A special edition of The Pipeline, a special broadcast for the Western Standard covering the Conservative Party Leadership Election. Hosted by Western Standard Publisher Derek Fildebrandt, News Editor Dave Naylor, and Opinion Editor Nigel Hannaford.
00:14:51.380I've seen a lot of Pierre Polyev signs out in the lobby, but I have not seen any for Jean Charest or Leslie Lewis.
00:14:57.960That gives you an idea of what the support levels are for the frontrunner at this point.
00:15:02.560But people are just ready to see who's going to be the leader.
00:15:05.080And 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.
00:15:21.380Sorry, Derek, I think I lost you there.
00:15:45.120all right derek uh how to fill dead air over uh over eight hours uh we finally just sort of shut
00:15:54.560it down for a couple hours went for dinner came back and uh you know i will uh remind everybody
00:15:59.840that uh we were the first news organization in canada to break the fact that uh who the new
00:16:05.840leader was uh so that's uh that's i mean it was exciting that night i don't know whether tonight
00:16:11.920is going to be as exciting or if it's going to be a coronation of Pierre Polyev.
00:16:17.940But yeah, they have taken steps. Everything's digitized. They've been opening the ballots
00:16:22.680for more than a week. And when they all go into the system, it should take less than
00:16:27.86015 minutes, apparently. So knock on fake plastic goes as planned.
00:16:36.020Well, I think this is expected to be a little less of a nail biter.
00:16:41.920you know, whenever there's election coverage, the media will brag it out and pretend there
00:16:47.120is more drama than it is because you've got to keep your ratings up. You've got to keep
00:16:50.980people glued. And we want people to be watching, but we're going to try and do our viewers
00:16:55.140a bit more of a service here and lay it out. I think we're all predicting that this is
00:17:01.100less of a leadership announcement than a Pierre-Poliver unveiling. Nigel.
00:17:06.780That's where the smart money is on Pierre Pollard.
00:17:10.220And I know that's a Western perspective.
00:17:12.540It may not be quite so strong in the East.
00:17:14.900We're going to see, but that's what we expect.
00:17:19.020The interesting thing, of course, is going to be, if it isn't,
00:17:22.720then who is everybody's number two choice?
00:17:26.840Well, I'm not sure we'll actually get to see many number two choices
00:18:23.560So, you know what, we'll just say former employee number one, former employee number two.
00:18:26.920We 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.
00:19:45.900Much to my embarrassment, I forgot to put Scott Atchison on the list.
00:19:50.480So, 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.
00:35:47.800This is a great day and it's been a busy time. Yes, please be seated.
00:35:53.800On 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.
00:36:04.800We want to let people of Saskatchewan know that we are thinking about you.
00:36:09.800we thank you so much we also wish to acknowledge that we are gathered here in
00:36:19.400Ottawa built on unceded Ashinaabe Algonquin territory thank you we're
00:36:25.400pleased to be joined by our party's vice president and the vice chair of Leoc
00:36:29.060Valerie Asseline my fellow co-chair and our member yes yes let's give her a hat
00:36:39.800all right uh so that was kind of introduction opening ceremonies actually joining us now is
00:36:57.960western standard senior columnist cory morgan glad to have you with us yes glad to be in
00:37:03.080it's a it's an improvement over the uh the night of the haunted desks and whatnot that we had during
00:37:08.360the last time we did this when Aaron O'Doul won.
00:38:59.420The other parties just treated as another Western person of probably somebody who, today
00:39:06.200we would say they had unacceptable views yeah yeah treated her very much as just some kind of
00:39:11.160rube uh the pc party at the time did not see it as uh maybe we're maybe we're doing something
00:39:19.400wrong in the west and we should readjust they just utterly ignored her treated her like like dirt and0.99
00:39:25.320uh well we know how that ended for the pcs in 93. okay um just so you know cory uh before you uh
00:39:34.440joined us in here we we went through we've got everyone on the record written you you placed
00:39:39.880your bets on the same day as me march 9th you had uh here polyev see i'm continuing to get it right
00:39:48.120uh first uh you actually had the conventional ranking same as me
00:39:52.200uh but you had him with first ballot on 64 i was looking high at that time yeah i've got him at 60
00:39:59.080um i i actually think you're my greatest threat to beating me in this uh i still think i'm gonna
00:40:06.680be right with 60 but i i can see it getting 64. but as we were talking before you joined us here
00:40:12.680um i think he's going to beat his percentage in votes his percentage of the vote i think
00:40:19.000could extend towards 70 plus but points charay is going to be stronger point wise in quebec
00:40:27.080and probably in the Atlantic provinces as well. So I think, you know, that's going to penalize
00:40:33.240him. What do you think? Do you think Dick Polliver is going to underperform in points relative to his
00:40:37.900vote? Yeah, I mean, it won't be as strong. But I think, personally, I still think he's going to
00:40:43.460have a very definitive win, even with the weighted system and with the point system. And we saw some
00:40:47.740exciting rallies on every part of the country, wherever he went, he was a rock star. It didn't
00:40:52.980matter whether it was Toronto or the Maritimes or BC or Alberta. I mean, he's certainly got
00:40:57.600many more members out here than he does out there, but he campaigned wisely. They spread
00:41:02.140their support around. You know, the interesting thing, Corey, is that we often say that when he
00:41:05.620was here in Calgary back in April, there were 5,000 people down at Spruce Meadows. Those were
00:41:10.720the ones that were in the room. There were 3,000 orbiting in their cars trying to find a parking
00:41:14.820space. So, I mean, that's the kind of numbers that he's got. But I still say that you two are
00:41:20.280Both could be coming to my desk, ask him for a beer at the end of it.
00:41:25.160Well, okay, so the thing is, Nigel had Polyev winning 56% of first ballot, but you had Leslyn Lewis coming in second.
00:41:37.380The 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,
00:41:44.600Erin 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
00:41:53.600But 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.
00:42:02.740I think she's probably not going to do as strongly as last time.
00:43:33.300Mr. O'Toole also did not want Peter McKay,
00:43:35.460even though ideologically they were virtually the exact same.
00:43:38.860He had no choice with Lesley Lewis because she was elected an MP anyway, but he demoted her right to the back benches.
00:43:46.220He refused to put her in the shadow cabinet, even in a minor shadow cabinet position, put her right into the back benches.
00:43:52.860Now, 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.
00:44:05.420But again, another reason he's not there today.
00:47:25.580stuff, so they might still be talking about the Queen. Okay, God save the Queen, but we're mostly
00:47:32.360here today for the Conservative leadership. So, Sheree, yeah, I don't think any of us really
00:47:37.500expect him to be hanging around after. Lesley Lewis, though, I think is different. There's not
00:47:43.000been anywhere near the vitriol between Lewis and Polyev. In fact, if there's been any harsh words
00:47:50.460in the debates and whatnot between Lewis and Polyev,
00:47:54.460it's been her accusing Polyev of kind of jumping on the freedom bandwagon
00:47:58.680late when it became politically convenient, her saying that she
00:48:02.380stood with people against mandates and forced vaccination
00:48:06.340and all these things before it was cool. I think that's the
00:48:09.960extent of what we've seen for any conflict
00:48:14.460between those two camps. Well, she did do that, no question about it. On the other
00:48:18.480hand, Mr. Poliava has been very consistent on freedom since before Ms. Lewis was elected as
00:48:26.320a member of parliament. But anyway, he did not spend a ton of time talking. Before the Freedom
00:48:32.740Convoy, it was somewhat subdued. It wasn't kind of front of mind for what he'd be speaking about.
00:48:40.200He was the finance critic, to be fair, you know, not the health critic or anything, but he wasn't
00:48:45.860talking about mandates that much until the freedom convoy came and that, you know, blew up
00:48:51.300Ortuval's leadership. But then he really did talk about it. Yes. You know, he's been a freedom man
00:48:55.560since, you know, years and years ago when I was in Ottawa. So it just wasn't an issue at that time.
00:49:03.880I think it's a reasonable thing for her to say. If I were running a campaign, I'd say the same
00:49:08.120thing. But yeah, I think Mr. Polly Everett is going to weather that criticism very easily.0.99
00:49:13.500Yeah. 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.
00:49:35.280Yes. You know, I think Polyev is probably going to make a good head to head against Trudeau.
00:49:42.040But 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.
00:49:54.000Yes, that would have been a fun debate. I don't think it's going to happen.
00:49:56.980And what I I wouldn't want to second guess what Mr. Polyev is going to do with her, but she can't be ignored.
00:50:04.640there are just too many people who have put too much energy into supporting her they will be
00:50:11.840expecting that she will be respected and that she will be listened to and by extension that they
00:50:18.960will be respected and that they will be listened to and if mr poliev can do that if he can at least
00:50:24.640ensure that the social conservatives as they have become known i don't think that's a fair
00:50:30.640appellation but anyway whatever it is if people who think that way only want to expect to be
00:50:38.880listened to expect to be heard and not told that our opinions are unacceptable that was that we're
00:50:44.560outside the game so she needs to needs to have an important role well i think there was a strong
00:50:50.320expectation there last time she uh arguably by popular vote won the last conservative leadership
00:50:57.360didn't win because of the point system and her Western votes didn't count as much.1.00
00:51:02.080There was a strong expectation. She was going to be on the front bench. She was going to be a real
00:51:05.900member of the team. But O'Toole did not. He put her straight to the back bench, told her to shut0.99
00:51:11.940up. You saw very little of a role for her in that caucus, at least as granted by the leader.
00:51:19.840Corey, what do you expect to see of Lewis, assuming that Polyev takes tonight?
00:51:26.080Strategically, I mean, for consolidation of his leadership, he's got to give her a prominent role and treat her with respect.
00:51:31.200I think people with views that I guess, you know, whatever way we might want to label them as socially conservative,
00:51:36.660are pragmatic enough to know, too, that, look, abortion is not on the table.
00:51:42.840It's, you know, same-sex marriage isn't up anymore.
00:51:45.320They're not there, even if they have personal issues with that.
00:51:49.060They know the party's not going to embrace those stances.
00:51:51.180But 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.
00:52:04.160You know, Corey, there's even an upside there that's available to whoever wins the leadership race.
00:52:11.540That is that you have a number of people in focus right now who are very reflective of the current societal consensus.
00:52:20.460You have somebody like Ms. Rempel there, who's made her views very clear.
00:52:25.380You have somebody like Melissa Lansman, who's a rising star in the Conservative Party.0.97
00:52:32.200She would not describe herself as a social conservative in any way.
00:52:37.260So you have that side of the party represented on the front bench,
00:52:41.120but you can also have that social conservative side represented on the front bench.
01:07:20.220The 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.
01:07:28.160These aren't people who lived in the real world.
01:07:29.840These aren't people who had to work in the common market for jobs or pay bills like others.
01:07:35.980So they don't understand what's going on on the ground.
01:07:38.180They have their instilled liberal education that they want to share with the world, and they're dominating the legacy media outlets.
01:15:51.940Yeah, definitely not the last time around.
01:15:55.600Doug Ford, last time around, was winning not on principle.
01:15:59.120His first election, you could argue, he was winning on principle.
01:16:02.520Yeah, 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.
01:16:10.580And then in 2022, I mean, let's be honest, he's a mediocre white man.0.60
01:16:15.620you could say. He only won because we had Stephen Del Duca, who looks like Dr. Evil from Austin
01:16:22.360Powers and had no charisma, and Andrew Horvath, who was in her fourth election as Ontario NDP
01:16:28.720leader. Yeah. Okay. So yeah, Erin O'Toole, slam dunk in the losing without principle category.
01:16:37.540But now, you know, they're doing a tribute to Candace Bergen, or is it Bergen? Bergen. Bergen.
01:16:43.520Bergen. Candice Bergen, I think by most measures, she has served ably. I don't think she's,
01:16:53.120she hasn't got quite the raving reviews that Rona Ambrose got when she served as interim
01:16:56.760leader, but I'll give Candice Bergen this. She didn't intervene in the ongoing leadership race1.00
01:17:02.760attacking the likely winner or the front runner, something that is all too clear here in Alberta.
01:17:07.880you've got the outgoing premier Jason Kenney throwing an absolute hissy fit that the candidate
01:17:14.260running probably strongest against his legacy, or at least tied for strongest against his legacy
01:17:18.920with Todd Lowen. I'm talking, of course, about Daniel Smith. Throwing a hissy fit that the
01:17:24.840person, at least leading the race right now to succeed him, is her. Candice Bergen, I think,
01:17:32.440has shown some class. She's shown, for lack of a better term for a woman, statesmanship,
01:17:36.460or state's womanship, maybe we can call it.1.00
01:17:39.820You know, I think she served pretty ably.
01:17:42.280When she starts speaking, we're going to cut into her pretty soon.
01:17:46.460What I'm curious to know is where Polyev stands
01:17:48.560on the upper unit Conservative Party leadership race.
01:17:51.660I know that I went a few weeks ago to a rally for Polyev in Calgary,
01:17:56.220and Daniel Smith was present, and Polyev said himself,
01:17:59.180I'm not endorsing anyone in this race, but he said,
01:23:26.880And if you've had the pleasure of working alongside him or trying to get him elected on his behalf,
01:23:32.080a remarkable human being. And I'm very hopeful that it's going to be a special name.
01:23:38.140Of course. And we don't know for sure who is going to win the leadership contest. But if
01:23:42.460Pierre Polyev does become the candidate, do you think he has any flaws or any drawbacks that might
01:23:46.700potentially hurt him? Flaws or drawbacks? No, I wouldn't say that at all. I would say that
01:23:52.760if you are somebody that is assuming a role that you've never had before,
01:23:57.300there's always some curiosity about, will this individual be up to their challenge?
01:24:02.080And 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.
01:24:10.380So I would have a lot more fear about many more individuals, assuming this role, than Pierre Paulyev.
01:24:16.880Not going to name any names about candidates?
01:24:32.080I 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.
01:25:00.840For sure. Okay. Thanks, Ashton, for coming on. Back to you guys.
01:25:05.940Thank 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.
01:25:28.440We'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.
01:25:44.320Candace 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.
01:26:06.920But I can't say you don't deserve to have some time off, madam.0.99
01:26:12.160She has done a stellar job in this last episode as the interim leader,
01:26:18.800has just validated every good thing she ever said or did.
01:26:34.540But, 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
01:26:50.400It's a good time to go out, and she's served for some time now.
01:26:53.120Well, you know, never forget that anything can happen while you are interim leader.
01:38:46.820They are resilient, innovative, compassionate, hardworking, and generous.
01:38:52.140And 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.
01:38:59.840Over the last several months, a very special thank you goes out to Mr. Wayne Benson, the
01:39:06.840Executive Director of our party and a fellow Manitoban.
01:39:12.460Wayne came out of retirement in PEI and he took on the job of Executive Director at my
01:39:33.820And with the help of Rob Batherson, Ian Brodie, James Dodds, and a host of staff and volunteers,
01:39:41.980they guided us through this leadership race.
01:39:44.440And I want to say thank you to each one of you.
01:39:47.300To 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.
01:40:01.720And 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.
01:40:17.140And I want to thank you so much, my love.
01:41:39.240And it's bad enough that the Liberals have basically made that their main focus.
01:41:43.480They need a counterpoint and just don't even start down the road into it.
01:41:46.760So it's great advice on Ms. Bergen's way out.
01:41:49.960The other part, she reiterated unity a number of times.
01:41:52.320So 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.
01:42:04.040so uh we've got a quick comment from drew knight uh he says 5 30 when well what do you mean when
01:42:11.240it's mountain standard time we're in calgary for god's sakes we're at the center of the universe
01:42:16.200and the center of the universe at the time right now is 5 20. i don't even need to say local you
01:42:21.320should know it's mountain standard time my apologies though if you're in saskatchewan
01:42:25.000manitoba or bc your time zones are valid as well valid they're valid they're valid time zones uh
01:42:32.600Anything outside of those four time zones, three or four time zones.
01:42:38.400Good reminder, we've got viewers and listeners, though, from across the country.
01:42:41.480We do appreciate our Eastern Bastard listeners as well.
01:42:46.340We understand we've got some kindred spirits out there, and we welcome them to come.
01:42:50.900I'm just saying your time zone is not valid.
01:42:54.720Okay, so, yeah, they're just wrapping up with Candice Bergen right now.
01:42:58.800So one guy we haven't gotten too much yet.
01:43:02.940We've gone through all the different candidates,
01:43:04.740but we're going to get to the guy on our list here.
01:44:28.080Every leadership candidate I had, I cornered them on that one, and they would not condemn supply management.
01:44:33.380And I tell you, I'm just going to go on my quick rant.
01:44:35.480That's the most odious policy that somebody can, they got to blush when they call themselves a conservative and support that piece of socialism.
01:44:41.300And at least Atchison had the courage to say, I oppose it.
01:44:44.680I understand the political reasons that others don't want to get into it with that thing.
01:45:16.000Now, 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.
01:45:37.100An 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.
01:46:00.340The problem is that it's such a powerful lobby, it has so much political influence and money that we can't politically do it.
01:46:06.920So 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.
01:46:16.620That might be a case of cowardice being the better, discretion being the better part of valor, perhaps.
01:46:23.160But 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.
01:48:43.500Thank you to the party staff, the party volunteers
01:48:46.380who helped get us to this point this evening.
01:48:52.820It 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.
01:49:06.620Each candidate and their teams and their experienced volunteers brought ideas to recruit Canadians.
01:49:14.040The party staff processed the hundreds of thousands, half a million new memberships added to our party.
01:49:22.820We got more than 670,000 ballots out to our members.
01:49:32.100We got them all back to be counted, and it all went as smoothly as possible.
01:49:36.880I want to thank the candidates and their teams for their hard work.
01:49:40.260I hope every candidate and every volunteer is proud of the work they did during this race.
01:49:45.660I would also like to thank National Council for the confidence that they showed in our
01:49:56.660committee and our team and along with that our thanks to Candice Bergen for her extraordinary
01:50:02.980support and her personal friendship to me.
01:50:11.500I would be remiss if I did not thank my predecessors as LIOC co-chairs of the past, Dan Nolan and
01:50:18.500Lisa Raitt, for their extraordinary work and for the inheritance of the expertise and track
01:50:24.100record that we got when we got our flying start.
01:50:28.260Thankfully together we met the challenge of a record-breaking membership along with the
01:59:47.620They've got free TV time until 6 o'clock.
01:59:51.220Yeah, 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.
02:00:05.860I'm as frustrated as, maybe not as frustrated as the woman you were talking about.
02:03:05.600Is, you know, people get involved in parties and they volunteer, they knock on doors, hammer in signs, give money.
02:03:11.260And you're generally not that listened to.
02:03:14.260But there are cases where, you know, grassroots involvement does have a significant effect.
02:03:19.280It was grassroots involvement that threw out the Premier of Alberta not very long ago.
02:03:24.080it's thrown out several premiers of Albert over the last decade. And so political party membership
02:03:30.000is a way to have influence, but it's what you do with that membership. If you're just simply a
02:03:34.920member of a party. Active memberships, and then there's memberships. And that'll be the interesting
02:03:38.420thing to see the turnout, because it's one thing to sell a few hundred thousand memberships with
02:03:43.340a bunch of, well, it's a big thing, but to get them actually to come out and cast their ballot
02:03:47.500and mail that in, that's the whole second stage of these races. And that's a lot of work, because
02:03:51.340You 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.
02:03:56.220So 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.
02:04:08.300Now, 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.
02:04:16.420if that was true, that is a huge number that would normally actually probably win you a
02:04:21.540leadership race. Now, he made no bones about it that those were to new Canadians, to immigrant
02:04:27.980communities, maybe first and second generation. You know, Patrick Brown went out of his way to
02:04:35.200say, I'm not interested in actually winning over conservatives. I'm going just for the immigrant1.00
02:04:39.540vote. And it's a very different kind of politics. It tends not to be at least as ideological,
02:04:45.000if not sometimes non-audiological at all, a lot of it's just kind of going to the right,
02:04:51.720you go to the right church, right, Gujarat, great mosque or temple or whatever, synagogue,
02:04:57.240you go to these things and it's a glad-handing kind of politics. It might involve promises that
02:05:03.780are kind of, you know, scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. It's often more transactional
02:05:07.900rather than ideological, like, I will do this because this is something.
02:05:15.040We don't know exactly how much that is, but he did claim a significant portion of it,
02:05:19.500and it wasn't that strongly disputed. It wasn't nearly as much as Polyev, but it was a lot.
02:05:23.620But I'm expecting those Patrick Brown people are probably not going to vote in terribly big numbers.
02:05:32.440If they're the guys not there, do you expect them to turn out in significant numbers
02:05:37.560but maybe back, you know, Patrick Brown more or less insinuated,
02:07:02.720They're going to look at all of the candidates
02:07:04.220somebody could say, well, maybe I'll test for that person or that. Most will probably stay home.
02:07:07.980So the impact potentially that could have been there when Brown was in is definitely gone.
02:07:12.700You know who really picks up points in immigrant communities is anybody who can solve1.00
02:07:18.380the paperwork jam when they want to bring somebody else in. Whoever can do that.
02:07:22.700And that's a great point because that's a huge issue. It should be a huge issue in Canada right
02:07:26.540now. The only thing worse than passport renewals is immigration processing. I mean, we've got a0.97
02:07:31.580terrible backlog and the liberals have really dropped the ball and they should be twisting that
02:07:35.100knife. Well, that's one. So Jason Kenney, you know, a lot of people out east don't understand
02:07:39.880why Jason Kenney got into so much trouble in Alberta. It's because a lot of people out east,
02:07:43.320they remember the other Jason Kenney, the Jason Kenney that was popular, that got elected premier
02:07:48.560and USP leader in Alberta. And, you know, by most accounts, he was an incredible immigration
02:07:54.360minister, probably the most well known. How often does anyone know that as a household name, the
02:08:00.420name of the immigration minister. And he did that kind of ethnic and religious minority.
02:08:05.460He would do three events a night. Minister of Curry in a hurry. Yeah, you say what you like
02:08:09.600about Mr. Kennedy, he is premier of the province and people will do. But in that particular role,
02:08:15.840he was a huge asset to the Harper government, often would get to three different ethnic events
02:08:21.320at night, give his speech, move to the next one. I don't know when he ever slept. That was his
02:08:26.720But 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.
02:08:44.620Some 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.
02:08:58.940He had some real concrete action on it that backed up kind of the glad-handing curry circuit that he did.0.99
02:09:04.840And, you know, Patrick Brown, well, I guess didn't have the opportunity because he wasn't the Minister of Immigration.
02:09:12.300But, yeah, I don't think we're going to see many of those votes cast because they were for him.
02:09:19.880Also, that kind of transactional politics tends to have a low water turnout as well.
02:09:25.660Jason Kenney, again, he played to that as his strength during the leadership review vote.
02:09:29.960he really focused his membership sales and leadership lead up to that on minority communities.
02:09:36.540And that's one reason they thought they were kind of a lock to keep Kenny.
02:09:40.300And their voter turnout was so low, which often happens when you're selling memberships
02:09:44.820because people are often sometimes buying for them.
02:09:48.240As I said, it's sometimes more transactional.
02:09:50.420I don't think we're going to see a lot of those people here.
02:09:52.260And I think that's going to mean proportionally a lower voter turnout in this race here.
02:09:59.040because Patrick Brown's people, some of them are going to vote,
02:10:02.060but I think mostly we're just going to see them stay at home.
02:10:05.300And some of these races do always have notoriously low turnouts.
02:10:08.340Okay, so we're actually going to go to Matthew Horwood now
02:10:10.380on the floor of the Conservative Convention in Ottawa.
02:10:24.100So, yeah, we are experiencing a little bit of a delay here.
02:10:27.660We should know in about five to ten minutes what the results are going to be.
02:10:31.160A little bit of griping among the audience members.
02:10:33.560Somebody made a joke that perhaps they ripped the ballots again like they did last time around, which could be resulting in these delays.
02:10:39.280But 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.
02:10:50.120Matthew, what's the mood like on the convention floor?
02:10:52.800people uh i know last time people got angry because it went on uh literally for more than
02:10:58.960half of a day waiting uh obviously the wait is not as long this time uh you know we had some
02:11:05.740words around here in the calgary headquarters uh making fun of them saying now for the moment
02:11:10.620you've all been waiting for where i am going to walk away for 10 to 15 minutes to a room and get
02:11:15.380the results uh people were i think people are pretty recently a little bit miffed about that
02:11:26.380Yeah, 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.
02:11:32.380But generally, you know, people are a little bit they were a bit upset because I think people still remember what happened last time around.
02:11:38.660And so they don't want to repeat of that.
02:11:40.160But generally, you know, it's a festive atmosphere.
02:53:04.900small government makes for big citizens who own their homes, build their dreams, raise their
02:53:12.320families, look out for their neighbors, and earn powerful paychecks and savings free from inflation
02:53:18.480and over taxation. We will restore Canada's promise in a country where it doesn't matter
02:53:24.320who you love, or if your name is Smith or Singh, Martin or Mohammed, Chang or Charles,
02:53:29.880A 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.
02:53:42.100A country where the son of a teenage mother adopted by two teachers can dare to run for Prime Minister of Canada.
02:55:19.620We're going to just first reactions here.
02:55:21.560that uh we're gonna go to uh our young new reporter uh jonathan bradley still working
02:55:27.660on doing epitaph correctly but uh jonathan we're gonna get first first thoughts from you your
02:55:33.500initial reaction i'm kind of stunned that one by that much i was starting over the last few days
02:55:40.120i'm starting to think i was starting to think you know what maybe he's gonna win on the first ballot
02:55:43.820but i was thinking it was gonna be tight you know like 54 but to see something like 68 that really
02:55:49.320shows the parties behind him uh yeah uh it's a thundering victory uh cory uh initial reaction
02:55:57.980he's got a very strong mandate from the members so i mean unity concerns which were my concerns
02:56:03.180shouldn't be as much so i mean people can't pretend he ran away with it they can't pretend
02:56:08.360he's not representing what the membership is again now goes on to seeing how if he can represent
02:56:12.140what canadians as a at large do but his speech i thought was uh fantastic he's on the right track
02:56:17.160Nigel, 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.
02:56:44.440Scheer in particular lost 12 ballots before being declared winner on the 13th, I think it was.
02:56:50.200But now Stephen Harper, Pierre Polyev, I could be mistaken. I think Polyev one even bigger mandate
02:56:55.880than Stephen Harper did. Your impressions of what that means? Well, I take that to mean that
02:57:05.480people are responding to certainty and to clarity. When you have got a leader
02:57:13.540elected after, what did you say? 11? 12? Shear lost 12 ballots before
02:57:21.580declaring leader on the 13th. And O'Toole, I don't even know if he
02:57:26.400won any ballots until the last, well, by points. He won by the second ballot was
02:57:32.120when it shifted because the first ballot was Peter McKay was 35%, O'Toole was 33% and then
02:57:37.900it shifted after that and it was like something like O'Toole 47%, McKay 45% and then on the last
02:57:45.520ballot he won. What I'm saying is that when you have those kinds of compromises being made within
02:57:50.100the leadership, within the party, in order to put somebody at the top, you don't have a clear
02:57:56.420mandate before he was saying he has one he can now do the things that this was actually the first
02:58:03.540campaign speech in the next election he laid it all out there and i'm expecting that he will stay
02:58:08.340with that program that's what people want what i'm hopeful for though is that uh polyev includes
02:58:14.180his opponents in his cabinet like i think uh it would be wise of him to put leslie lewis
02:58:18.980in a portfolio maybe uh be attorney general and justice critic because she is a lawyer
02:58:24.820uh same with scott atchison i could see him being put in a portfolio possibly jobs in industry
02:58:29.700because he really talked about like you know the economy and taxes things like that maybe even
02:58:33.060finance i say agriculture let him deal with supply management perfect yeah um okay well uh actually
02:58:40.580i've got a very interesting number here uh anthony koch of the polyev campaign i think he's the press
02:58:47.300secretary for it. He's put out a statement saying that Polyev has won 330 of 338 constituencies in
02:58:58.820the country. So, sorry, I need that back. Sorry, someone just tried to leave our studio with
02:59:04.420something I very much need. But yeah, Mr. Polyev has, according to his spokesman, Anthony Koch,
02:59:12.820won 330 of 38 constituencies in the country. Meaning on the final, actually we can't say
02:59:20.820final ballot, I'm going to assume that second place runner-up Jean Charest probably won the
02:59:27.060other eight, but you know, Jean Charest, Leslie Lewis is a lot closer to Jean Charest than Jean
02:59:33.300Charest was to Pierre Polliver. In fact, last place Scott Atchison is closer to Jean Charest
02:59:38.980than Jean Charest was to Pierre Pauli. I said both versions there. 3.30 of 3.38. Assuming that
02:59:47.360checks out, I think that says that he has won every part of the country, including Quebec,
02:59:53.680which was supposed Jean Charest had claimed was a lock, right? Yeah, he's campaigned wisely. I
03:00:00.160think he didn't take the Western support for granted. Again, it's not a first-past-the-post
03:00:04.100type of uh election or one member one vote and he held some appeal in every one of those i mean it
03:00:09.620wasn't a lost cause you weren't diving in it i mean one of the things i gave sure a credit for
03:00:13.300was calgary alberta was his weak spot but he would come out and take his lumps and come out and try
03:00:17.700and get those votes out here but it didn't really work out uh polyev went and campaigned broadly and
03:00:22.980obviously he appealed to people in every portion of this country at least in a member wise that
03:00:27.140actually is an astonishing statistic that checks out 30 out of 338 because always the knock was
03:00:33.380well you'll do well out in they'll like him in alberta maybe maybe bc and saskatchewan but you
03:00:39.220wait till they get back east it's all gonna fall apart we had that very discussion very beginning
03:00:44.340obviously it was not so i i've got a tweet here from prime minister justin trudeau he says
03:00:50.020congratulations pierre polyev on being elected leader of the conservative party tonight
03:00:54.740parliamentarians we must work together to deliver results for people across the country
03:00:58.900Canadians expect and deserve nothing less. Now, that's the official statement from the Prime
03:01:03.700Minister. I think we're going to probably see some different statements from his surrogates,
03:01:11.620members of the Liberal Party caucus cabinet, and then further surrogates and the media and whatnot.
03:01:18.420The framing... Check the general thoughts feed. Yeah, I would watch that. Now, I think the media
03:01:25.140and the Liberals have for some time assumed he's got it. So I think the framing began long before
03:01:44.920He kind of came up the middle on gradual ballots. But, you know, when Michael Ignatieff won,
03:01:54.100It was expected he'd be the leader, if he was effectively already the leader, the way that weird thing worked.
03:02:00.200But, 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.
03:04:20.780We've got statements now from senior liberal, I think they're both ministers, Dominic LeBlanc and Rachel Bendeian, issuing their congratulations to Pierre Polyev.
03:04:31.880Our 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.
03:04:41.380Justin 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.
03:04:51.040At 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.
03:05:02.100While 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.
03:05:11.380Well, it sure didn't take long for the surrogates to strike a remarkably different tone than the prime minister.
03:05:16.780But I think that this is what you would expect.
03:05:18.480The prime ministers could try to look, at least temporarily, a little above the fray.
03:05:23.460And then you set your minions to do the work for you.
03:20:14.100And so I'm glad we had a competitive race, and I'm glad that we had a clear result.
03:20:18.700There 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.
03:20:25.320Do 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?
03:20:31.060Yeah, well, I really do believe that's a narrative that comes from the government-subsidized media more than anybody else.
03:21:44.200Speaking 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,
03:21:50.320like Jeremy McKenzie, and a lot of op-eds I've seen about how Pierre Polyev is kind of hoarding
03:21:55.240these radical conspiracy theorists and the conservative part. What do you make of that?
03:21:59.060Well, there really is a desire. The government subsidized legacy media in Canada doesn't even
03:22:06.780try to hide their bias anymore. And they're now trying to make Pierre responsible for like two,
03:22:13.620three, or even sometimes four degrees of separation between himself and people that he may have met.
03:22:18.880At 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.
03:22:34.520So there's a real stretch there, and I really do believe that Canadians are losing credibility in the mainstream media for that very reason.
03:22:44.200The bias has become so obvious that the media only hurts its own credibility when it tries to make those types of leaps of logic.
03:22:52.580We've got a prime minister that is divisive.
03:22:54.360We've got a prime minister that has performed racist acts.
03:22:56.780Justin Trudeau has openly questioned whether or not we should even tolerate people who disagree with him.
03:23:04.520That'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.
03:23:27.360For sure. I have a question about the vaccine mandates, getting rid of them and ArriveCan.
03:23:32.160That got a huge amount of cheers from the crowd.
03:23:33.860But 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?
03:23:41.740Well, look, Canadians are free right now to make their decisions about what they're comfortable doing and what they're comfortable not doing.
03:23:48.560And I know some people who are still concerned for their own personal health.
03:23:52.080And 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.
03:28:49.340Canadians are used to having different opinions.
03:28:51.880What we haven't seen until Justin Trudeau is that level of division really demonizing people for holding a different view.
03:28:58.740And I believe Canadians are ready to reject that and embrace a positive unifying message of more freedom, less government interference in our lives.
03:29:07.100For sure. All right. Thank you very much, Andrew. Much appreciated.