 But what do you say to, you know, what do you think of Canadians that are a little bit unsure, a little bit scared of going back to normal, let's say, and dropping those rules?

03:23:41.740 Well, look, Canadians are free right now to make their decisions about what they're comfortable doing and what they're comfortable not doing.

03:23:48.560 And I know some people who are still concerned for their own personal health.

03:23:52.080 And so they limit how often they go out and who they go out with and how big of a crowd they're comfortable being in.

03:23:58.280 That's totally up to them.

03:23:59.880 The beauty about what Pierre is talking about is that that freedom also extends to others who are more comfortable

03:24:04.780 and who are willing to get back to normal as quickly as possible.

03:24:10.080 On the Arrive Can app, all our trading partners have gotten rid of their types of restrictions.

03:24:15.780 This is a government that has already shown that it uses the tools that it has to collect data on Canadians.

03:24:23.060 There's no reason to keep that up.

03:24:25.140 There's no reason to keep the divisive mandates that have been shown more and more in the recent weeks and months

03:24:31.080 to not serve any actual medical purpose.

03:24:33.760 And the longer Justin Trudeau continues imposing them on Canadians,

03:24:37.400 the more Canadians ask, were they ever based on science?

03:24:40.480 If you're not dropping them now, when the science is saying you should,

03:24:43.940 and when all our other trading partners and countries where people are flying to and from

03:24:48.320 are doing the same things, then what's the justification for keeping them?

03:24:51.420 So again, Trudeau's hurting his own credibility by keeping them in.

03:24:54.780 But what we heard from Pierre is a clear commitment to fight those restrictions,

03:24:59.060 fight the Arrive Can app and the existing mandate.

03:25:03.400 When the next election happens, whenever that might be,

03:25:05.800 what do you think the strategy should be for Pierre Paulyov?

03:25:08.400 Are there any certain, let's say, techniques?

03:25:10.720 or do you think you should just stick to what he's been doing

03:25:12.420 and continue on speaking how he's spoken?

03:25:15.180 Yeah, I do believe that's the secret.

03:25:18.100 It's not a secret.

03:25:19.540 It's an open secret.

03:25:20.660 Yeah, I'll share the secret.

03:25:21.400 The secret strategy to winning the next election

03:25:23.660 is just keep doing more of the same.

03:25:25.960 He's won every province.

03:25:27.920 I just found out before I started chatting with you

03:25:30.060 that he won every province in Quebec except for six.

03:25:32.920 So he's strong everywhere.

03:25:34.900 He's got a strong result everywhere.

03:25:36.340 our supporters of our movement in every corner of the country are supporting him so it's not like

03:25:42.340 he's got it's not like he's got a vulnerability in terms of of of of his race of his campaign

03:25:49.180 and uh and so we just need to keep doing more of the same we just need to get that awesome inspiring

03:25:54.420 positive message in front of more and more canadian and last thing here is uh generally on

03:25:59.420 the issues of you know inflation supply chain issues uh do you have any suggestions for how

03:26:05.080 he should handle that or what his policy should be?

03:26:07.740 Well, you know, Pierre was the first one to raise the alarm on inflation.

03:26:11.640 When I was still a leader and Bill Murno was still the finance minister and the Bank of

03:26:15.640 Canada announced that it was going to purchase $5 billion of government bonds every week,

03:26:22.500 we recognized that was going to lead to awful consequences.

03:26:27.040 And Pierre was up in the House of Commons frequently.

03:26:29.420 He started to raise the alarm bells.

03:26:31.140 He had the Governor of the Bank of Canada at Finance Committee, and he would ask these

03:26:36.140 types of questions.

03:26:37.500 And the establishment media and the people with fancy titles at the Bank of Canada all

03:26:43.060 dismissed it.

03:26:44.060 Remember, the Bank of Canada was predicting that we would experience deflation, if you

03:26:48.680 can believe it, you know.

03:26:49.960 So Pierre has an incredible gift at taking, you know, concepts like monetary policy, which

03:26:56.920 may not be instantly obvious to everyday Canadians and he's able to communicate in a way that

03:27:04.340 really resonates.

03:27:05.340 He's had a lot of engagement with his videos, with his speeches, with his op-eds and things

03:27:10.120 of that explaining how massive deficits lead to inflation and so that's the solution.

03:27:16.980 The solution is to get those deficits under control and get back to balanced budgets and

03:27:24.220 already had tremendous success raising the the alarm bell on it and now we just

03:27:29.020 need to make sure that we continue doing that with offering the solution which is

03:27:32.500 getting government spending under control and getting a governor at the

03:27:35.860 Bank of Canada that understands if you print money by government debt when the

03:27:41.560 economy is not producing more you wind up with inflation more dollars chasing

03:27:46.060 fewer goods equal higher prices that is a basic concept that a governor of the

03:27:49.780 Bank of Canada should understand and Pierre is going to make sure that the

03:27:53.380 the next governor of the Bank of Canada does understand that for sure and last

03:27:56.080 question really quickly would you say that you're more confident about the

03:27:59.140 the party than you were in 2021 under Erin O'Toole well I try not to look at

03:28:04.480 the past you know we're we're coming off a leadership election where everybody

03:28:08.800 could speculate about why the party wasn't successful in the last few

03:28:12.100 elections what Pierre's done tonight is lead you know spell out a map a roadmap

03:28:18.500 for the the job ahead and that's what we're all focused on now so I'm

03:28:22.840 I'm incredibly confident, incredibly optimistic.

03:28:25.580 Canadians are just coming out of two years of division,

03:28:28.280 two years of the Prime Minister imposing restrictions

03:28:32.300 and imposing things like vaccine mandates

03:28:35.560 and not just disagreeing with people who hold a different view,

03:28:40.200 but really, really insulting them

03:28:42.000 and almost acting like they're, well, not just almost,

03:28:44.700 basically saying that they're un-Canadian to hold a different view.

03:28:48.020 People are tired of that.

03:28:49.340 Canadians are used to having different opinions.

03:28:51.880 What we haven't seen until Justin Trudeau is that level of division really demonizing people for holding a different view.

03:28:58.740 And I believe Canadians are ready to reject that and embrace a positive unifying message of more freedom, less government interference in our lives.

03:29:07.100 For sure. All right. Thank you very much, Andrew. Much appreciated.

03:29:09.700 Appreciate it. Appreciate it.

03:29:13.200 Well, there you have it.

03:29:15.180 Very confident that Pierre Polyev is the man to beat.

03:29:18.540 And that is the general vibe we've been picking up here tonight.

03:29:21.260 people are extremely happy to see him on the stage and he got a huge amount of cheers especially when

03:29:27.660 he talked about getting rid of arrive can and vaccine mandates so it's looking like the party

03:29:31.900 is extremely unified we saw it was way over 50 of the vote went to pierre polyev and it's going to

03:29:38.100 be an interesting next election that's for sure well thank you very much for joining us matthew

03:29:42.400 and your updates from the floor of the convention in there in ottawa uh okay well uh so that was

03:29:49.140 former conservative leader

03:29:51.520 Andrew Scheer

03:29:52.400 he says that Poliev got

03:29:55.360 more than 70% of the popular

03:29:57.580 vote that would contrast with

03:29:59.200 68%

03:30:01.220 of the points so actually pretty close

03:30:03.100 but as I think we

03:30:05.460 kind of predicted he would slightly

03:30:07.220 underperform in the points vis-a-vis

03:30:09.060 percentage but when he went that big

03:30:11.480 it should actually pretty closely net out

03:30:13.500 which it did

03:30:14.160 so we've got a

03:30:17.480 statement from Jean Charest, actually. I don't know if you've got it handy there? I still don't

03:30:22.500 have it handy. I just saw it on Twitter there while things were going, but very gracious and

03:30:28.480 again saying that time to look forward, no internal divisions, no more internal attacks.

03:30:32.740 It was, and I didn't expect anything otherwise from Charest. He's always been dignified, even if

03:30:37.480 the campaign got a little bit heated, but still you do want to watch for that. You never know,

03:30:40.880 and you don't want to see a candidate stomping out and saying, go piss up a rope and leaving it with

03:30:44.920 things divided. So it was good to see. So I want to talk. Well, actually, during this interview,

03:30:53.120 I got a message from our news editor, Dave Naylor. He's in the newsroom, actually over there right

03:30:58.180 now, hammering things out. And he says, Deputy PM Andrew Scheer, you heard it here first. I don't

03:31:05.140 know if he meant that to be private to me or not. But Dave is on the record now, one way or another,

03:31:11.180 predicting that Andrew Scheer is probably going to play a big role

03:31:14.140 in Paulie Ebb's front bench.

03:31:17.700 Well, he should.

03:31:19.080 I mean, one thing that most people forget

03:31:21.100 is that no conservative leader has won more votes than Andrew Scheer.

03:31:26.960 In the election that he contested, he pulled in 6.2 million votes.

03:31:33.080 Mr. Harper at his best, never got that.

03:31:35.160 So he is a much more popular man than his reputation would suggest.

03:31:45.660 Okay, so we're going to go see who is right and wrong here.

03:31:51.180 Our office pool, it's here.

03:31:53.680 We've been talking about it for months.

03:31:55.560 It started in March 9th.

03:31:59.280 The three of us, so myself, Dave Naylor, Corey, we're on March 9th.

03:32:04.300 James Finkbeiner, our vice president of operations, who a lot of you don't see. He's more on the

03:32:11.260 operations side of the standard. But a big part of the team here, just on the 10th, he put his in.

03:32:18.220 Then we had a number of others who came in later on the pool. I was quite confident of victory

03:32:23.340 tonight. I got the order right, and I got the vote pretty close, 60% on first ballot.

03:32:30.000 I was going to say in my defense, that was March 9th before other people had done it.

03:32:35.700 But you, Corey, on the same day had yours in.

03:32:39.800 And you predicted the same order as I had, but you said 64%, which got you the closest, which means you win.

03:32:50.380 The other big winner tonight is Corey Morgan wins the office pool.

03:32:56.680 So Corey Morgan, guy who doesn't drink, is now owed.

03:33:03.220 So just so you know, James is in the back playing with our system.

03:33:08.580 So James has demanded honorable mention.

03:33:11.280 James was actually the closest in predicting the first ballot with 70%.

03:33:14.780 Oliver Baliev got 68.2, I think.

03:33:18.860 James was closest in percentage with 70.

03:33:21.300 But unfortunately, or this Rube, he got every other part of it wrong.

03:33:26.960 He predicted second place would be Leslie Lewis.

03:33:30.080 Third place, Patrick Brown didn't even rank.

03:33:33.140 And fourth place, Jean Charest.

03:33:35.360 Fifth place, Roman Babber.

03:33:36.800 He didn't get a single one right after that.

03:33:41.000 So he thinks he should get honorable mention.

03:33:43.420 I'm not sure.

03:33:45.880 You know, he got part of it right.

03:33:47.120 The real thing here is that I was looking forward to this.

03:33:51.320 Oktoberfest is coming up.

03:33:52.280 I was looking forward to all of these six-packs of beer coming to me.

03:33:54.820 I got expensive German beer tastes.

03:33:57.000 And the guy who doesn't even drink is now owed a six-pack by everybody at the Western Standard.

03:34:02.080 Corey, are you back off the wagon?

03:34:06.040 No, I fear for the sake of everybody around here, I'm still going to remain dry.

03:34:10.580 As you can see, it's uncontrolled and prone to assholery as I am now.

03:34:14.100 You haven't really seen me at the height of my degree.

03:34:15.640 So I'll just take the honorary win and appreciate that today.

03:34:21.520 Some diet Pepsi and some pizza later.

03:34:23.000 So,

03:34:23.340 okay.

03:34:24.960 We're in.

03:34:26.040 Well,

03:34:27.020 also a gracious winner tonight. 0.57

03:34:29.920 I will be a less gracious loser.

03:34:32.060 I was really looking forward to demanding, 0.81

03:34:34.820 you know,

03:34:35.440 some Lovenbrau from you guys,

03:34:37.320 break the bank from all of our employees to pay the boss with beer.

03:34:41.960 Didn't,

03:34:42.440 didn't quite pan out for me.

03:34:44.380 I was still at the UCP race.

03:34:45.640 Yeah.

03:34:46.640 Well, that's true.

03:34:47.640 That's true.

03:34:48.640 That's true.

03:34:49.640 I'm going to make a comeback there.

03:34:50.640 Okay.

03:34:51.640 Well, Nigel, Corey, thank you very much.

03:34:54.640 You've been extremely insightful tonight.

03:34:56.640 Also, thank you to Jonathan Bradley, a reporter here in our Calgary headquarters, news editor,

03:35:02.640 Dave Naylor, who is still working furiously, refusing to eat.

03:35:06.640 He's being too fed at the moment.

03:35:08.640 And Matthew Horwood, our parliamentary bureau chief in Ottawa, who's been on the ground floor

03:35:12.640 floor of the convention there, providing us live coverage. And very importantly to all of you,

03:35:17.100 if you're not yet a member of the Western Standard, you should be. As you heard from

03:35:20.480 Andrew Scheer, the government subsidized and the government owned media are going to give you a

03:35:25.100 very different picture of tonight as far as they're concerned. The Reichstag fire decree has

03:35:30.620 just been passed. Democracy is threatened. You know, we're not partisans here, but we've got

03:35:38.280 a very different, very Western take on things. If you support independent, bailout-free media,

03:35:43.220 you need to be a member of the Western Standard. Go to westernstandard.news and click on membership.

03:35:48.400 It's only $10 a month or $100 a year for bailout-free, independent Western media.

03:35:54.780 Very thankful to all of you who have joined us here tonight. We're very grateful for the comments,

03:36:00.020 some of them insightful, some of them less so. But either way, we're grateful for you all,

03:36:04.260 nonetheless. Thank you very much. God save the Queen and God save Alberta. God save the King.

03:36:12.320 I'm not saying it. Not saying it. Good night.

03:36:34.260 You

Western Standard - September 11, 2022

LIVE： Conservative Leadership Vote

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