In this episode, Cory Morgan is joined by Andrew Lawton, an author of multiple books and the author of a new book, "A Political Life," about the Trudeau government's immigration policies. They discuss the impact of mass immigration on Canada's economy, social services, infrastructure, schools, health care, and other areas of the country.
00:09:45.780Anyways, we've had a really busy morning today, Corey, and lots of weird and wonderful and wacky stories to entertain readers.
00:09:53.260As you know, yesterday was Menstrual Health Day, Hygiene Day across the world, and the Trudeau Liberals celebrated it in style, all wearing menstrual bracelets and whatnot.
00:10:09.520And it was met with some scorn, including Laureen Harper, Prime Minister Stephen Harper's wife, and some funny Twitter comments there.
00:10:21.440uh also out of ottawa we have a story about an ndp mp uh breaking down in tears in the commons as
00:10:29.840she said climate change is not general neutral it affects women uh way more than uh than men
00:10:36.880edmonton city council has opened up a three-day hearing on their plans for uh 15-minute cities
00:10:42.640and they're getting uh tons and tons of feedback there uh controversy in the ndp leadership race
00:10:49.600where Nahid Nenshi and Sarah Hoffman have been accused of lying
00:10:54.080about visiting the Midfield Trailer Park in Calgary
00:11:01.460And it looks like Nenshi is sticking by his comments.
00:11:06.320Charges against PGA star Scotty Scheffler have been dropped.
00:11:10.380He had to run in with a police officer at the PGA tournament a week or so ago.
00:11:15.680Well, fun story of the morning is apparently North Korea has unleashed a literal, I can't even say it, feces bomb on the poor people in the south.0.80
00:11:30.140They're loading up balloons filled with feces and floating them over Seoul and exploding them.
00:11:36.520So the people of Seoul aren't very happy about that.
00:11:39.380A couple of Kamloops stories on the unmarked alleged grave sites today.
00:11:45.680We've got a local Indigenous leader saying that the missionaries just took the bodies and disposed of them away from the residential schools.
00:11:55.580And that's why there have been no bodies found so far.
00:12:00.140And City TV in Vancouver had to withdraw a story in which they claimed that there were graves found.
00:12:08.300And your outrageous federal story of the day, Corey, is you remember they sold all those ventilators for scrap metal.
00:12:16.440So access to information documents show they sold $22,000 ventilators for only 21 bucks so they could, quote, better understand the recycling industry.
00:12:31.060Yeah, you're going to try and laugh to avoid crying.
00:12:33.140I mean, that's why I couldn't help but chuckle.
00:12:34.420As horrific it must be if you were living in Seoul and a balloon full of poop blew up and splattered you and your household.
00:12:41.340But I guess, hey, if we're going to have disputes between two neighboring countries, I can think of worse things they lob at each other than balloons full of feces.
00:12:50.460So maybe if it just sticks to that, it could be worse.
00:13:03.840All right. Thanks, Dave. That is our news editor, Dave Naylor. And as you can hear, yes, we, lots of stories breaking all the time, covering things from the light to the serious. And, and, uh, the reason we do it, this is where I do my nag is because you guys have subscribed. You know, we don't take tax dollars. We don't want to take, we won't take it. We stay independent. And the way we do is because you guys have stepped up and you have subscribed. So get on there, westernstandard.news slash subscription, $9.99 a month, a hundred bucks for a year, guys, just like an old newspaper subscription. It's well worth it. And you will get right
00:13:33.840past that annoying paywall and be able to get straight to all of those important stories.
00:13:38.100Important stories like that. Yeah. Like I said, we could cover the light stuff too. This is kind
00:13:42.580of light and heavy mix at the same time as Dave mentioned. If you don't punish yourself by going
00:13:47.060on X and things like that, you might not have noticed it. But the big virtue signaling issue
00:13:51.920of the day yesterday for liberal members of parliament was to walk around with these little
00:13:55.180bracelets with the red part in the middle, which I guess was to symbolize their unity with people
00:14:01.620who menstruate. We used to call them women, but now I guess you have to break that down and specify
00:14:06.920it. Part of what's so frustrating with this sort of stuff from the woke is that, you know, the
00:14:13.380identity of women themselves, this is supposed to be a virtue signaling exercise in support of women,0.98
00:14:18.660but these are the same people also who completely undercut women all the time when saying, yes,
00:14:23.340but as long as that person over there wants to change their personal identity, they can compete
00:14:27.440sports. And they're supposed to be considered a woman as well. But guess what, guys? They don't
00:14:32.400menstruate. Either way, do we really need to discuss it? I don't think there's really been
00:14:35.880that much oppression of menstruators in North America these days. We understand it's a regular1.00
00:14:41.080bodily function. It's just what we do. I don't think we tend to shame people for it. I mean,
00:14:45.560everybody has a lot of bodily functions we don't tend to discuss at length. We don't have to wear
00:14:49.880bracelets to celebrate them all the time. But this is what our elected officials get up to. Either
00:14:54.360way it gives us something lighter to report on it can't all be Israel and Gaza and horrific stuff1.00
00:14:58.280we could talk about period bracelets now and then for a change as well all right well let's get back
00:15:02.160to the domestic front and speak with our guests I really been looking forward to this we've got
00:15:06.560in studio author uh show host uh writer with true north uh boy a long description Andrew Lawton
00:15:13.840in studio and you've just released yet another book Andrew thanks for coming in and talk to us
00:15:18.080yes happy to be here I'm sorry I forgot my menstruation bracelet I didn't know that was
00:16:18.820I am also convinced that it was important to have a documented record of his life to this point, how he got to where he is, which for Canadians who are deciding how to vote for, or Canadians that are just observers of politics, I think can be a really useful tool.
00:16:33.140Yeah, well, and finding out who Mr. Polyaev is, I mean, he's an outspoken, extroverted man, yet at the same time, he's very private about himself. You don't get to know a lot about him. We've had him here a couple of times, seated where you are for interviews, and great, fantastic talks about what he wants to do with the party.
00:16:48.820but you don't get much more else out of him.
00:16:51.500So, I mean, as an author, it must have been challenging me
00:16:53.020because you want to write a bit about him as well.
00:16:55.280I mean, you know, the personal aspects.
00:16:56.880I mean, not getting, you know, exposing or embarrassing,
00:16:59.740but just like what makes this man tick.
00:17:01.820Yeah, no, I would have totally been all on the exposing and embarrassing stuff if I got it.
00:18:54.760It's a very challenging role, which also shows, I mean, that was a large part of why
00:18:59.720Mr. Paulyov didn't run in the last leadership because that was just coming out at that time.
00:19:04.360But now he's gone for such, he's a driven man.
00:19:08.220And I mean, something that was clear in the book, too, though, you know, there's there's people who did other careers and then fell into politics later.
00:19:13.640But it sounds like Mr. Poliova has always had a razor focus on the political life.
00:19:18.180Yeah. The subtitle of the book is A Political Life for a Reason, because his life has been politics.
00:19:22.580Politics has been his life. And even the people around him have been, I don't want to say unchanged.
00:19:26.860He certainly met people over the last 20 years. But a lot of the relationships that he forged when he was first getting involved in politics are relationships that are still very valuable to him today.
00:19:36.180I mean, he interned with people that are now members of parliament with him.
00:19:39.520He volunteered on campaigns with people who are now working on his campaign.
00:19:43.320The internship coordinator when he interned for Jason Kenney was Jenny Byrne that he had a 12-year relationship with and is now his chief advisor.
00:19:51.360So all of these connections, again, many of which forged right here in Calgary or certainly in Alberta, have really followed him throughout his entire life.
00:19:59.620Well, for people who work in politics, I mean, the network is really important.
00:20:02.620I mean, some come from outside and jump in, but if you're immersed within it, I mean, your social network is there, as we saw with Jenny Byrne.
00:20:09.860It's interesting that he can, you know, it's difficult in life to reconcile that and keep a professional relationship later on because they're both very interested, conservative people, whilst, you know, no longer being a couple.
00:20:23.140Yeah, and I think that the one thing that came out, and Jenny Byrne did actually speak about her relationship on the record, is that they were friends first and are friends since.
00:20:31.820That's the way that relationship is framed. And they've always had a tremendous amount of trust
00:20:36.580for each other. And I think the fact that, you know, Pierre Pauliev has now made her
00:20:40.140the person that really, I don't even think it was a pool of people that auditioned for it. I think
00:20:45.220it was just a given that she would be the one in the driver's seat on his leadership campaign. And
00:20:49.400now what he's doing as a leader. Yeah, well, and trust is integrals. As you get to those higher
00:20:53.820levels, you just really want somebody that you can feel comfortable in speaking with. So he's
00:20:58.460he's considered that very important for himself. So being his, you know, I mean, some of what you
00:21:04.080wrote about too, I mean, his early essay that won him a prize, the things that got him in, but
00:21:08.300is he an ideologue? Would you say that? Very much so. He's also quite practical though. And I think
00:21:15.840that there's this dilemma in politics where you have people that are all about electability and
00:21:20.360people who are all about, you know, the purity of ideology. And there's often the belief that
00:21:26.240there's no middle ground. And I think, well, I've never heard of him using it. I think Poliev
00:21:30.100really took a cue from the old William F. Buckley Jr. rule of, you know, support the most electable,
00:21:35.920most conservative candidate. You have to look at that intersection of practicality and
00:21:40.880pragmatism and of, you know, that philosophical purity. And when you talk about that essay,
00:21:47.220a lot of what he advocates for has remained unchanged over the last two decades. He's still,
00:21:52.540he's always been committed to you know classical liberal principles freedom of speech the idea of
00:21:58.420the free market the idea of getting government out of the way and a lot of the messaging that
00:22:02.520he used in that essay almost identical to what he's campaigning on in the leadership race and
00:22:07.800since becoming leader yeah and then i mean it's it's picking you don't want to die on an ideological
00:22:12.780hill because it can be a waste of a party or a campaign or anything sometimes it's time to back
00:22:17.080off of it though i mean for say and it's easier for me to do as somebody commenting from the sides
00:22:21.440to get on their case when they back off on other things. But a frustrating thing that I hit every
00:22:25.720time, and they didn't like that when he came in, a pet issue of mine, supply management drives me
00:22:30.260bananas. As a conservative, as a classical liberal, it's just as, you know, antithetical
00:22:35.420to the entire ideology. And I've asked him point blank, would you get rid of it? He's been honest.
00:22:39.720He said, no, he wouldn't. Okay. So he's, he knows that on principle, he doesn't feel it's a good
00:22:46.000policy. But if you're looking to elect a government across this country, you just don't want to pick
00:22:50.760war with Quebec dairy farmers. Yeah, I mean, and this was the case with Andrew Scheer in 2019 as
00:22:55.700well. I'm convinced that if you were to be behind closed doors with Andrew Scheer, having a few
00:22:59.700drinks and just, you know, chatting about politics and policy, he's probably against supply management.
00:23:05.500But at its core in politics, that's the issue that seems to just be the weird one that convinces
00:23:10.900everyone to go against their ideological instinct, including people that, by the way, had no
00:23:15.220tolerance for the wheat board monopoly but when it comes to when it comes to the dairy uh the
00:23:20.340dairy industry it's a different calculation well that's just what i guess as a as a western pundit
00:23:25.640sort of gets a guy a little nervous if you wonder how far does the pragmatism go because we know
00:23:29.580the quebec tail tends to wag the canadian dog a lot how far would it get perhaps with a prime
00:23:36.020minister and polyev before he might put his foot down with some yeah well there's a little bit of
00:23:40.720history in the book that i think is quite interesting in that regard so when when stephen
00:23:44.420Harper became prime minister in 2006, the Quebec caucus was very influential. And part of that was
00:23:50.700because they wouldn't stop putting their agenda forward. And Stephen Harper had said what a couple
00:23:57.740of MPs thought they had to read between the lines on was, you know, when these guys come in here and
00:24:02.200they make these asks and there's no one on the other side to push back against it, I have limited
00:24:05.840options. So there was this group that formed within the conservative caucus, which called
00:24:10.720themselves the Khmer Bleu after the Khmer Rouge. And Pierre Polyev was a member of this. And they
00:24:15.900were the conservative members of the conservative caucus. And their goal was to meet every day,
00:24:20.160every week before the caucus meeting and say, how can we push conservatism within our party?
00:24:25.420How can we push the government towards a conservative agenda? So I think Polyev does
00:24:29.860have a track record of trying to keep the party accountable to the right. Now, the question that
00:24:33.920raises, will there be a Khmer Bleu in a Polyev government? Will there be a contingent in that
00:24:39.340caucus that says, okay, we need to make sure that our conservative principles are not left behind.
00:24:43.900Well, there's no doubt, though, that the influences of Prime Minister Harper on him
00:24:46.980will be very strong and felt. I mean, he cut his teeth in government under Harper's leadership,
00:24:53.700and I would imagine, hopefully, he's picked the best and worst of that. I mean, there was good
00:24:58.120and bad to come from the Harper. How would you see him differing from Harper if he became Prime
00:25:02.500Minister? The one area that was raised by a number of people I spoke to is Harper's incrementalism.
00:25:08.520Now, to give Harper a little bit of a pass on this, he was elected with a minority government, and then he was reelected with a minority government. He didn't get his majority until five years later in 2011. But by that time, there had been this commitment to this path of having to build consensus, work across the aisle. So that really aggressive, bold agenda, the radical agenda didn't really happen.
00:25:31.140I mean, it was funny when when the left and the media were accusing Harper of being this like, you know, radical draconian leader.
00:25:36.660A lot of conservatives were like, I wish I where where is that Harper?
00:25:39.960So I think Paul Yev has learned a little bit from that.
00:25:42.280And I also think if you look at the poll numbers, he is likely at this point anyway to be entering with a really decisive majority.
00:25:48.760So he has a latitude that Harper never had in his first term if this pans out.
00:25:54.320And I think he's going to use it. I don't think he wants to squander that leverage that he'll have.
00:25:59.280Now, the challenge is, and this I know will be of interest to people in the West, is the Senate. Stephen Harper left 22 vacancies in the Senate when he left office. Those were filled by Justin Trudeau. Justin Trudeau has had 10 years of appointing senators. Will the Senate become an impediment to Pierre Polyev's agenda as prime minister? I don't know. It's a possibility, though.
00:26:20.160Well, if you get those big standoffs, I mean, the supposedly independent senators of Trudeau.
00:26:24.240Yeah, the nonpartisan senators, I think, will very quickly show themselves to be anything but.
00:26:29.280And so, I mean, that could be, I guess, a check that would hold him a bit because I said, I mean, if the polls hold it, he could have a supermajority, unlike anything we've seen since the 80s among conservatives.
00:26:39.180What do you think, though, that he would take on?
00:26:41.120I mean, if you've got that opportunity, we know how the politics works.
00:26:43.380You're going to hit it hard in the first year or two and then kind of ease off when you're moving towards re-election.
00:26:47.460So what tough ones do you think he would bite his teeth into in that first year or two if he got that majority?
00:26:52.140Well, I mean, look, he's been a very, very strong fiscal hawk.
00:26:56.560And I know that he's being left a mess by the Liberal government, but he also has to prove that he's making pretty real steps towards balancing the budget.
00:27:04.120So that's going to be a challenge that he has to take up or show really good progress on.
00:32:40.440It's just everything's coming to a head again.
00:32:42.440So it's, what was it, on the 27th was the three-year anniversary of when the anomalies were found at the Kamloops former residential school site.
00:32:51.120I mean, that, we've never seen anything like it in the country.
00:32:53.660The whole nation, I mean, it made international news.