Western Standard - To win, the Conservatives must take back the culture

00:00:00.000 Good evening, Western Standard viewers, and welcome to this special edition of

00:00:20.240 Hannaford, a weekly politics show of the Western Standard. I'm Nigel Hannaford.

00:00:24.760 One of the puzzles of Canadian politics is why, after the spectacular successes of the years when Stephen Harper led Canada, the party he led has been shut out in three following consecutive elections in 2019, 2021, and most recently in April this year.

00:00:45.700 In fact, Canada's Conservatives, under Pierre Pellier, won more than 8 million votes, a party record.

00:00:53.700 But it still wasn't enough.

00:00:55.580 They ended up with 144 seats to the Liberals, 169.

00:00:59.620 So the question today is, why, how does this happen?

00:01:02.940 With us today is scholar Brock Eldon, who is in the middle of moving back to Canada from Hanoi, where he's been teaching university.

00:01:10.340 Good to see you, Brock.

00:01:11.440 Thanks for taking the time.

00:01:13.600 Absolutely.

00:01:14.080 Great to see you, Nigel.

00:01:15.940 Good to see you again.

00:01:17.620 Brock, I think everybody who cares know that the NDP vote collapsed and their vote went to the Liberals.

00:01:23.540 So in one sense, it's obvious what happened.

00:01:25.880 But in a recent article in the Western Standard, you said there was something else going on.

00:01:30.660 What would that be?

00:01:33.600 Let me start by addressing what you've just said.

00:01:38.220 The NDP collapse has been a reality for how many years now? Long enough that I don't think that played as large a role as people think.

00:01:55.780 we can go back to polls from November, even December, and it appeared to be quite an obvious

00:02:06.560 victory for the Conservatives. I think that for many, many people, the NDP and the Liberal Party

00:02:15.920 have been synonymous for a very long time. So I don't think it was a matter of vote splitting.

00:02:21.720 I think that the public perception of those parties is just that they've muted into one another.

00:02:32.660 But there's other factors that I bring up in my article that I'm surprised are not being discussed in Canada.

00:02:42.780 First, I think the conservative election ran too narrowly on economics and failed to address the culture.

00:02:57.320 And I think that this is a trend in conservatism and youth imagination about conservatism. 0.99

00:03:06.780 um we have a second isn't it isn't the cliche it's the economy stupid 0.98

00:03:14.700 um you know people care about their pocketbooks why would that be a wrong thing to focus on 0.99

00:03:21.520 why would the economy be a wrong thing to focus on because it loses people who are not

00:03:28.380 economically literate who care about other things that they want a political direction

00:03:35.740 to stand behind i mean it seemed that there was a whole generation of young people who were

00:03:42.020 voting for pierre poliev for no other reason that he caught their imagination and showed them that

00:03:48.600 there could be a way that they could buy their own house start their own family do think you know

00:03:53.960 live the canadian dream the american dream uh have what their parents had now that's very much

00:03:59.180 an economic issue uh what why why would that be a wrong thing because i think i i think that the

00:04:08.080 anger that is certainly true and as a as an ex as an expat moving back to canada i thought that was a

00:04:16.660 part of a very very important strategy that would result in a conservative election

00:04:25.200 however i think that this was not an election between the conservatives and the liberals i

00:04:32.720 think it was an election between the conservatives the media the conservatives versus the liberals

00:04:41.680 plus the media plus the schools plus all captured federal institutions um and i didn't think and

00:04:52.000 And as the election grew closer and closer, it seemed like the conservatives were not

00:05:01.400 fighting seriously for that terrain, which would mean for many voters that even a conservative

00:05:07.400 victory isn't covering what they want.

00:05:11.640 Let me read back to you something you put in your article here, which seems to be to

00:05:16.140 that point.

00:05:18.720 You said Poirier's message of economic freedom resonated with younger voters.

00:05:25.240 We just talked about that.

00:05:27.040 Younger voters who were disillusioned by ever-worsening housing costs,

00:05:31.360 declining services, and a sense that the opportunity was slipping away

00:05:36.820 or pulled beyond their grasp.

00:05:39.920 And then comes the but.

00:05:43.240 But his campaign lacked cultural courage.

00:05:47.640 He avoided the questions that animate national life.

00:05:52.380 What does it mean to be Canadian?

00:05:54.300 How do we live together?

00:05:56.160 What should we preserve?

00:05:57.860 And in bypassing these questions, he forfeited the deeper contest.

00:06:03.040 What is cultural courage?

00:06:05.420 What is cultural courage?

00:06:07.480 I think it was C.K. Chesterton who said that traditionalism, those are different words, but it's close enough, is the democracy of the dead.

00:06:23.000 So I think that as large an admirer of Pauliev as I've been, I think that the vision lacked depth when it came to the most important moments.

00:06:41.740 Many young Canadians are very confused about our national identity.

00:06:46.920 Most of the media they consume is American.

00:06:49.520 A lot of cultural courage. I mean, before I get to cultural courage, moreover, I also mentioned that the conservatives turned down podcast opportunities with people including Joe Rogan, where they could have a three-hour discussion talking about anything.

00:07:12.760 And Pierre Polyev has the most compelling story of any politician in my lifetime. That is a story of how freedom in Canada exists and why it needs to be preserved.

00:07:31.200 The ideas that I had seen Pauliev explore before about, when I speak of the democracy of the dead, about things that matter to families, the immigration debate, the gender debate, he had a massive, massive forum for that.

00:07:56.600 And I think that for many young Canadians, it was a massive disappointment that while over the course of his tenure as the conservative leader, he had demonstrated courage.

00:08:13.020 He did not in the final moments.

00:08:18.140 Well, what would it look like if we had?

00:08:20.040 Let me let me quote back another thing that you stated here.

00:08:23.080 you said the pattern is clear

00:08:26.940 actually you said that from John Diefenbaker to Stephen Harper

00:08:30.460 the Conservatives governed as economic custodians

00:08:34.260 rarely touching the cultural assumptions

00:08:38.020 underpinning Canadian society

00:08:40.040 and then you went on that Conservatives

00:08:43.900 passed tax reforms while the left

00:08:46.900 rewrites the national story

00:08:50.420 through the schools, the media, the bureaucracy, and the courts.

00:08:54.520 And it's interesting that just a moment ago,

00:08:57.080 when you described who the conservatives were actually running against,

00:09:03.060 you used those very terms, the bureaucracy, the courts, the schools.

00:09:07.760 You had the liberals, the NDP, and the whole federal state, I guess.

00:09:12.360 um so is it is it your contention then that the conservatives while they need to do a good job on

00:09:24.120 economics because nobody else does at the same time they have to be fighting a cultural battle

00:09:31.420 that uh and and dealing with the issues that all the smart people tell them to stay away from

00:09:37.780 because they're divisive and they're not going to win votes.

00:09:40.940 Right.

00:09:42.580 Yeah.

00:09:44.360 Well, I mean, freedom from housing inflation

00:09:51.780 is not the same as freedom for freedom of expression,

00:10:00.560 freedom of the press, and...

00:10:06.660 Freedom of assembly.

00:10:07.780 all freedom of assembly it's not the same and i think that that was a mistake that's that's

00:10:19.220 honestly that's half of conservatism missing um i think that it's great that

00:10:28.740 The other thing about economic promises

00:10:31.680 is that they often don't manifest.

00:10:38.740 I think people can get behind someone

00:10:42.140 who promises those things,

00:10:45.980 and when there are enough punches pulled

00:10:51.180 in important battles,

00:10:55.280 like the battle against progressive orthodoxy

00:10:59.380 with the media landscape we have

00:11:03.100 where financial literacy is in massive decline,

00:11:10.000 I think the freedom to

00:11:13.540 was the bit missing.

00:11:19.920 Myself,

00:11:20.880 this

00:11:23.960 did not affect my vote

00:11:26.060 I know

00:11:28.680 that these were promises made earlier

00:11:30.460 but they did not come up on the campaign

00:11:32.480 trail so

00:11:34.100 a restored

00:11:35.940 conservatism must

00:11:38.400 recover

00:11:40.400 virtue

00:11:41.100 balance

00:11:44.180 order

00:11:45.500 and rootedness

00:11:48.160 okay now

00:11:49.440 All right. I think I see where you're going with this. What you're describing is a situation where financially-minded conservatives contest an election. A lot of people understand, yeah, we need to do something about the national debt. We need to do something about the high taxes. They get all that.

00:12:08.280 But against that background, you've got that dichotomy where people will say, look, I'm a fiscal conservative, but I'm socially liberal.

00:12:20.180 And that's that.

00:12:23.180 That's a problem.

00:12:24.780 Yes.

00:12:24.940 That is a problem because it is that is the social liberalism that actually, in the end, determines what kind of a society we're going to live in.

00:12:34.620 And that's a function of the media, the embedded bureaucracies, the education system, all the high points in national life are occupied by people who have what we might call a broadly progressive view.

00:12:50.320 And while conservatives are busy saving us money, they're teaching us our kids that all the money belongs to the state, that sort of dichotomy.

00:13:01.420 So how did that set of affairs come about?

00:13:04.620 in the second world war that's not what canadians were about now that's 80 years ago but

00:13:09.180 obviously things changed um how did they change who changed them

00:13:15.980 hmm the the answer um how do we change i guess it's really what matters i give two answers to

00:13:26.380 this, but the simple answer is academic institutions, which prioritized and almost completely

00:13:36.040 neglected. When I was in school, so about 15 or between 15 and 20 years, statistics

00:13:48.820 became

00:13:49.680 dropped as a mandatory

00:13:52.640 course for political science students

00:13:54.780 and

00:13:56.220 we had

00:13:58.020 critical theory

00:14:00.260 developed by the Frankfurt School

00:14:02.860 and postmodern

00:14:04.860 postmodern ideas

00:14:07.360 Very quickly, where are the

00:14:09.020 Frankfurt School? Because that sounds like it's

00:14:10.920 an important jumping off point

00:14:12.540 The Frankfurt

00:14:14.800 School

00:14:15.380 there's

00:14:18.060 And let's start with, yeah, the Frankfurt School, group of German theorists who came to America inspired by, you know, we had the Russian Revolution, the cultural forces working in Eastern Europe, the rise of fascism.

00:14:44.080 and America developing as this free market,

00:14:51.380 rather traditionalist state.

00:14:54.100 I mean, there's nowhere else in the world.

00:14:56.060 So they came in the 1930s, I think, did they not? 0.64

00:14:59.040 Yes.

00:14:59.680 And ended up in Columbia University?

00:15:02.280 Yes.

00:15:03.060 Yes.

00:15:03.460 So what was it that they did that set in motion

00:15:07.300 the other things that we're complaining about?

00:15:09.020 the frankfurt school writings are a usurping of traditionalist ideals they came to america

00:15:23.340 infiltrated massive universities much like the post-modernists and 0.99

00:15:30.140 took these ideas to deconstruct

00:15:36.240 conventional Western wisdom built up over centuries.

00:15:46.180 Right.

00:15:47.220 So, okay, so they took out,

00:15:49.280 there's a group of people with a very specific idea

00:15:51.760 and highly motivated,

00:15:53.280 took over the universities.

00:15:55.020 The universities taught the teachers to be,

00:15:58.060 you know, the theories and principles.

00:16:00.140 Not necessarily identifying them as radical, but teaching them as a matter of fact.

00:16:06.820 So that goes out into the schools, and the teachers then teach the kids, and the kids end up voting liberal.

00:16:14.500 Is that kind of how I'm simplifying it?

00:16:17.520 Well, with my generation, I would argue that that's the case.

00:16:23.780 Yes.

00:16:24.460 It's very simple.

00:16:25.440 they are the dominant theorists and that change came in about 2010 um because people around my

00:16:34.720 age noticed that that this was now being taught as fact and we're not we live in a country where

00:16:43.040 whole seminars are offered on the critical theorists with nothing to counter it and

00:16:50.720 And that's to undergraduates who do not have the balance to counter those ideas in a classroom setting and working under the tutelage of instructors who are married to these ideas.

00:17:12.420 So how do we turn this thing around?

00:17:16.080 Let's say the conservatives win the next election.

00:17:20.720 What should they do? They probably won't, because that's not where their heads are at. But if you could guide them, what would they do to try and bring balance back into public sentiments?

00:17:37.540 If I could advise the Conservative Party on the next election cycle and movement going forward, I think that the answer is that avoiding culture is riskier.

00:17:57.460 I'm not at all saying that we abandon economics, but the left is not avoiding culture. And I believe that cost the Canadian Conservatives the election.

00:18:10.460 The left is remaking culture, as conservatives seem to be struggling to figure out how to talk about it, figure out what's going on.

00:18:26.060 And this is very important because culture connects to how we think about everything. Justice, identity, belonging, truth. And if the conservatives surrender that ground as they did before, we've already lost the next cycle.

00:18:53.920 And one more thing I would advise is that the Conservatives bypass any and all traditional media in Canada and take those chances on those independent media outlets that are not bound to incentives.

00:19:19.060 and embrace the – there's a lot of ways of viewing the word counterculture,

00:19:30.780 but an online counterculture has emerged who the conservatives let down.

00:19:40.900 So I think those are two starting points.

00:19:44.300 Okay.

00:19:44.460 now just on that last point obviously you would expect me to as a as part of that media counter

00:19:50.240 culture to bite on that right away and i am um you mentioned before that the that the conservatives

00:19:58.680 took a pass on the opportunity to go on probably one of the most influential new media that there

00:20:05.580 is and that's the joe rogan show now um first of all it's american second uh it worked very well

00:20:13.940 for donald trump and that would have fed the the media uh line that uh well mr polyarab is just a

00:20:20.040 sort of a pint-sized canadian uh donald trump you know it's just a model now there's some there's

00:20:28.680 something to that argument but on the other hand what do you think it could have done for him if

00:20:34.500 had gone for it i i've heard that i i've watched joe rogan oh oh millions millions yes in three

00:20:45.060 days joe rogan uh got 38 million views for his interview with donald trump now

00:20:53.860 he wasn't going to get those numbers but it would have been he that that is not

00:20:59.940 an irregular

00:21:02.700 Do you think Canadians would have 0.92

00:21:04.000 flipped over to Joe Rogan

00:21:06.000 if they don't watch him normally

00:21:07.220 they would have made a point of

00:21:09.300 They would have heard about it

00:21:10.980 They would have seen clips on the news

00:21:13.120 They would have heard

00:21:14.900 Polyev

00:21:16.940 hopefully tell his

00:21:19.320 life story

00:21:20.600 express his vision

00:21:22.740 in extremely articulate terms

00:21:25.260 and

00:21:26.720 this

00:21:28.540 And I don't know the data for the demographics that watched Joe Rogan, but I think he would have restored a lot of the just plain hurt to disillusioned workers, blue-collar workers, and male voters.

00:21:47.500 yep okay well look that that certainly uh i actually agree with you on that one but a lot

00:21:55.340 of conservatives would tell both of us that we were we were risking a lot if we had done all that

00:22:01.820 yes but they're the joe rogan it's not just the podcast i've heard this criticism so many times

00:22:10.060 joe rogan is in the news every day that would have been

00:22:13.260 it wouldn't have been a matter of uh would people tune in it would be a matter of could people

00:22:21.940 escape could the liberals escape it because the joe rogan and the podcast world is so influential

00:22:32.340 and so discussed and yet when you come right back to it you have that huge uh liberal electorate

00:22:38.660 doesn't think about these things very much, and they're just reassured by having a mature

00:22:44.580 individual such as Carney as opposed to Justin Trudeau, uttering soothing words and saying he's

00:22:52.020 going to stick up for Canada. And of course, he doesn't threaten what they already believe to be

00:23:00.180 true, whereas conservatives now, or funny really when you think of the name conservative means

00:23:07.780 looking after things but conservatives actually are now in the situation of threatening things

00:23:13.780 that so many people believe to be true thanks to the efforts of these of these academics who

00:23:19.860 barnstormed their way into columbia university 100 years ago we are out of time unfortunately brock 0.64

00:23:28.420 but this has been a great discussion and i actually think that this is something that

00:23:32.340 or the conservative movement in Canada has to take on,

00:23:36.000 or simply, you know, all that will be left to be conserved

00:23:39.380 will be left-wing ideas that lead us to nowhere good.

00:23:43.700 So, thanks for coming on.

00:23:46.740 Great to see you, and you're moving back to Canada.

00:23:49.980 We wish you easy travels.

00:23:54.160 Thank you very much, Nigel. It was a pleasure.

00:23:56.820 For The Western Standard, I'm Nigel Hannaford.

00:24:02.340 Thank you.

Western Standard - June 07, 2025

To win, the Conservatives must take back the culture

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