Individuality, Autonomy, and the PPC | Maxime Bernier | EP 192

But you know the mainstream media is canceling us, and just recently, because, uh, we are growing in the polls that they are speaking about us. But that growth was ordinary Canadians using their social media, speaking to their families, their friends about the PPC. Because our biggest challenge right now is still a lot of people don't know that we exist, don't know that there's another option. We didn't have that conversation during that electoral campaign; all the other political parties agree with the vaccine passport and lockdowns, and we are the only one. But we were not part of that national debate in the mainstream media. And yes, you're right; after this election, we'll have a couple of candidates that will be elected, and I believe that I'll be able to be re-elected in my riding in Beauce. We'll have that conversation, and the mainstream media won't be able to ignore us anymore.

[Music]

Hello everyone, I'm pleased to have with me today one of the contenders for the prime ministership of Canada: the Honorable Maxime Bernier, the leader of a new Canadian political party, the People's Party of Canada. He was Minister of Industry, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Minister of State for Small Business and Tourism in Stephen Harper's Conservative government, and he was an MP for the riding of Beauce for 13 years and is currently running for election there.

In 1985, Mr. Bernier earned a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Quebec Montreal and entered law at the University of Ottawa. He was called to the Quebec bar in 1990. He worked for a variety of financial and banking institutions before becoming Executive Vice President of the Montreal Economic Institute in 2005. He ran for leadership of the Progressive Conservative Party in 2017. That's generally Canada's dominant or second place party, finishing second to Andrew Scheer, who the current PC leader, Progressive Conservative leader Erin O'Toole, replaced.

Maxime founded the PPC in 2018, citing disagreements with Scheer's leadership. Mr. Bernier and I came into personal contact during the controversy surrounding Canada's Bill C-16, which purported to protect the rights of trans individuals but was regarded by me and others as a threat to free speech. Um, I invited Erin O'Toole, the current PC leader, to this podcast; he had other commitments and declined, and I invited Mr. Bernier, and he agreed to talk. So we get to meet again, and so it's really good to see you, and thanks very much for agreeing to talk.

Thank you, Mr. Peterson. Jordan, I'm very pleased to be with you. And you're right by saying that the first time we were in contact is when I called you in 2017. Because now I know that I did a mistake at that time; I voted for that Bill C-16, and I didn't know a lot about that; that was the party position of the Conservative Party of Canada at that time, and I voted in line with the party line. But after that, some of my friends told me, "Maxime, I believe that you did a mistake; that bill, it's not only about gender self-identification; it's about free speech, and you must have a discussion with Mr. Peterson." And we had a phone conversation at that time, and you explained to me the impact of that bill, and I was admitted that you were right, and I was wrong at that time. But I was a little bit, uh, naive about all that transgender and cultural Marxism and all that woke culture.

Because Jordan, when I decided to be in politics, as just as you just said in my bio, I was more of a kind of an economist. I worked only three years as a lawyer in a big law firm in Montreal, but after that, I worked in a financial institution, and I was working for the Montreal Economic Institute. That's a think tank—free market think tanks in Montreal—and I was VP over there. So when I decided to be in politics, I decided to be in politics for a smaller government, more freedom, less government intervention, and more free markets.

You know, that's why I decided to go into politics, and all that cultural Marxism and now that woke culture—I didn't know anything about that. And what I liked when I was a minister was to do deregulation in the telecom industry. Um, Professor Schultz at McGill University said that I was the best Minister of Industry for the last 30 years because of that deregulation. So more competition, prices went down for the telecom and cellphone. But all that was not part also of my platform for the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada in 2017. My platform was very much a kind of a conservative libertarian, less government, believing in people, not in big fat government, and I had something about extreme multiculturalism at that time and also on immigration.

But, uh, I was in contact with all that woke culture and Bill C-16 after a discussion that we had. And now today, it's part of my campaign; it's part of the People's Party of Canada, and I'm speaking about it every day because it's a reality; it's a sad reality of our country right now.

Yeah, well, a lot of that sort of legislation is a wolf in sheep's clothing because it purports to be kind and compassionate and to be solely for the benefit of people who are oppressed in some unfair manner. But there are, uh, sharks and crocodiles lurking beneath the surface, and, um, it's not necessarily that easy to see them. And I think that's really been hard on center, uh, thinkers and people who are more on the right as well, because they get defeated often before they even have a chance to speak because the woke crowd is extraordinarily good at setting the stage for the political discussion.

We saw a lot of that in the debate, for example, in the last leaders' debate. You're upset right on that, and that's why now we are the only national political party that has a policy on gender identity. Can you believe that? Um, for me, you know, back five years ago, for me, that was not an issue, but now it's an issue, and we are speaking about that when you have legislation or here in Canada, when you have men that are saying that they are women and going to prisons for women—in the same prison—you have that in Canada. And when you have men that are in a competition against women in sports, and that's supposed to be normal?

So that's why we needed to have a policy on that in our platform, and that's a policy that is very popular because we go back to the common sense. And I think there's a lack of common sense in our country right now; the common sense is not that common these days. But, um, I'm speaking about it openly, and more and more people can understand that we want to live in a free society when you don't have any racial politics or identity politics or gender issues like that.

So you've founded the People's Party of Canada in 2018, that's—is that correct? And that was dissatisfaction in part with the leadership of Andrew Scheer and with the conservative platform in general. And so it's a radical move just to start a new political party, and, of course, people have pointed out—and I'm sure you were aware of this—that one of the risks of doing that is that you split the vote and that, as a consequence, you move the probability of power more into the hands of people whose policies you might not agree with. And so why do you, why did you think that it was worth, why did you think it was necessary, worth the risk and necessary? And do you feel this, a few years later, that you were justified in that assumption?

Yes, I believe that it was the best political decision in my political career; I'm very pleased that we did it. But yes, at that time when I was a Conservative and that was just after the leadership contest in 2017, I didn't win with 49% of the vote, and I tried, and we had a very popular platform—very popular Conservatives, free market, smaller government—and after a couple of months, I believe maybe 12 months, I was trying at that time to have the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada to take some of our ideas that were very popular with the membership of the Conservative Party of Canada.

Andrew Scheer said publicly that, you know, when I'm speaking about policies, I'm speaking only for myself; I not engage the party and the platform for the next election—the 2019 election—after that, it will be a platform very different than the platform that I ran on for the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada. So I said, why stay with a political party and run in the election of 2019 with a party when you don't believe in that platform? And for me, that party was not Conservative; it was centrist and a little bit centered to the left. And I said when I resigned, "this party, the Conservative Party of Canada, is intellectually and morally corrupt," and that's why I created the People's Party of Canada, based on four principles: individual freedom, personal responsibility, respect, and fairness.

And all our policies are in line with these principles, and we don't do politics by survey or polling. We believe that we have the right vision for this country, and we are speaking about what we believe openly with passion and conviction. And I believe that I will be able to have more support, but in the election, like you just said, Jordan, the 2019 election, that was the first election for the People's Party of Canada.

And I didn't win by seating vote; I was running as the leader and People's Party candidate. We had 1.6% of the vote—300,000 people voted for us. But for our first year, we did better than the Green Party of Canada because it took the Green Party of Canada 20 years and six elections to have more than 1.6% of the vote, and we did that in our first year. But the biggest argument coming from the Conservatives again against us was the fact that, "oh, don't vote for Bernier; you'll divide the vote; you're going to split the vote." And I can tell you that was very efficient; I saw people out west and all across the country, "Maxime, we like your ideas; we like your platform, but our most important goal is to get rid of Justin Trudeau. We don't want to split the vote, so we won't support you."

That argument was very efficient, but now we know that, you know, they voted for some Conservatives, voted for the Conservative Party, and in the end, they ended up with Justin Trudeau. And now you have the same argument in 2021, but it is less effective because Erin O'Toole is more leftist than Andrew Scheer, and the party—if you look at the platform of the Liberal Party of Canada and the Conservative, they're the same on imposing a vaccine passport, woke culture, not balancing the budget. I can go on and go on, so people realize now a little bit more that, you know, if you vote for Bernier, it's not a vote for the Liberals; it's a vote for yourself, for your values.

And if Erin O'Toole is winning, he will be like Justin Trudeau on the most important issues for the future of our country. So that argument is less effective, and I believe that's why we are growing in the polls right now. As you know, the election will be this Monday, and I'm speaking about our freedom and speaking about the fact that we have draconian measures that are imposed on us—not only the federal one but the provincial ones—and that freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of choice is very important in this campaign, and we are able to grow our support.

I don't know what will be the result at the end of this campaign, but I can feel a kind of momentum, and we'll see what will happen.

Where do you think you are in the polls right now? What do you think's a reliable figure?

Yeah, so we don't do any internal polling; we don't do that. We don't believe in that. I'm looking at the public polls, and we are between 7% nationally to 11-12% nationally. In some provinces like in Ontario, we are around 8%, in Alberta around 10%. So I believe that we can have maybe a strong 6 or 7% of the vote. And if we have that from 1.6% to 6 or 7%, that would be a big victory. If we have that score, we will have more votes than the Green Party of Canada because since the beginning of that campaign, the Green Party is around 3 and 4%, and we started that campaign at 1.6%.

Like now, we are around 6-7% and maybe 12%. So, we'll be able to do better than the Green, and maybe do better than the Bloc Québécois, which is a regional political party only in Quebec; they're at 6% in the polls. So we, the mainstream media and the political elites, will have to speak about us and engage with us about our ideas. So that will be the beginning, uh, for us of a new step and another step for the growth of our party, because this party is there for the long term, and we won't merge with any party. We will always fight for what we believe and push our ideas. Because, like I said, we are doing politics differently, and it's not a slogan; it's a reality.

Usually, when you're a politician, you will speak about a subject when maybe 38-35% of the population is on that side because your goal is to have a majority, and you'll start to speak about it and hope that you have 50% on one subject. For us, that's not important; we are doing politics based on ideas, and we believe that we have the best ideas. Like I said, I'll give you an example: you know, speaking about ending the supply management system in Canada— that's a cartel for poultry, dairy, and milk. These producers are fixing the price in Canada; they cannot export, and that's why Canadians are paying twice the price for milk, poultry, and eggs in our country. We want to abolish that and be sure that it will be a free market for these products.

But when I'm speaking about that, you know the huge majority—70% of the population agrees with that system, so what we need to do, we need to speak about it more often, and more people will be on our side. And that's the way we are doing politics.

We don't—

Okay, so let me ask you, let me ask you about that. So, well, okay, I want to summarize some of the things you said; see if I've got this right: so your feeling is that the Conservatives, in some sense, because they're doing politics by poll, are drifting into the center and the center-left, and yes, and you are providing an alternative set of ideas. And you think that the provision of that set of ideas is important enough to Canadians, broadly speaking, that taking the risk of dividing the vote is a good short- and long-term measure. These ideas need to be brought into the public forum, and it's risky; there's great risk in not doing it. And you also think that your party—

And so then why is it as well that your party has decided that you're going to stick to your philosophical platform, let's say, rather than being led by polls? And do you really think you can avoid doing that in the long run?

Our goal is not to be in power; that's not the end goal. Yes, I hope everybody will be elected, but our end goal is to speak about our ideas; and when they will become popular, and we know that, you know, an idea will become popular if you speak about it. So the more we speak about it, the more support we'll have, and the more candidates will be elected.

So there are Conservatives; they are only Conservative in name right now, and what Erin O'Toole is doing by speaking like the leftists and using that narrative is not helping the real Conservative cause. And O'Toole is not speaking about that because it is not popular. Today, we are in a socialist era in Canada and in other countries. So if your main goal is to be in government, you will— you know, there's about 70-60% of the population in Canada that are leftists. So that's why the Conservatives are going to the left because their only goal is to be in government.

Our goal is not to be in government; I hope today I'll be Prime Minister, but I'm realistic. Our goal is to increase our percentage of the vote, to have some candidates that will be elected this election, and grow our support. And at the next election, we'll be more powerful, we'll have more candidates, and that's why our electoral campaign for this election—our electoral platform for this election is the same one as the last election in 2019, and it will be the same one in 2022 or at the next election because, you know—

Why do you think these ideas are so important that so Canadians are going to often vote to throw someone out rather than to bring someone in, let's say? And maybe often that's how democracies function, and it's hard to say whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. Um, that isn't what you're doing precisely—you're trying to bring these ideas into a wider public forum. Why do you think that's so important, and why do you think that you have the background knowledge to make that decision?

Like, right, because you formed a party; you're changing the political landscape in Canada; you're taking a big personal risk as well. This isn't an easy thing to do. So what is it that you're doing that you're offering that's so vital and important that all of that is worthwhile? And why should Canadians take that risk? What happens if they, if you don't do this, that will happen?

We'll be in that leftist era for longer than we thought. Uh, you know, we have more and more draconian measures right now. I'm speaking about COVID-19. Uh, you know, in Alberta, they will have a vaccine passport; in Quebec, we have a vaccine passport. You know, I'll tell you, we have a vaccine passport. Don't get me wrong; I'm not against that vaccine. You know, everybody must be free to choose if they want the vaccine or not with the right information. But right now, we are imposing a vaccine passport, so we are dividing society into two groups; you know the vaccinated people and the unvaccinated people, and some of them will have more rights than others. That’s not what we want in a free society; everybody must be equal before the law.

And we know that everybody can spread the virus, the vaccinated people and the unvaccinated people. We know that if you took the vaccine, you’ll have mild symptoms if you have COVID-19, and your chances of spreading the virus is a little bit minimum, but everybody can spread the virus. Look at what is happening right now in Israel, and there’s a lot of people there that took the vaccine, and they can spread the virus. So why I won’t be able to go to a restaurant because I decided personally not to take the vaccine?

I'm 58 years old, and if I’m looking at the data and the statistics coming from our country—and from Statistics Canada—I have a 0.5% chance of dying if I have COVID. So my survival rate is 99.5. So I decided not to take the vaccine, but my dad is 87 years old, diabetic, and I encourage him to take the vaccine, and the two shots—and he did! So we just want people to be free, and now I'm not able to go to a restaurant or to a baseball game because I didn't take the vaccine, and everybody can spread it.

And I know that if I'm at the restaurant and the table just near me, there are people who took the vaccine—they're protected, they're not more in danger because I'm there. So we must be fair for everybody and stop that COVID hysteria. We need to learn to live with that virus; it will be there. We cannot have zero COVID-19 in one country; it won't happen. We need to learn to live with it; if not, we will live with more inequity and injustices, and I don't want that.

So, so that's why, you know, so let me play, let me play devil's advocate for a minute. I'll take our Prime Minister's statement a couple of weeks ago, I believe, that pretty much had no sympathy for anyone who was unvaccinated who ended up in the hospital, for example. And you might say, well, the vaccines are widely available and so, and people can get them whenever they want, and so why in the world shouldn't they do it? The science supports their utility; these aren't my claims, by the way, the science supports their utility. And if they're too damn stupid to get the vaccine, then why then they're limiting their own freedoms? And everyone else's security is paramount.

Okay, so what's wrong with that argument, in your view?

But it is wrong at that basis because, first of all, yes, we are free to decide, but what that argument is saying is if you want to be free, you need to have the vaccine passport. And that would create two kinds of citizens, like I said in the beginning, and that will create an "Show me your papers" society that vaccinated people will have to show their papers to participate in society, and maybe unvaccinated people will have to show maybe a negative COVID test to participate in society. We don't want that because COVID is there; there's no difference between me, that I didn't take the vaccine, and another person. If you decided to take the vaccine to protect yourself, not the society.

Now we have the immunity that is out there, and yes, there are some variants, but the most important is we must learn to live with that virus. We must care for people, and now what Justin Trudeau is saying is if you work for the federal government and you don't have your two shots, you don't have the vaccine—you don't have the vaccine passport—he said, you know, there will be consequences; that’s his words. There would be consequences.

So he wants to punish people that decided not to take the vaccine. You know, everybody, that's unconstitutional; that's illegal. You know, your personal health choice must be private. If your employer is asking you, did you take the vaccine or not, Canadians must not answer that question. It's your personal private health information, and you must have that discussion with your doctor.

Now, all our personal information would be up there with that QR code that we have in Quebec, and vaccine passport; they're going to know your status, your age, what you're doing, which institution you are going to. It is a little bit like a social credit in China. Maybe I'm exaggerating, yes, but it's going to that direction, and I don't like that. You know, I see in some countries, I think it's Australia, where there's technology where now you have to take a snapshot of yourself in a particular locale at a particular time, and the phone can tell the people, the authorities, that you're reporting to if you're actually there.

And you know, for people who are concerned with governmental overreach, the establishment of such technologies, regardless of the rationale, poses a substantial existential danger that's comparable in some sense to the health danger presented by the, well, by the pandemic. And so that—that seems to be what you're suggesting.

I would say, and so all right, so let's talk about. If what do you think Canada should look like in three months then in relation to COVID? So you envision a completely open country fundamentally. What do you think we should do?

But I think we should do like in other countries or other states that didn't lock down their economy. Lockdowns people and shut down their economy, and thinking about Florida with Governor DeSantis, Texas, and other countries. What we did with COVID-19, just the fact that the Trudeau government, with the 354 billion dollars that the Trudeau government spent, because of COVID-19, that was the biggest deficit in our history. And what he said, he said to provinces, you can lock down your province; I will finance your economic cost; I will give grants and subsidies to businesses for them to stay closed, and I will create a program for Canadians.

That was not the solution; some medical expert and the experts that signed the Barrington Declaration in the U.S. said that, you know, we must lock down the most vulnerable Canadians, the older Canadians with co-morbidities, and open the economy. That was a big mistake, and now we are paying for that with our huge deficit. We are paying for that because there's a lot of waiting lists for surgeries right now, and we locked down the economy; suicide rates are going up, depression—that was not the solution.

And I hope that right now, or just after the election, all these lockdowns and mask mandates that are imposing on people must end. And that's an important fight for us—for the People's Party—and I believe that this country must be more open: no more lockdowns, no more stay-at-home orders, no more curfew. In Montreal, during the peak of the COVID-19 crisis, we had a curfew from 8 o'clock PM to 5 o'clock AM. And you know, to fight a virus, that's the first time in the history of the world that we do use lockdowns to fight a virus; that was an experiment, a failed experiment.

So my vision for this country—I hope it will be open. I hope that fear won't be there anymore, that people understand that we can fight COVID-19 with the vaccine, and there's other medications. I'm not a medical expert, but I know that there are other medications; we must promote other medications, naturally or pharmaceutical ones, and we must reopen the economy—no mask mandates, no lockdowns, no vaccine passport—and we must go back to our life like it was before COVID-19 started.

Okay, so you're encouraging Canadians, in some sense, to take the risk to vote for you and to vote for your new party because you believe that that particular side of the story, let's say, seriously needs to be told, and that it needs to be told over and over, and it needs to be part of the national discussion in parliament and all of that. So Canadians who agree with the propositions that you just set forward, if they vote for the PPC, then they can be reasonably assured that their voice is at least going to be heard in the national debate. Otherwise, as far as you're concerned, the Conservatives are basically going to put together something approximating a Liberal platform. And all of this argument, libertarian argument, in some sense for increased freedom and for return to essential normality and warning about government overreach—that's not going to be part of the national conversation at all.

Absolutely! You're absolutely right about that. And I tried for that conversation to be part of this election of this election, but you know the mainstream media is canceling us. And just recently, because we are growing in the polls, they are speaking about us. But that growth was ordinary Canadians using their social media, speaking to their families, their friends about the PPC because our biggest challenge right now is still a lot of people don't know that we exist, don't know that there's another option.

And we didn't have that conversation during that electoral campaign; all the other political parties agree with the vaccine passport and lockdowns, and we are the only one. But we were not part of that national debate in the mainstream media. And yes, you're right: after this election, we'll have a couple of candidates that will be elected, and I believe that I'll be able to be re-elected in my riding in Beauce, and we'll have that conversation, and the mainstream media won't be able to ignore us anymore.

Well, you know, one of the things that we can talk about too is just exactly what we are doing right now is that increasingly, as far as I can tell, and I believe this is going to be the wave of the future—that maybe this will transform politics into, in a relatively radical way—you can do what we're doing right now, and just talk directly to people. You can circumvent the media, and that's going to be more and more the case. And so I'm hoping that that will help us.

Well, that'll produce a, in some sense, a new breed of politician who speaks directly to people and isn't trying to craft their image so they look good when presented in, you know, in the sound bites that are characteristic of the legacy media. There's just no reason for that anymore, and so hopefully, we'll see people present ideas that live or die on the strength of the idea; that would be really nice.

So yeah, that would be something. And that's why we are using social media a lot, and I believe the fact that we are very active on social media—and I want to thank you also for giving me this opportunity to speak to your viewers—the fact that we are more active on social media, it is helping us.

And yes, there's a lack of leadership in Canadian politics. Politicians are following the polls, and they try to tell you what you want to hear. And you know, like in that political campaign, we have a huge deficit, and they want to spend more and more money.

Yeah, okay, so let's talk about that. So, I'm going to play devil's advocate again. It's like, well, I thought about this, and I can understand the dangers of both the debt and the deficit. But the fact that these debts are being racked up and the deficits as well seems to be characteristic of Western democracies in general; everyone seems to be doing it.

And so it isn't obvious that people will flee our currency because we're in a relatively weak economic position because of that, because everyone's doing it. And so, um, why can't we just get away with this? Why aren't we rich enough just to get away with it? What do you think the danger is, and why do you think that your analysis of that danger is credible?

Yeah, because, you know, that deficit and more— and we will have more deficits because every traditional establishment party is promoting more deficit, more spending with money that we don't have, but with borrowed money. And that will increase our deficit and debt.

So why it's so important to balance the budget? Because it's not our children and grandchildren that will pay for these deficits; it is us right now. It is us right now, and we are paying with the inflation tax. Inflation is a hidden tax. Instead of the government taking your own money in your own pockets and forcing you to give that to the government, the government is telling you, keep your money in your pocket, but you won't be able to buy the same amount.

Okay, so let's walk through that. So first of all, I think it might be useful just to distinguish for everyone the difference between the deficit and the debt. Yeah, just so everyone knows the terminology. And then I would like you to walk through why you think increased government spending at the deficit and debt level increases inflation, and where that's showing up in Canadians' lives.

Okay, first, the deficit is the deficit of last year; the deficit was 344 billion dollars and every day the government is spending more money than it is collecting. So every day that you will add that, the deficit is going to the debt, and every day we are adding to the debt. So when I'm speaking about balancing the budget, we are not speaking about paying the debts; no, we are just speaking at no more deficit. We don't want to increase the debt anymore, so that's very important.

But the other political parties are ready to have more deficits, and that will put, that will increase our debt. So right now, like I said, we are paying because the inflation in Canada is 4.4%. That's the official inflation in Canada right now, but if you do your grocery, you know that the inflation, the real inflation, is bigger, bigger than that—five, six percent inflation. So that's why I said inflation is a hidden tax, because with the same money that you have in your pocket, you cannot buy the same amount of goods and services with that money. Your purchasing power is going down; your standard of living is going down; prices are going up, and everybody is poor.

So inflation is a hidden tax, and we are paying right now.

Why don't you trust the official inflation rate figures? Why do you think it's higher than they state, and where do you think that's primarily showing up?

Because the way that they calculate the inflation—that's Statistics Canada and the Bank of Canada—it's a basket of goods and services, and in that basket, they don't put everything. So yes, we have a 4-5% inflation in our grocery, but globally Statistics Canada is telling us that it’s 4.1%. But 4.1% is huge! The Bank of Canada has an inflation target of 2%. Now it's more than 2%; it's 4.1%. But 20% inflation is no good; 10% inflation is not good.

2% is not good. We must have an inflation target of zero percent, and if we have that, the Bank of Canada won't be able to print money out of thin air and create inflation because inflation is created by the Bank of Canada. And so our goal as a political party—we are the only political party that is speaking about monetary policy, that it's important for the well-being of Canadians. We want to have for the Bank of Canada a zero inflation target; we want people to be able to keep their purchasing power.

So that's so—we could talk about this in more straightforward terms too. So let's say there is a 4-4 to 5% inflation rate for the next five to ten years, and what that means is that the average Canadian's savings are going to be cut in terms of their purchasing power by something exceeding 50%. That would be over a five- to ten-year period. So it doesn't sound like a lot for 4-5%, but it compounds across time, and it can add up to something substantial in no time flat.

Hey, so I got a question that's a little pushing the envelope a little bit. The cryptocurrency types, you know, the people who are pushing Bitcoin in particular, make the extraordinarily radical claim that it would be better for everyone if the entire business of money was taken out of the hands of government permanently. And that's essentially what Bitcoin allows, at least at the present time.

And so that means that central bankers and politicians would, in principle—assuming this is actually a possibility—never be able to print money, and they would never be able to inflate currency. And, uh, what do you think about those sorts of cryptocurrency claims? And are—well, I'd like to know what you think about that.

I agree with that; I think they're right. We have a fiat currency right now. And you know, that's why this inflation, and we are losing our purchasing power. Yes, I believe we must all have more competition, and the cryptocurrencies—and Bitcoin can be an alternative, but personally, I prefer a gold standard like we had in the 19th century here in Canada because when you have a gold standard, the central bank won't be able to print money out of thin air. It's another way to control the central bank. So, and we had that before in the past, in the 19th century, and we were very—a prosperous time.

So, but I'm not against the cryptocurrency; I think we must have more competition. You have to write on that!

So, so the Austrian economist, the Hayek types, and they believe that the business cycle is actually—the boom and bust business cycle is actually produced by the attempts by government to overspend in the face of so-called crises, and that produces inflation and a variety of other factors that then produce the business cycle—in term this sequence of essential busts and booms. And so does that seem like a reasonable proposition to you, or do you look at it differently than that?

No, no, I think you're absolutely right, Jordan. You know, I miss this, Rod Bart; they're real economists, and they know that, and they're the only ones that wrote about that and studied that. And I believe yes, the circle, the circle that we have—the up and downs in the economy—it's because of the central bank. You know, money is everywhere, and if you create too much money out of thin air, you'll have inflation and distortion in the economy and boom and bust that we have.

So, I 100% agree with Mr. Rod Bart, Hayek, and these economists. So, you know, I think these are ideas—just, just, we'll move a bit sideways here again. I think a lot of what political leaders could do if they had the intellectual capacity would be to use forums like YouTube to actually educate the public.

And I don't mean I'm shaking my finger at you, because you need to be educated. I mean to walk people through the logic and to explain why these propositions are reasonable and to treat the public as if they're capable of engaging in actual intellectual exercise, because my experience on YouTube has been that they are to a massively surprising degree.

Because I conduct these discussions with people I really admire, and sometimes those people are really, really smart; and so the discussions go fast and deep, and there's no evidence at all that people aren't following along, and there's plenty of evidence that they really appreciate it. And so, so let's do this for a second. So I would like you to contrast your preparation to be a leader of a political party and a figure of authority who dares to discuss such issues—economic issues, let's say—with that of Trudeau and perhaps O'Toole. Like, why are you the guy and not Trudeau and O'Toole, assuming?

Well, so let's go there.

Yeah, I'm doing just what you said; you know, I'm using social media, YouTube. I have a YouTube channel, People's Party of Canada, and you know everything that I'm telling you right now, I said that in speeches ten years ago on videos ten years ago. So, that's what I believe. I'm in politics because I believe in this idea, these ideas, and I want them to be successful.

So yes, I believe that Canadians are intelligent, and I'm saying always, you know, I don't try to appeal to you as a Canadian voter, to your emotion; I try to appeal to your intelligence. You know, like that discussion that we have, uh, you know, it's very difficult to have that discussion in social media and all that, the debate that they had in Canada, and I was not part of that, but maybe I’m very happy not that I was not there because that was not a debate; that was somebody for the media without any real discussion like we have right now. So yes, I'm doing politics differently, and yes, I believe that people are intelligent. And I don't want to—I don't see people like children that we must give them more security and more regulations and a bigger government that will control them.

Yeah, well, I also think it's stunningly cynical on the part of political leaders to manage their message, you know, because it means that there's no real faith in just direct discussion. And maybe, and maybe no capacity for that discussion to begin with. I mean, our Prime Minister has stated publicly that he's really not interested in monetary policy, and what I read that, I mean, I read that two ways: is one, how could you possibly say that and not notice what you just said? And second, well, perhaps that's because you actually don't understand it, and third, it's because not only do you not understand it, but you don't know how terrible it is that you don't understand it.

Absolutely! Absolutely! And they don't want to have these kinds of debates about real issues, and that's why our platform of the last election is the same one; we won't change the issues because they're popular or not, and there's a lack of leadership with politicians right now because they all do politics by polling.

And I remember I have an example in Canada, Brian Mulroney—maybe Brian Mulroney was not so good—but the election of 1988, the election on the free trade agreement with the U.S., when Brian Mulroney decided to have that as a principal theme of his campaign, he said, “It's important to have that freedom agreement for the prosperity of our country.”

When he started that campaign in the polls, the majority—66% of the population—were against a free trade agreement with the U.S. So the Liberals and all the other parties were on the side of the majority of the population. They didn't want to educate the population, but Brian only said, “It's important for the future,” and he campaigned on it, and my goal is, I will be able to convince Canadians on that.

And he was able to do that; at the end of the campaign, he had the biggest majority in Canadian history, and that was a referendum on the free trade agreement with the U.S. That's only an example with Brian Mulroney about that. I'm not telling you that he was the better, the greatest Prime Minister that we had, but that's an example, a sorry example of doing politics based on principle and leadership. But we don't have that right now in Canada.

The question I discussed with Rex Murphy— I talked to Rex earlier this week, and I posted his analysis of the debate. So let's start; a couple of things came out of that that I thought were real interesting. The first is the debate itself featured five main topics, and hypothetically, those are the most important issues facing Canadians. So that was, uh—let me see if I've got this right. Well, there was leadership and accountability; there was climate change; there was reconciliation; there was affordability, into which everything to do with the economy was lumped. And then the last one, I believe, was COVID policy.

And when I looked at that, I thought, well, the choice of the topics is actually the debate. And so one of the things I really wanted to ask you is, okay, you're assessing something extraordinarily complex, which is the state of the country. It's like, okay, what are the most important issues facing Canadians as far as you're concerned? What do you think we should be concentrating on?

I think we must have a discussion about, yes, COVID-19 and the impact of COVID-19 and all these measures that these governments are imposing on us; that must be very important. Second, we must have a discussion in Canada about our immigration policy. They are afraid to speak about that; you know that's important. When you believe in mass immigration—400,000 people a year that will come to our country after two years—it is the population of Nova Scotia, a new Nova Scotia, every two years. But the worst of that is the big majority of them are refugees or people coming for the reunification of family.

So I want to have a discussion on immigration, because I love my country; I want my country to be like that in 25 years. I don't want my country to be like in France when there's no-go zones over there. People must come to our country and share our values, and they must know that men and women are equal before the law. We must have a discussion about them, and we must welcome them, but instead of having the majority of our immigrants being refugees and family reunification, our immigration policy must be in line with our economic needs, and it is not the case actually right now.

So that's why we want fewer immigrants and more skilled immigrants—economic immigrants that will come here; they will have a job, and they will be able to integrate into our society easily. And so we don't have that discussion. It's always more and more, and if you have that discussion, people will look at you, "Oh, you're xenophobic; you may be racist."

No, actually, we had that discussion in Quebec. As you know, I'm coming from Quebec; there’s a discussion about immigration because for Quebec, their francophone entity is very important. And at the last election, Legault, that was elected, and is the Premier of Quebec now, said during the election he won, “20% fewer immigrants.” Nobody said that he was a racist!

And he said, “These people must come here, and it would be better if they can speak French. If not, we must be able to give them French lessons.” And so we had a discussion at the provincial level in Quebec, but in Canada, for the first time in the last campaign, we started that discussion. So I think it's important for the future of this country to have that discussion. It's important to have for the future of this country to have the discussion on balancing the budget, like I said.

We don't have this discussion, and it's sad.

Okay, so you identified COVID, immigration, budget. I mean, the climate change issue—a tremendous amount of time was spent on that, and that drags up the 30 issue, let's say, of Alberta and, and, well, in Canada, is what? The largest that we've been shown by divine providence, so to speak, to give us these immense oil reserves. And so we have this industry, and that's under assault in some sense as a consequence of concern about climate change.

And so Albertans are feeling the pressure of that sort of discussion. So what do you think about—what do you think about all that? What's the way forward there?

Well, we must—you're absolutely right, Jordan—we must have a discussion also on the Paris Accord and climate change. We have that discussion right now, but it's only on one side, and we are the only political party that is saying no to the Paris Accord. We believe that there's no climate emergency! Yes, the climate is changing and will always change, and we believe that we can do better actions for the environment.

And I said, you know, we won't impose a carbon tax; we won't sign the Paris Accord. What we will do: we will do concrete actions for the environment, like, uh, you know—we still have lakes in our country that are not clear. And I let the climate change battle at the provincial level because the beauty of that is the environment is a shared jurisdiction in Canada, with the federal and the provincial government. So let the provincial government deal with it, and us at the federal level will have other policies.

But the one that we don't discuss also is our equalization formula, and I think—it is important for the prosperity of our country but also for the unity of our country when you have, Jordan, about 30% of the population in Alberta that want to separate because they believe that the equalization formula—that is a formula that is redistributing wealth in this country from rich provinces to poor provinces—they think that it's unfair. And I believe that they have a right to say that.

So I think they think it's particularly unfair when the equalization payments are the way they are, and the province is simultaneously demonized for the very economic engine that allows those equalization payments to be a reality. That's a bit much, right? To have to pay, and then to be criticized for how you raise the money.

Yes, yes, and that's another point; that's why they're not happy with that. But the traditional politicians, the other political parties, don't want to speak about that because they need to have a solution, and the solution—and they don't want to speak about the solution because you have to educate the population. The solution is: we want to be less generous. We need to do a distribution; it is in the constitution; we need to have a formula, but the federal government is in charge of that formula.

And the federal government can decide how much money it will give to other provinces to have not provinces. And we can be less generous because now there's no incentive for Quebec or New Brunswick to develop their own natural resources. There's a lot of shell gas in Quebec and New Brunswick. If they do that, they would be more prosperous, and they’ll receive fewer money from the equalization formula.

I was in New Brunswick, and I’ll give you an anecdote at the last campaign, and I did a rally over there, and I spoke about the equalization formula. I said we must cut it; we must be less generous to give the right incentive to your provinces to be able to exploit and extract their own natural resources. And that formula is unfair, and a journalist from CBC was there at that rally, and they asked me after that, “Mr. Bernier, I want you, uh, with me live tomorrow morning at 7 o'clock.” I said, “I'll be there.”

And when I was there, the discussion, she said, “You want to cut the equalization formula.” I said, “Not cutting all the formula, but I want to be less generous. Do you know, Mr. Bernier, that here in New Brunswick, half of our budget is coming from the equalization formula?” I said, “Yes, I know that; half of the provincial budget; I know that.”

So, Mr. Bernier, I don't understand you. You want to have support here in New Brunswick; you want people to vote for you, and you are telling them that you will cut half of their provincial budget. I said, “Yes, I will do that, but on a transition period because I believe in your people—you're not a poor province here; you're a rich province. You have bad economic policy at the financial level, and we need to give the right incentive to your province to have more free markets and develop their own natural resources that you have. But we'll do that on a transition period, and that would be fair for everybody and every province."

So you need to have the courage of your conviction and to have discussions like that, but the other political parties don't want to speak about that because they will have to speak like that in New Brunswick and in Quebec, and they are pandering to these provinces for votes.

And, and, it's important for me because in Atlantic Canada and in Western Canada, they know that that formula is not fair. And I'm saying the same thing in French in Quebec and in Atlantic Canada and all across the country, and that's why I believe we have a lot of support in Western Canada, because they know that we have the solution.

They are not happy with Ottawa right now, and they have great reasons for not being happy.

So you talked about small government; you talked about balancing the budget. And so let's talk about concrete issues there. So where is the government federally being particularly profligate, and what would you do, or what do you think should be done? How do you analyze the problem, and what do you think would go a long way to solving it?

Yeah, so what I think—I believe that we must respect the constitution. It's all about our constitution. We have a good constitution, a great constitution. The problem is politicians don't respect our constitution. If you do that, you will have a radical decentralization in Canada.

You will give more autonomy to Alberta and every provinces, and you know if in Alberta they want to have their police force like in Quebec, they will be able to have that. If in Alberta they want to have more private delivery for healthcare services, they will be able to have that. If they want to have their own pension plan, they will be able to have that. So let's have a radical decentralization, and like that you won't have any constitutional crisis, and you will have more prosperity.

So that's our vision of our country that is based on the division that the Father of our Constitution had in 1867.

Okay, so you see decentralization as a way of promoting economic experimentation at least in part, but you also think that it would take some of the pressure off regional concerns. And what about federal spending per se? I mean, what is it that the government's spending poorly? Where is government spending being conducted particularly poorly, and what do you think should be done about that, and what kind of numbers are we looking at?

Yeah, absolutely! So, you're right about giving more autonomy to provinces. And I want them to be able to raise their money for their own responsibility. So—but the federal government has a role, and the role of the federal government is to be sure that, you know, we'll be able to invest in our Canadian forces. We are in charge of the monetary policy; we need to have a real economic union in this country that we don't have. And to be able to do all that, we need to cut spending.

You know, I believe that we must not give subsidies to businesses; we must have a policy that would be fair. Every business must have a flat tax of 10%. So I don't believe it's fair to tax a small business in Toronto and forcing these entrepreneurs to pay taxes, and after that we are giving that to GM or Bombardier. Let's have—let's abolish that! We can save about 8 to 10 billion dollars.

So we want to have a smaller government that will spend in their jurisdiction and let provinces deal with their own responsibility. You know, we are transferring in Canada 41 billion dollars to provinces for healthcare, and I don't want to do that.

Healthcare is a 100% provincial jurisdiction. We must be sure that Ontario and every province will be able to raise money for their own responsibilities, and we know that the best government is the government that is near the people. So to do that, instead of the federal government taxing people and after that giving that to provinces and sometimes with conditions, we must abolish that, and we must give them the GST.

Actually, we are raising in Canada 41 billion dollars with the GST; we must do a tax point transfer. The GST will be managed by provinces, and they will be able to raise money for the healthcare, and they will be independent. They won't be able to come to Ottawa for us asking for more money all the time, so they will be in a position for healthcare, for example, to find the best system for their citizens.

Is it more money in a socialist system, or maybe more competition? And can Canadians will know who to blame for a lack of services in healthcare and for waiting lists? Now they don't know who to blame: is it the federal government because the federal government is not giving enough money to provinces, or is it the province because they're not able to manage efficiently their healthcare system?

So the pressure will be on the provinces, and they will have all the tools and the responsibility to deal with it. And maybe we'll have competition; maybe in Quebec, you'll have more private delivery; maybe in Alberta you'll have less. And the best system will come, and like in other countries when you have an universal coverage, but people can choose to go to a private delivery, a private clinic, or a public hospital. We don't have the best system for that, but it's under the financial jurisdiction.

I cannot change the system, but I can give the incentive for them to change it by giving them the GST. They will raise that tax and they will keep that tax and all the incomes coming from the GST, and they will be responsible.

So let's turn to just briefly if you don't mind, we'll turn to another topic of the debate. So a fifth of the debate was about reconciliation, and Canada’s flags have been flying at half-mast for six months or something like that.

And, um, my sense of that part of the debate was that none of the real issues were ever discussed. Um, and so this is, I think of reserves, in some sense, the Canadian reserves are the vast majority of them as akin to the small towns in Canada that have been absolutely devastated over the last 40 years. They're without economic viability; you see them drying up all over Saskatchewan and Alberta, these and out in Atlantic Canada as well, because these little outposts just can't survive, they don't have the economy for it anymore.

And I so—and I didn't see anybody talk about that particular problem, which seems to be the big one. Um, so I think that these attempts at reconciliation are going to be lumped in with the big lies in no time flat because we're not addressing the real issues. Um, maybe I'm wrong; am I wrong? What do you think about that issue, and is it something that the PPC is concentrating on? Is it something that's of the nature of a crisis? What should be done?

Yeah, you're not wrong; you're not wrong, Jordan. The solution is there; the solution is there, and we have a policy— a platform for the First Nations. And I was in invention and I unveiled that platform with some of our candidates—that one of them is the Métis and others are First Nations—and they agree with our platform. What we need to do, we need to turn the page and build a new relationship with the First Nations based on property rights on reserve base.

Not on a top-down approach; that is what is happening right now. You know, we don't have clean water on reserve, and Ottawa cannot solve that; they must be able to solve.

Okay, so why specify property rights? What do you see that be—what—why is that the issue?

Because, you know, you cannot—if you're on the reserve, you can have a house, but you cannot have—you cannot mortgage that right. You can have a house, yes, but you can have—you can have your property, and you cannot—you know that—we don’t have people and you have the Indian Act, so that is managing everything.

And the Indian Act, it’s a racist act; it is based on race, and we need to abolish that. But the problem is, if you want to abolish it, the other question is, you will replace that by what? And we don’t have the solution, but when I'm saying that to people, to First Nations, they agree that we must abolish the Indian Act. But they want to be part of the solution.

What I'm telling them is yes, we want you to be fully participating in our society, being part of the solution. Let's abolish that, and after that, having a discussion for a better future on reserve, a kind of property rights on reserve.

Well, it must be very—it must be very hard for people to be incentivized to improve their property, to invest in their property, etc., if they have no stake in the future of that property, or if that's distributed entirely in ways that are beyond their personal control.

Yeah, but I don't— I don't want people to understand that they have a house; they can do what they want in their house, but they cannot mortgage that right. So they can—they can improve it, and that’s why—but that’s the discussion that we must have with them. But we don’t have a discussion; we don’t want to have that discussion because the solution is complicated, and oh, and we prefer to give money to them—billions of dollars, but that—they don’t want that!

They want more autonomy; they want to be able, you know, to have maybe the same responsibility like a municipality. So let's have the discussion; we need to respect treaties; yes, we can do that, but we need to open that. And but the mainstream political parties are not ready for that because they don’t have the solution.

Why do the Métis people who are running for your party agree with that? What do they see that's valuable for them?

Because they see that we are able to speak about that. They know that we don't have all the solution, but they know that the principle, we went based on relationship, nation to nation, respecting everybody, turning the page about the past. Not Ottawa will be there, I'm telling you what to do every time.

So abolishing the Indian Act, they like all that, but they want to participate with us to find the solution, and they want to have that discussion. That's why they agree with our position.

So I would like you to tell me your opinion about what's happened in Canada at the federal level under Trudeau. So what's your story of Trudeau's government? How should we conceptualize it, and, and what do you think about it and why?

I believe it's a failure. First of all, Trudeau said in the beginning of his mandate—the first one—that Canada is the first post-national nation with no core identity. And, and I think that that was his goal, and now with the racial politics that we have in this country, and Trudeau was successful to put us in a little box. You know, you are Black; we have a policy for you, like he did, you know, a new program for Black entrepreneurs only for Black entrepreneurs.

That's racial politics; that's—Trudeau for me is the most divisive Prime Minister in our history. We need to abolish programs like that! We need—if you want to have a program for entrepreneurs, we need to have a program for all entrepreneurs and not only for Black entrepreneurs.

So and that's why I believe that people are—our people are ready to have the discussion, and more and more people—the woke culture put out. You know, when Trudeau said there’s no recession anymore, the recession—and you know what’s that?

Oh, because he believed that a recession would be harder on a woman. So it's all that political correctness at the extreme, and I said no to political correctness long time ago. There's no taboo subject for us.

And Trudeau, you know, all that woke culture, and you know that better than me, Jordan, it was all in the universities a couple of years ago, and now it's in the civil society with—and that—that's the Trudeau heritage. And also the big deficit and the inflation.

And so what do you think of Trudeau personally? How do you assess him—his character and his fitness for leadership? And, and maybe you could also say the same about O’Toole. And would you rather see O’Toole or Trudeau as Prime Minister?

Well, you know, we will have O’Toole to do in a couple of days, but both of them—I don’t like because they— I don’t like them because they don’t have any character; they’re following the polls, and you know, someday they’re saying something, and the other day they’re saying the opposite.

But Trudeau, I can tell you that he’s a good communicator; you know, he’s able to have one line, and with the mainstream media, he’s everything. You know, he was a teacher, so I understand he’s very good, but there's nothing. He is, for me, a puppet, and he will say what, uh, what do you think—a puppet of the establishment of the Liberal Party of Canada, and the establishment. They want to stay in power, and they will do everything to stay in power.

They will be Trudeau said a couple of months ago that imposing a vaccine passport will be too divisive; that’s why I won’t do that. And now he’s saying the opposite. Why? Because you look at the polls, and he knows that more people are ready for that, so there’s no leadership there. You know, he is—he is, he is listening to his advisors, and he will say everything to be elected.

And O’Toole is the same. So, uh, I don’t have any—I don't know Trudeau personally; I don’t know O’Toole personally. I know them like every Canadian, and I’m judging them by their policies as political leaders, and for me, the policies that they promote are not the right policies for our country and for the future of our country.

Another question: when you think about Canada the way it is now, like, Murphey told me, for example, that that he conceptualizes Canada—he sees, well, we're a regional country. There's the Atlantic provinces; there's Ontario; there's Quebec; there's the Western provinces; B.C. is its own place; there's the North.

So when you envision Canada, um, what—where do you see its regional divisions, and, and what does the PPC have to offer, let's say, each of those particular regions?

Yeah, first, I agree with that. We have different regions in this country. But the most important for me is we have different culture. The culture of Quebec is different from the culture of Alberta, but that’s our country, and we cannot change that.

But we are united; we are united because we share the same values. And if we want to have a constitutional peace in our country, we need to have more decentralization; every province must be able to do what they want to do. If something is very important in Alberta and they want to have, I don’t know, their own case, they pull— their own pension plan, they must be able to have that.

So that's why I—you know what we are doing—it's not, we don't try to reopen our constitution or to rewrite our constitution. We just want the federal government to respect the constitution, and by doing that, that will give more autonomy to provinces, and you will have the constitutional peace in this country.

And yes, it's beautiful that we have different cultures in this country, and we are unique in the world with that. So we are Canadian, and that's part of our identity as Canadians.

So what do you think it is that unites us across those regions, as far as you’re concerned? What is it this—so Trudeau said, "Well, we're the first post-nation nation in some sense; we don't have a central culture." Um, you don't agree with that, obviously. What do you think it is that unites us across those fairly, uh, pervasive regional differences?

It's our history, our culture that is different in different regions; it's our charter of rights, our freedom, the fact that we want every Canadian to be—every Canadian to be equal before the law, our Western civilization values.

And the fact that, yes, uh, you know, in Quebec you can speak French over there, and we don't impose that to anybody, and in Alberta, you know, that's an anglophone province outside. But people appreciate that, and yet, but they don't want anything being imposed by the federal government.

So let provinces do what they want to do, but our country is not the country that Justin Trudeau wants to build. A country more divisive, and, you know, for him, you are not Canadian if you are a Canadian from China. He will, he will—and O'Toole will do the same thing—he will call you a Chinese Canadian or a Pakistani Canadian.

No! People came here to celebrate our freedoms, and everybody—for me—is a Canadian. I don’t care, you know, if I’m speaking with a person of different ethnicities that you are a Chinese Canadian. No, you are Canadian, and these people came in here to celebrate and to become Canadians. So that divisive politics, that identity politics is killing our country, and we want to stop that and having policies that will look at everybody as a Canadian and not try to do that pandering to a region or pandering to an ethnicity like the traditional politicians are doing right now.

So if Canadians vote for you on Monday—elections on Monday—what's their reward for doing that?

We can return to that to some degree.

Yeah, like I said, I want them not to vote against something. I want them to vote for something, for their values, for what they believe. And look, if you like our platform, I hope you support us. What will be after the election? I can tell you that I won't be the leader of the opposition; I won't be Prime Minister; but you will have a freedom voice—not a whimper—you will have a common-sense voice in Ottawa. You will have a voice that is ready to do these important debates for the future of our country.

That's what I can tell you, and we will start that common sense revolution together. That's only the beginning of another step for the People's Party of Canada and the beginning of that common sense revolution in this country.

Well, we've gone 90 minutes. That is a nice closing statement. I guess I'm wondering if there's anything else you'd like to discuss or add. And apart from that, then I think that that's a nice wrap.

No, I appreciate that! Yeah, I appreciate that, Mr. Peterson. Jordan, I'm very pleased that you gave me this opportunity to be out there and to reach more people. That's the most important for us; that’s our biggest challenge. So yes, we can end there, and, yeah, it'll be interesting to see how people respond to this because, well, because I'm hoping that this kind of discussion can become a model for a different kind of political dialogue in the future, and one that's not mediated so much by media handlers and appearance and all of that, but that's predicated on straight, blunt, somewhat complicated talk.

And I guess we'll see how that works. We'll launch this as soon as we possibly can.

[Music]