Stopping the Socialist Trainwreck in British Columbia | John Rustad | EP 477

Looking at the national stats, we have, uh, the number of people dying in British Columbia today on a daily basis waiting for diagnostic services of surgery is comparable to the number of people who are dying from the opioid crisis, and nobody's talking about it. Yeah, and it's crazy. Like, this is, I find that completely unacceptable. Say that again: The number of people who are dying wait on a waiting list for diagnostic services and surgery in British Columbia is comparable to the number of people who are dying of overdose deaths in British Columbia because of the opioid crisis.

Right. [Music] Right. Hello everybody! I have the privilege today of speaking with John Rustad. He's a Conservative MLA, member of the Legislative Assembly, in a province called British Columbia in Canada, a very resource-rich province and one that's on the coast that holds a crucial position with regards to the transportation of Canadian resources all around the world. So, he's a member of the Legislative Assembly, the provincial government, in a riding called a constituency called Nako Lakes, but he's also the leader of the Conservative Party in British Columbia.

Now, British Columbia is an interesting province because it has a pretty pronounced left-right dichotomy in its political history, and the left-wingers, in the guise of the New Democratic Party, have had control over British Columbia for the last several years, and that hasn't been good, to put it bluntly, for all the reasons that are associated with everything that's transpiring everywhere in the West on the culture war front.

Now, we talked about John's past. He's an interesting candidate because he has a history; he's an entrepreneur. He started his own business, which was very successful, then he transitioned into the political domain, serving as a member of the Legislative Assembly and also as a cabinet member. So he's the rare politician who has the administrative managerial, entrepreneurial, and political background to actually be a credible leader. He thinks he's got enough people around him that are competent to put together an effective government, and so that could all happen.

We talked about the culture wars, we talked about the forestry and energy and other resource situation in British Columbia, we talked about the state of relations with the Indigenous people, and he was very successful as the minister of Aboriginal relations and reconciliation in dealing with the First Nations. So that's also a big deal in British Columbia in particular. We talk more broadly about the culture war in general that's, you know, tearing the West apart. As most of you watching and listening know, this election in British Columbia is another crucial election, as is the federal election in Canada a year from this October.

So we're hoping—hoping that the province flips. I had a good chance to talk to John today about his vision and to assess his competence, which is something you'll be able to do as a consequence of watching this video. Well, Mr. Rustad, thank you very much for joining me here in Fairview, Alberta, live from Fairview, Alberta. Um, well, it'll be pre-recorded actually, but it's live at the moment. Um, there's an election coming up in British Columbia, so I guess we should start probably because we'll also have an international audience. Maybe you could start by just describing British Columbia and letting everyone know where it is, and then we'll focus in on this election.

Well, British Columbia, of course, is on the west coast of Canada, sometimes referred to as the Left Coast politically. Um, but obviously it's a major port; it's a major gateway for all of Canada to be able to access the world. Many goods actually move from Asia through British Columbia and down into the United States. Uh, it's a province that is very rich with resources; it's got a tremendous amount to offer, including everything from oil and gas to mining, forestry. It's got a very good high-tech sector. Uh, it's a very interesting province actually, but many people look at it and think, uh, you know, that unfortunately it's hopelessly managed because of the politics that it's being mired in for many years.

Yeah, well, British Columbia has already always had a sort of strange provincial political scene because it would, of all the provinces in Canada, it's the one that flips to the most radical left and to the most conservative; it flips back and forth, and so that's very interesting. And, uh, you also brought up the issue of resources, and this is something that we might want to delve into right off the bat. I mean, it tends to be a left-wing trope that the poor should be well served and also that the environment should be well served. The problem is, or a problem is, is that those two desires now run into conflict with one another, and my sense is that the left—the radical left—is pretty willing to sacrifice the poor to the planet ineffectively too, because this has happened in Germany where the greens have taken control, and Germany is de-industrializing. And Germany actually pollutes more per kilowatt of energy produced now under the green regimes than it did before under more like more pure capitalism.

The point I'm making here—this is relevant for the international audience that might be watching this—is that British Columbia is very resource-rich, and as you pointed out, it's a very important port. And Canada has a lot of low-cost raw materials, especially on the energy side, but not only on the energy side, that could be brought to people all around the world to alleviate their poverty. And it's very counterproductive to make it more difficult for people to live, not least because they don't take a long-term view of the future then and aren't likely to be concerned in their own localities with environmental issues.

So my sense is British Columbia and Canada could do a great job, especially on the energy side, of getting natural gas in particular off to markets all around the world, and British Columbia controls that to a large degree. You're absolutely right. I mean, uh, I think it was over the last, I don't know how many decades, you know, 2.4 billion people have been lifted out of object poverty because of affordable energy. And obviously, you know, Canada has a tremendous amount of energy; British Columbia has a tremendous amount of gas. There's a billion people in the world that do not have electricity. I think it's somewhere between 400 and 600 million people that only have enough electricity to run a refrigerator. I mean, and those countries want to be able to have a quality of life.

We have the resources and the ability to be able to take the resources we have and export them and use that for the benefit of our own people to be able to improve our quality of life. But at the same time, you know, be a real global player in terms of helping these other countries. And so it's something that has always puzzled me in terms of why the left does not want to do this. You know, do they not care about the people in other parts of the world? Do they not care about the quality of life of the people in our own province? Uh, by taking advantage of these resources, by providing that revenue to us and providing those resources to other countries, um, we're not only improving our quality of life, but we are playing our part in the globe, making sure that other people have that quality of life.

As you know, as people have more energy, as people have that higher quality life, they care more about the environment; they actually do more for the environment than they can otherwise. And so, you know, we can play a big role in that. But like I say, it's just our policies seem to be blocking us from being able to be a major player. Well, and the Chinese are building coal-fired plants like mad, and Canada has plenty of coal, but we also have plenty of liquid natural gas, which is a good replacement for coal. I mean, it looks to me like countries that are industrializing—and they're doing that because they want to live longer, more productive, and more opportunity-rich lives just like we did—they go through a relatively predictable sequence in terms of energy development.

And perhaps it starts with wood and peat and that sort of thing, biomass, which is very polluting and not very efficient and hard on the forests and terrible for indoor pollution. And they transition to coal, which is much better in all regards than ordinary biomass, and then, let's say, to natural gas and oil, and then potentially—if we were also weren't completely stupid about that—to something approximating nuclear. And so the succession of improvement on the efficiency and cost front in the energy world seems clear.

And it is a mystery that that isn't an accepted principle on the left because—and it's really shocked me—because one of the things I've seen over the last 10 years is that every single time I've watched this in every Western country, when the left has the choice between worshipping at the feet of the environment in a stunningly counterproductive manner or serving the poor, they always serve the environment. My sense is that that's a consequence of likely an anti-human and Malthusian ethos that emerged in the 1960s, with claims by Paul Ehrlich and others—biologists mostly—that the world was by necessity a place of finite resources, that we would be running short of everything by the year 2000, that the planet can't support more than a couple of hundred million people at anything approximating the standard of living we have in the West.

And that anti-human ethos seems to have dominated the thinking of the left, much to the terror and hardship of the poor. I've been following this guy online named Jasper Manugo, and he's an African and a subsistence farmer, but he's quite literate when it comes to the use of social media and he posts continually showing how much work he and his family have to do to scratch out a living without fossil fuels, trying to subsistence farm, and to show that that's not the romantic dream of, what would you say, noble savage living that seems to possess the ideologues of the left, but a terrible hardship for him and everyone around him. And he is trying to bring to public attention the fact that the world desperately needs, well not least the fossil fuels that Canada could provide.

And Alberta wants to do that, obviously. Alberta is the most, for everybody listening who don't know, Alberta is a very fossil fuel-rich province, but it's landlocked. It's right next to British Columbia, and Canada's had a hell of a time getting its act together with regards to the export of, well, natural gas in particular.

Yeah, I know there's no question in my mind. Um, you know those natural resources, those hydrocarbons could do a lot to lift up the people in many places around the world. But, more importantly than that, you know, you mentioned farming in Africa and that side of things. There seems to be this bent by populations around the world, governments around the world, that they want to stop the use of nitrogen-based fertilizer. For nitrogen-based fertilizer, I'm sure you know, Norman Borlaug, I think his name was, who received the Nobel Prize for his work in what was called the Green Revolution. Right? The massive increase in agricultural productivity because of nitrogen-based fertilizer, artificial fertilizers, as well as water management and better land management.

And I just think of it and now we want to go backwards! I mean, 40% of the world's food supply comes from using nitrogen-based fertilizer. So if you're going to stop using that—and of course you need hydrocarbons for that; you need natural gas for the feedstock—you’re talking about significant amount of shortage of food, of food people, which has already happened. And I'm sorry, I'm not up for that. I mean, that is not the way we should be as a world. Right? We should actually be trying to do everything we can to improve the lives and to be able to provide those goods, and I just look at British Columbia as well.

From an agriculture perspective, we only procure 34% of the food we consume from BC. Two-thirds of the food that we need comes from outside our borders. Now we produce lots of cows, you know, cattle and send them off for finishing. We produce lots of wine and these types of things for export, but the basics, we're not meeting the needs of our own population. And so, if you've got these governments around the world that are talking about reducing food production, it leaves our population vulnerable.

And so this was actually the reason I was kicked out of my former political party, because I started looking at this and saying, wait a second, this is not right! We as a government should be putting the priority of looking after our own people, making sure that we meet their basic needs. And similarly, you know, we should take our part, duty, nationally and internationally, making sure that other people can look after themselves as well. It's just the right thing to do! And yet, you're right, the left seems to be hellbent on this ideology that probably, yeah, like I say, probably rooted out of the '60s that just seems to be carrying forward.

It's the most humanitarian policies, possible policies it seems to me, it's pretty straightforward. It's cheap energy and cheap food. If you have cheap energy and cheap food, you don't have poor people. And then the additional benefit, as we already pointed out, is that as soon as people aren’t scrabbling around in the muck for their next meal, they can start to take something approximating multigenerational perspective. And that is what people do. I mean, part of the reason that we live so long is because as grandparents, we also help care for children.

Like human beings are wired to take a longer view if they can, but if you’re desperately poor, you default to what is necessary right now, and that's often agricultural practices and so forth that aren’t sustainable over the long run. And so, you know, I figured this out about 15 years ago, that we could all have our cake and eat it too if we used our energy resources wisely. If we knocked energy costs down, which should be a primary goal of politicians at every level of analysis, regardless of political party, if we knocked our energy cost down, we could eradicate poverty worldwide and we could feed everybody!

And then everybody would start taking care of their environment locally, which seems like an optimal. It’s very well; it borders on the alternative policies, in my estimation, border on genocidal. And I know already that the fact that energy costs have spiraled upwards is putting tremendous moral pressure on the poorest people all around the world. You can see too in Canada grocery prices have gone up so much that it's actually hard to believe it's 22 or 23% that they've gone up just in the last couple of years.

And you look at it and, but you're right about energy as well. You look at what's going on in the world and you think, okay, so we're driving up their energy prices. And I think it was, I can't remember which country it was, the president of the country in Africa said, look, no country's ever been able to develop and be able to meet its needs by going with wind and solar. They've had to use more dense energy such as coal and then natural gas. And then obviously we need to get to nuclear.

And I’ll talk about nuclear in a minute because that's a very interesting situation for BC. Okay, okay! But when I look at that, there's a clear correlation between affordable energy and quality of life. And in British Columbia right now, because of the carbon tax and prices going up, we’ve got the highest gas prices in the country; people are struggling. I mean, there’s a third of British Columbians looking at leaving the province, and youth are looking at leaving the province because they can't make a go of it in a province that is so rich, that's got so much to offer.

And yet, this is what has happened from poor government policies driving up the cost of the basics: food, energy, housing. And they're saying, wait a second here! I can't ever hope to buy a home; I can't raise a family. Why would I stay here? I'm going to go find another place to be able to build my life. I mean, that's—and that's what British Columbia actually was founded on was people from other parts of the world that had those problems and said, let's go to British Columbia because I can build a life there. And it's now flipped.

And so, this is what needs to change, and it fundamentally has to change at the political level in order for it to be able to change throughout society. Since I joined forces with the Daily Wire Plus two years ago, we've built a comprehensive collection of premium content. We've developed these shows not only to provide you with a structure and framework for meaning but to arm you against the sadistic troll demons. My collection, which we've titled "Mastering Life with Jordan B. Peterson," acts as a guide to help you win at the series of games that make up life. My series on marriage was designed to help you strengthen your relationship so that you can create the perfect date that repeats endlessly.

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Well, we could examine wind and solar for a moment too because, like, I've got nothing personally against wind or solar, although I think that the windmills are hideous, and they devastate the landscapes that they're placed in, and that actually matters because one of the environmentalists' contentions is that the beauty of nature is a value in and of itself, as well as something that's of obvious benefit to human beings. And windmill-littered landscapes are by no means beautiful, and I actually think that that's a problem because ugly matters.

But there are issues that are much more relevant than that. It's like solar panels don't last very long; they're very susceptible to hailstorms, for example. They're very energy demanding in their production. Um, they're often manufactured in China and often using slave labor, which doesn't strike me as a particularly positive benefit. They tend to work very badly at night, and wind power, of course—both wind and solar—costs spiral up towards the infinite as the supply decreases, right? So there's no solar at night, and my understanding of what that means is that even if we had a wind and solar grid—which we don't—that was reliable and that plentiful, which we certainly don't and are nowhere near doing, we need a backup system anyways.

Like, and this is what's happened in Germany—they took their bloody nuclear plants offline and then they defaulted to coal, and then they burned lignite, which is the most polluting form of coal. And now, in Germany, they have much less electricity; it's much more unstable; they're much more dependent on foreign tyrants for their energy, and they pollute more—they're de-industrializing! Exactly. And, and they've also driven up the cost of the energy, yeah, five times what it should be! The quality of life for the people in Germany is in decline, and it's a straight correlation: high energy costs, lower quality of life.

Yeah. And so, you know, I look—wind and solar have their place, but they're additives to our energy mix. They are not base load; they can't be base load. Not to mention, as I said, you really—where you get the value in energy, where you can drive down the cost, is the higher density energy. Describe that for people because people don't understand what that means.

Well, you think about—you think about, you know, wood for example, right? It's not very dense; it has lots of energy in it, but it's not very dense, so the huge advancement was going to coal because it was a far smaller amount of product to produce the same amount of energy. Then you get to oil and natural gas, which is similar; once again, you're using less product to get the same amount of energy, and the real genie, the best we have so far is when you look at nuclear. When you look at uranium, the amount of energy you can generate out of uranium is phenomenally better from an amount of material you need as opposed to the other products.

And you know, in British Columbia, it's interesting you think, the left doesn't support nuclear power—that's so crazy, so insane! But in British Columbia, it was actually a center-right party that actually banned nuclear power from being used in BC, which is weird. And it was because of politics; too many politicians today they chase, you know, where they think the vote is as opposed to standing on the principles, standing on the values that are needed to be able to create a, you know, a good society and quality of life. And so, that to me is where, you know, politics needs to go.

And often, that's not necessarily politics of the right or the left; it's just, you know, politics that is willing to actually stand up and say, no, these are the values that we stand for. This is what we're going to do. This is what we need to do for our society, and then ask people to support that. Make the case as opposed to trying to, you know, pander to the various political positioning.

So, okay, back to the nuclear issue. So, it is the case that the radicals on the left oppose nuclear, although, as you pointed out, the conservative types and the more classic liberals can also get entirely confused about this in a kind of stupid populist manner. But let's lay a few things out here. So, well, as you pointed out, nuclear energy is very energy dense, and that means you get more energy per unit of matter. Okay, why is that relevant? Well, it decreases transportation costs, for example, and that also reduces environmental load.

And so, it's much more effective to ship coal than wood, and it's much more efficient to ship natural gas than coal, right? So, and that also has its environmental benefit. Okay, and then, you might say on the downside on the nuclear side, you know, people are afraid of nuclear radiation, and they're afraid of what to do with the nuclear waste. But nuclear power has historically been very safe. Um, more people die from solar power every year than from nuclear power. And the fundamental reason for that is because they fall off roofs when they’re installing the panels. I mean, life's complicated, right? It's not something that you'd predict.

But, yeah, no, you're absolutely right. But I look at it this way: So, as a province, British Columbia, they've got this green agenda, and what they want to do is they want to go to using heat pumps instead of using natural gas. And so you look at it and think, okay, well, that sounds good; why wouldn't you do that? No, heat pumps—other than the fact that they're very ineffective when it's cold, which is a real problem in Canada, in the majority of British Columbia, right, in the winter. However, when you look at it and say if every house in British Columbia would require a heat pump and every business in, you know, British Columbia required a heat pump, we would need to build the equivalent of six or seven more Site C dams, right? And we're not going to likely build another major dam in BC, so where's that power going to come from?

We're already net importers of electricity into British Columbia. I mean, we've got these vast amounts of hydroelectric power; you know our grid is almost all green if you consider hydro power green. Um, but we don’t have enough! And so, and they want to put these restrictions on, saying we need to use more of it, but there's no plan to build it out. And this is where we actually have to start having that conversation about nuclear, whether it's small modular reactors or other types of nuclear technology. We're going to need that power in British Columbia, and so it's something that I think as a government we need to go out and have an honest conversation with people about.

Let's talk about what it means and what the cost is for people and what that means for your quality of life and what the options are, and let's just be straight up with people and let them decide where they would like to go. So, we’ll delve in one more way into the nuclear issue. So, the fundamental shaft of the left with regards to the environment is carbon dioxide production. Now, personally—and I'm not going to push you on this to any degree—but personally, I'm very skeptical of the climate change science. Science is a complicated business, and what the media reports is not necessarily science.

I've been struck to the core, I would say, by the NASA-reported findings that the planet has greened 20% since the year 2000, and that one consequence of that is that crops are much more productive—like 13 to 15% more productive—and that is directly because of carbon dioxide increase. And so I truly believe that a dispassionate scientist who wasn’t being affected by the hangover of the anti-human, Malthusian agenda from the 1960s would look at the data and say, well, the planet's 20% greener, and most of that greening occurred in semi-arid areas, so the deserts are actually shrinking.

How the hell is that not a net good from the environmental side? Independent of that, if you do believe that carbon dioxide is the villain and you believe that—indeed, independently of your anti-human, Malthusian, anti-industrialization, what drives—there're too many people on the planet. Well then you do everything you could to reduce carbon dioxide, okay? And if you're not going to impoverish and starve people, then you're going to use nuclear. But the left opposes nuclear.

So how what can you do but conclude that there's something other than even an anti-carbon dioxide agenda that's driving that—that system of ideas? It has to be something like an anti-capitalist, anti-industrialization, anti-human population agenda because nothing else accounts for the left's opposition to nuclear power. You know, I always—I always like to joke, and I mean this is—it’s a sad reality. But how is it that we've convinced carbon-based beings that carbon is a problem?

Yeah, well, the carbon-based beings are the problem! Well, I certainly didn’t mean the carbon-based beings are a problem. No, I meant that in terms of how the left is conceptualizing this. But I look at it from a perspective, in British Columbia, like this is why we want to get rid of the carbon tax. I mean, taxing people into poverty in some vain attempt to change the weather is absolute lunacy. It makes no sense whatsoever. So that sort of stuff has got to go, not to mention it drives up your energy cost, which means you're lowering your quality of life, and you're costing people, you know, their ability to be able to put food on the table and pay their rent.

It doesn't make any sense to be doing this, and, uh, so that's not an approach that we're going to be worried about in British Columbia should the conservatives have a chance to win government. Um, and it’s just because we can't make a difference, even if you think CO2 is the problem. Many people, you know, still believe that we can't make a difference one way or the other anyway, even if we stopped everything we did. We're a fraction of a percentage point; we're not—we're rounding error! Everything the West does with regards to the green agenda on atmospheric grounds is rendered 100% irrelevant by China and India!

And the leftists say, well, we can be an example. It's like, I don’t think we're posing much of an example to the Chinese. How many coal plants have they built in the last two years? It’s like 600! It’s some ridiculous number. For me, I also look at it and think, okay, we're a small trading jurisdiction. British Columbia and Canada to a degree is as well. We depend very much on exporting our goods. So if we're driving up the cost of our goods—you know the simple supply and demand—if you want to buy an apple and I’ve got an apple for sale for $3, and somebody else has an apple for sale for $2, you're going to go get the apple for $2, right?

I mean, that's—you’re going to stretch your dollars as much as you can. So if we're driving up the cost of our goods through carbon taxes and other policies in British Columbia, we can't compete on a global scale. And so we actually lose our market share. We actually create more problems in our society. We actually, once again, drive down our quality of life; our GDP growth, you know, starts shrinking, which it is right now.

I mean, it's a horrendous record in British Columbia and in Canada. Yeah, well, Canadians now, we have 60% of the GDP per capita that Americans have. 60%! Like, we’re entering an era where we are—where the typical American is twice as rich as the typical Canadian. It's insane! And that doesn't factor in the fact that our housing costs are in Canada, where we have quite a lot of land, our housing costs are generally twice what they are in the U.S. So we're half as wealthy, approximately, and our real estate is twice as expensive. And for what?

And then the other environmental conundrum that perplexes me about Canada is like, okay, well, people around the world are going to get their energy somewhere. As we can see by the fact that China is building coal-fired plants at a rate that swamps anything possible, as is India, as is India, and of course, they are. And of course, Africa will do the same thing if the international neo-colonialists don't stop them by refusing to lend money and so forth, which they are. So the developing world is going to develop, and we have absolutely no right whatsoever to put anything approximating a halt on that because that really means that we're killing the world's poor people and depriving their children of any opportunity.

We have no more moral right to do that whatsoever! Okay, so then you might say, well, Canada should be an example, and we could set an example for green technology that the rest of the world could adopt. I mean, first of all, no, I don't think we can do that because we're not innovative enough to do that; it’s also very difficult. But also the best rejoinder to that is, well, do you want Europeans, the Japanese—do you want them dependent on the dictatorships that control the oil supply or Putin? And do you want them dependent for their energy on jurisdictions that, unlike Canada, are much more lax in their environmental regulations? I mean, one thing you can say about the Canadian fossil fuel industry is that it's arguably the most attentive in the world to environmental considerations.

Now that doesn't make it perfect, but nothing's perfect. So again, I don't understand the objection—it's like, why can't Canada play its proper role as provider of raw resources to the world? I have a theory around that, and I mean certainly there's a lot of the left thinking that's in there, but I actually think, quite frankly, we're also being influenced by other countries' agendas. I mean, obviously, look, if Canada is exporting its energy to around the world, then we're not selling cheap energy to the United States.

And so there is a very specific agenda. You think about it. We sell our oil down to the United States at a, you know, $20 a barrel discount, $15 to $20—sometimes more, sometimes less. But what do they do? They take that oil, refine it, and ship it out to the East Coast, and so they make money on the arbitrage! So this doesn't make sense to me, and it's actually one of the reasons why I think, you know, should we have that opportunity for government, I actually want to try to create a Canada-wide free trade agreement.

It makes no sense to me that I could trade easier with the United States and Mexico than I can with other provinces. We have no sense of who we are as a country. We need to be able to create that sense as a country. So, let's start talking about how we actually build trade across this country and have a sense of who we are.

Yeah, well, RPM famously announced that we really have no national identity in Canada, right? So as you and I think that's more, what would you say, an indication of his sense of what constitutes Canada—his belief that seems to be quite prevalent in the West is that there's no uniting ethos that defines us as a country. And I mean, it's a preposterous notion, and it's unbelievably destructive. I think about it. So 160 years ago, we had the thinking that brought this country together, right? The rail line tied in the country; we had the sense of who we were, you know, based on our identity.

If we were to take the 10 provinces and the three territories today and say, let’s build this entity called Canada, what would we have to do to achieve that, right? Well, obviously, you know, trade would be a big part of it, but we'd also have to have a conversation about, you know, where the authorities and powers are because there's obviously some overlaps and problems we have today. But we’d have to, you know, have that sense of what is it that would bind us? What is it that would keep us together? What is it that would benefit us?

What's the benefit for Atlantic Canada, Western Canada, and Central Canada to come together? And this is a conversation we should actually not be afraid to have as Canadians because this is the best country in the world! I mean, you’ve done a lot of traveling; I've done a little bit of traveling. I've seen places all around the world. This is the best place in the world! We have everything we could ever want in this country; we have all the opportunity and potential we ever want.

I mean, we're hopelessly managed at all levels in government, but you know, this is why I look at it and think, I don’t want to tear this country apart; let’s figure out how we actually strengthen this country because it can be such a great place! It can be the promise, quite frankly, that it used to be many, many decades ago. We still have all the building blocks to be able to do that. Well, part of the reason I wanted to talk to you is because the podcast has a relatively international audience, and so it’s always hard to tell when drawing attention to something that's somewhat more local is useful and interesting to that broader audience.

Although it is also quite peculiar and noteworthy that Canadian politics have become of international interest in the last 10 years—that's a real change, and there are real reasons for that. And I think that what's happening in Alberta and in British Columbia are particularly emblematic of why Canada has become centered in the international spotlight, and it’s because those are the provinces where the war between the free market people who believe in private property and the kind of free trade that allows people to make choices and genuinely lifts them out of poverty—which we know beyond a shadow of a doubt, especially after the collapse of the Cold War, the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1980s—and the fact that most countries, regardless of how ideologically warped they are, started getting a lot richer when they weren't outright Communists. You really see this battle playing out in Canada in Alberta and in British Columbia—the battle between the utopian environmental worshippers of the left and their de-industrialization strategy, and people who believe more in an English common law tradition, private property, and the free exchange of goods and services—freedom, in a word, productive freedom.

And so, let's delve into the situation in British Columbia now. In British Columbia, the Socialists, the New Democratic Party in Canada, have been in power—how long have they been in power now? 7 years?

7 years, okay. And so, in your estimation, what is the consequence of that? Well, when you look at it, I mean, our quality of life has declined. We've lost almost two-thirds of our forest sector. Um, you know, people aren't investing; mining—nobody wants to invest in this province. I think it was something like 70,000 people left the province last year; a third of British Columbians were looking at leaving. People can't buy a house. Um, there is this huge problem with drugs and addiction, with their safe supply and decriminalization approach that they've taken, which has just devastated lives and families and communities.

In addition to that, um, you know, the efforts they're doing with Indigenous populations and First Nations is actually a direct assault now on private property rights. It's really quite something to see how this is changing in the province, and people are waking up and looking, thinking, wait a second, what's really going on here? And I think that attributes a lot to why the Conservative Party in British Columbia has risen so rapidly. I mean, it's a party that's the oldest party in BC's history; it was first founded in 1903, but it hasn't formed a government since 1927 and hasn't elected anybody since the 1970s.

So this is a party that's been in the wilderness, but because we're coming with a very different approach, talking about this, there is a huge appetite for change to move away from these ideologically driven governments that we have had into something that's more focused, you know, on just the average everyday person.

So, okay, a couple of issues there. So there is this phenomenon known as the natural resource curse. So economists have studied economies all around the world and concluded that polities that are rich in so-called natural resources are not more likely than other countries to be wealthy. And this is a very important finding because another accepted truism on the left is that wealth is a consequence, let's say, of natural resources.

I don't really believe in the concept of natural resource at all. Air maybe is a natural resource. Other than that, fresh water is not a bloody natural resource—it takes a lot of work to provide a city with natural fresh water, and many people around the world don't have fresh water! And certainly, fossil fuels and so forth are by no means natural resources because you have to discover them, and you have to pump them, and you have to refine them, and you have to ship them. And then, I might ask yourself, well what is all that activity dependent on?

And my sense is that activity is dependent on, well, a complex social environment and one that's predicated on private property and diligent work and trust. And so, the only real natural resource is one of trust, and then the question becomes: how do you set up the kind of high-trust society that enables people to utilize what's right in front of them productively? And this is the war that's going on in British Columbia now.

You said that two-thirds of the forest sector, for example, in British Columbia—this reminds me—I just did a podcast on Venezuela, right? 70% of what—there's been a 70% decrease in GDP in Venezuela, and one-third of the population—one-quarter of the population actually moved out of Venezuela, like vanished completely, right?

And so, that's a more extensive form of Socialism, but you're seeing something that’s the Canadian equivalent in British Columbia. Two-thirds of the forest sector—what's happened to the forest sector? Well, what's happened is, you've had successive policies that have been brought in by the NDP that have driven up our costs, so that we are now certainly by a long shot the highest cost producers. Um, access to the fiber has been severely restricted because of these policies that have been put in place.

And so you've got a combination of not being able to access the wood you need to run a facility, and the cost is so high that you can't make a go of it. And so, companies are just saying, "we're out of here; we’re closing our doors; we’re leaving." And, uh, it's just—it's wrong! We have—I mean, forest products, is the most sustainable; it's the most environmentally friendly product we can be producing. We, as a province in British Columbia, have a tremendous land mass and a tremendous resource of forest opportunity, but it's because of these ideologies and these cost-driven factors.

It's you've got a government, quite frankly, that's more focused on the environmental movement than they are on families, and workers, and communities, and actually providing these products that the world needs. I'm taking four of my esteemed colleagues and you across the world. Oh wow, this is amazing! To rediscover the ways our ancient ancestors developed the ideas that shape modern society. It was a monument to civic greatness. Visit the places where history was made. That is ash from the actual fires when the Babylonians burned Jerusalem from 2500 years ago. To walk the same roads! We are following the path of the crucifixion and experience the same [Music] w. We are on the site of a miracle! What kind of resources can human beings bring to a mysterious but knowable universe? Science, art, politics, all that makes life wonderful [Music]. And something new about the world is revealed.

Well, and it's—it as we pointed out previously too, it's a false environmentalism because forests can be managed properly, and that can also reduce their fire risk, for example, if it's done well. And that hasn’t been done well at all, and there's high fire risk that's blamed on climate change, but it's much more appropriate and responsible to blame it on management.

And you said a third of British Columbians are thinking about leaving, and that's absolutely staggering because all the opportunity for British Columbia to be as rich as Norway, I would say, is right there in front of people if they're willing to take it. Exactly! And that is, you know, where when you've got a government that is running massive deficits, that's borrowing from the future well, that's, you know, believes everything should be run by the public service, that has no problem trampling freedoms and no problem, you know, de-democratic process, you know.

And you have a cost structure that is going up, and a quality life that's dropping because you've got low GDP, and people are saying, okay, we're out of here. And this is a huge thing! But, you know, property rights is, in my opinion, is a fundamental core for freedoms in a society. If your property rights are at risk, um, you know, that really underlines or undermines just the core values that you have in a society.

And we're seeing right now, for example, there are many properties along the oceanfront in certain areas that, um, were sold based on having water access—that's how you got access to your property—and now the government's coming along and taking away that water access. We've got a situation, for example, in Haida Gwaii where there has been an agreement between the Haida people and the government to address title, and title needs to be addressed and it's part of our constitution.

But what they've done is they’ve actually identified title underneath private property rights. And so Indigenous law will now apply to private properties. Indigenous law will now say what you can and can't do. The Indigenous law is the Indigenous government. Yeah, and then what does that mean? Like, I have a lot of native friends, and I just spent some time on Vancouver Island, and one of the things that we discussed in detail was band corruption. Like, there's no reason to assume whatsoever that the Indigenous governments that were set up under what—the Indian Act—that produced a, a well of counterproductive and poverty-inducing policies have anything to do with Indigenous land title.

And so that—that's another—that's another, what would you say, that's another nest of snakes that Canadians won’t touch because they're afraid of being branded, let's say, racist? But, well, I tell you, so I mean I spent a lot of years as a minister associated with this file, and, uh, you know, I signed 435 agreements with First Nations. We did a lot of what I called economic reconciliation with First Nations, which is about getting them engaged economically.

But what we're seeing here now, particularly in places like Haida Gwaii, is that the private property rights now—you’re still going to have the rights to your property, but you may not have the rights to be able to do certain things on your property depending on what the laws will be. But more importantly, now, with the Tsilhqot'in case, which was the first title case in Canada, which was the Tsilhqot'in people in the Cariboo in British Columbia, um, what that said is that Indigenous people have the rights to benefit from Crown land or from title land.

And so, where those benefit are taken away by government or government actions, government needs to provide an accommodation. And so, on Haida Gwaii, because of private property, clearly that would alienate that title land, take away the Indigenous right to be able to benefit from that property. And so, there's going to need to be a compensation required. And you think, "Haida, there's not that much; it’s 2% of the property; it’s not that big a deal." But think of what compensation would be for downtown Vancouver, or downtown Victoria, or any of the other communities in the province should title be found underneath those areas.

It’s also going to drive racial tension. Exactly. It's going to bankrupt the province, and, and these policies and stuff is might be fine government to government, but it’s creating friction from a people-to-people, and to me, that's not reconciliation. And so these are big issues in British Columbia, and that’s—they’ve been just idly or or just carelessly tossed around by our current government.

Okay, let's turn a little bit to the Conservative Party, uh, more specifically. So, as you said, it’s the—you said it was the oldest political party in British Columbia but hasn't been in power since the 1920s. So when did you—let’s walk a little bit through your political history. Let’s walk us through that. Look, about how far back to go, but you know, born and raised in Prince George, married, living just west of Prince George. What did your parents do?

So my parents—my dad was in forestry, and my mom was actually a stay-at-home mom and to help raise the kids, right? I had two older brothers through this, and so my dad and my mom instilled on me, um, you know, entrepreneurial nature. That's—well, so that all my life that was sort of my goal and objective. So as I went through, um, you know, I ended up starting my own company. I had an office in Houston, BC, an office in Prince George, and a dozen people.

And I was so upset with where politics was going in BC from the '90s when the NDP was in power again—I actually sat down with my wife and said, “What do you think about moving to Calgary? I can take my company and do the same business for the resource sector in Alberta as I was doing in British Columbia.” And so I thought, okay, we talked this out, and ultimately, we made the decision to stay in Prince George, and that left me with two options: either I just live with it, yeah, or I get involved and try to change it!

Yeah, and I’m not kind. So it was called Western Geographic Information Systems. It was doing data analysis for the forest sector; a lot of things like forest development plans and timber supply analysis, those types of things. So I decided, like I say, we decided to stay, and being that I'm not the kind of person that just lives with it, I decided to get involved. Politics was never an ambition of mine, wasn’t a goal or objective, U so I got involved in the '90s.

And so in the early 2000s, I got involved in politics and then decided, actually you know, I kind of enjoy this. You know, I enjoy the fact that you can actually create some policies and make a difference and be able to help people. And so I was first elected provincially; I was a school trustee for three years and then I was first elected provincially in 2005—reelected ever since. So, it has been almost 20 years now in provincial politics and I served a term in the minister of Aboriginal relations and reconciliation. I served a very short time as Minister for Forest Lands and Natural Resource Operations, and then—

And that was when? That was, uh, 2013 to 2017. So let me ask you about your business again. One of the things that people who are listening need to understand is that if you're imbued with an entrepreneurial spirit—which is actually rather rare, right? People like to think that everybody's a creator, everybody's creative, and that, you know, if you scratch deep enough into everyone's soul, you'll find someone who's entrepreneurial, and that's not true. It's actually quite rare and it's associated with a personality trait known as openness to experience.

So you’re—people tend to be temperamentally entrepreneurial, and they're more akin to creative people in general. Now, one of the things about being a creative entrepreneur is that if you're also conscientious and dedicated to your company's success—and if you're not, you're not going to succeed. You'll more or less do anything that's appropriate and effective to make your company work because you're not going to throw all your resources into something like that and take those sorts of risks with your capital, with your time, and then with your employees without being bloody well committed to its success.

And that does mean you'll move, right? So you see this happening in the United States is that the entrepreneurial types are flooding out of California. They're flooding out of the more socialist states because it's just too annoying and uncertain. And so, and it's very dangerous to get a flight like that because it's a small number of people—a small percentage of people who are entrepreneurial—and if you get rid of them, then you don't have anybody who wants to run businesses.

So, you said you were tempted in the '90s to move, but you went into the political realm instead, and what—tell me how your party affiliation has worked across the span of your engagement in the political world. So, when I decided to go into politics, of course, I'm not, uh, disposed to the ideology of the left. Um, I've always been more on the conservative side of politics, although I find it odd because sometimes the federal conservatives think I'm too liberal, and the federal liberals think I'm too conservative. So who knows what all that means?

But I looked for the party that most aligned with where I was, which was at the time the BC Liberal Party. The BC Liberal Party was born out of the old social credit party when the social credit party collapsed in 1991, and so I joined that party. And I was, like I said, I was elected and served all the way through up until 2022 with that party.

And you served as a member of the Legislative Assembly? Member of the Legislative Assembly, and, um, like I say, in a couple of cabinet positions as well. And in 2022 was a very tough year for my family—my father passed in January, my father-in-law passed in February, and my mother passed in July, um, in July. And so I was talking with Kim about just leaving politics. I mean, I don't need to be doing this, right?

And so, we kind of had this discussion, and then along came a paper out of the federal government called the Farm or Farm Emissions Reduction Strategy. Yeah, yeah, right, which was this reduction of the nitrogen-based fertilizer and stopping cows from farting and belching because they think somehow, for some reason, that’s going to change the weather.

Right? It's just nonsense! But it would have a very negative impact on my riding, and so I tried within the party to have a discussion about this—the party I was part of—and I kept getting shut down, shut down. So then why? Why? Because the leader of the party, which is now the BC United Party, was saying we need to be leaders in fighting climate change. We need to be up on the forefront, and that was his whole motto in terms of what he wanted to do, and he wasn't willing to look at any evidence or have any discussions about anything that would have an impact on—

Do you think that was a vote-getting strategy? Of course it was! It was all about votes; it was a political party that was more about trying to chase where they thought they needed to be in the political spectrum as opposed to having any values. And so, in December, I put out, um, or I mean in August, I should say, I put out a, um, a retweet of a Patrick Moore tweet which questioned some of the role of CO2 and talked about the Great Barrier Reef. Didn't think—you mean the thriving Great Barrier Reef? That Great B—ree? The one that is, you know, doing better than it ever has on record at the moment?

So, um, I forgotten all about that. I even put this thing out there. So on Wednesday, my phone lights up, and I'm like, you know, all these phone calls coming. I was taking the day off because the next day was my birthday—this was August 2022. August, yes, that was August 17th, 2022. So, I made arrangements to talk to the leader on August 18th, which just happened to be my birthday. And I called him, and he was angry. I get it!

You know, nobody wants to be caught off guard when there’s an issue; you want to be able to deal with it right away. So I talked to him about it, and I said, well, this is what the problem was and this is what I've been trying to do. And he said, look, you have a choice: you either have to parrot our party position on climate, or you can't be part of caucus.

And I told him, I said, look, I was elected to represent my riding. I was elected to represent the people, and they're asking me, and they want a voice that is going to be about helping them, not hurting them. And he said, I'm sorry, you know, if that's the way you feel, that's fine. He hung up on me, and half an hour later I was kicked out of caucus.

And so that then created a very interesting problem for me because once again I was back at the same place I was in the year 2000, which was I'm not happy with where things are going in the province. There’s no chance of a political change because both parties were basically fighting for the same territory on the left side of the spectrum, right? Right. And so what do I do? Do I leave the province? Do I retire and just leave the province? Or do I stay involved and actually try to change it?

And so my wife actually said to me, no, you need to, you need to work on this; you need to stay involved. You've got my full support. So, I looked at it and thought, okay. So I spent some time that fall, you know, exploring some options and ultimately looked at the Conservative Party, which was just a very, you know, small party representing only about 3% of the people in BC at the time and thought, you know what?

It's time to resurrect it; it's time to actually try to do it. So I joined that in February of 2023 and took on the leadership at the end of March of 2023. And, uh, you know, we've gone from 3% in the polls to tied with the NDP, and some polls were actually ahead of the NDP right now going into the election.

Okay, there's a few things I want to delve into there. On the more personal side, the first is this: it’s a terrible political conundrum that people should be aware of. And in my experience, there is an awful lot of narcissistic exhibitionism in politics, and that's not a useful brush to tar all politicians with, but it's something worth focusing on. So you see this in entertainment, you see it in the media, and you see it in politics, and the reason for that is that people who are temperamentally narcissistic—their extroverted and disagreeable are, those are the personality predictors, and it's even worse if they're unconscientious.

At that point, you're starting to border on psychopathy, and that's not good because you want to be the center of attention; you don't give a damn about other people. That's low agreeableness, and you're completely unreliable with regards to your word. That's a bad combination. There's a disproportionate number of people like that in any domain where there's a lot of public attention. Okay, so it's going to happen on the political front. Okay, so now how do you get competent politicians?

Well, this is a real problem, because most competent people are already doing something, especially if they're, say, 40 and above. They've got a career that's usually well established, that's quite productive. Or if they happen to be overachievers, they've got quite a little empire. You know, I have some friends who are hyper-successful, and I've talked to them about entering the political arena, and their comment often is, I would be less effective in the political role than I am doing what I'm already doing because they'd have to put all that on hold as well.

And so what that means is that not only are there a disproportionate number of self-serving narcissists in the political realm is that it's very difficult to get people who are actually competent playing the political game because it's difficult. It is very difficult! You have to have a very thick hide, too, to withstand the slings and arrows of your opponents and all the lies that come at you. Like, I don't think I can tolerate that, quite frankly; I don’t think I have the constitution for it.

In any case, you have this option because you had your own company, which you could expand more or less in accordance with your competence, but you decided repeatedly to stay in the political realm. You also said your wife supported you, and that's also very interesting because it would have been easier in some ways for her to just have you around and to have all that stress out of your life. So what is it about the relationship you have with your wife that has held you two together in the political realm, and why is she supporting you given the personal costs, let's say, that might be associated with that?

Well, and I guess it goes back when we were married—which was in 1995. We've been married now, you know, 29 years, coming up on 30 years shortly after—uh, shortly after we got married, you know, we talked about raising a family. And, um, so unfortunately, my wife had cancer, and she had cervical cancer, which was caught at an early stage, and um, she was treated, and she's now 24 years cancer-free, which is wonderful, right? I mean, today in British Columbia, I have doctors telling me that it was fortunate it happened back then, because that may not have been the same outcome today.

Yeah, that's for sure! So that's the healthcare stuff, and we can get into that. Yes, we definitely—you know. And so, my wife knew I wanted to have children, so, um, she actually said to me, um, at the time, shortly after in recovery, she said, you know, I release you from our marriage because I know you would like to have children. And I told her, I said, no, we were married for better, for worse, for sickness and health, for rich or for poor. So we're building this life together!

And so we’ve been partners in everything that we have done, uh, through our life, whether it was going into business and these kinds of things. And so when it came to politics, um, she could see that, uh, there was an opportunity, but more importantly, she could see that there was a need in our society, which is why she was so—she pushed me so hard! She'd been pushing me for years to go into leadership, and I never wanted to because it wasn’t a burning desire.

But there’s a job that needs to be done, and you know, I'm willing to step up and do that job. And so, that's—so she, like I say, she was the one who really pushed me to actually come in and do what I'm doing today. So let's talk about your experiences in politics. So you—this wasn’t a burning desire, but you became an MLA, a member of the Legislative Assembly, a representative of your constituency. What did you learn as an MLA that you hadn’t learned as a business person?

How did that expand your conception of the world? You know, it's interesting that the most stress I've ever felt—and believe me, I've talked to crowds of tens of thousands, right? And public speaking, as you know, can be a terrifying experience for many people. The most stress I've ever felt actually was when I hired my first person out of Ontario because that person—now I've uprooted them from their life; they're just out of school; they're coming over, and they're very reliant now on me providing them with work and providing them with their future. And I took that experience from the work side and a lot about that from politics.

And, and so the most rewarding thing in politics is the same thing—being able to find ways to support people. And people—for example, you know, a grandmother that's trying to adopt their grandchild, helping them through the system to be able to do that, or, you know, two elderly parents that need to get a wheelchair for their 42-year-old daughter—needing, you know, help to help to get through these systems—all those sort of things—there's a certain amount of reward that comes with doing that.

And so, when I was the minister for Aboriginal relations and reconciliation, uh, with all the agreements I signed—there was one time where one of the chiefs who signed the agreement was in tears, and I thought, oh my gosh, no! Like, what have we done? This isn’t good! And he said, no, no, you don’t understand. Five children—five kids had attempted suicide the previous week, and tragically one had died. And this was an agreement that could make a difference—that could actually give those children hope and give them an opportunity to be able to build a future.

There’s a certain amount of—there's a certain thing that’s very rewarding in terms of being able to do those types of things for society. And so, to me, that’s what really drives what I’m doing is because in politics—it's unlike anything else—there's nothing else, no other experience like it where you can actually make decisions that can improve people's quality of lives, that can help people to be able to become whoever it is that they're going to be. And so there's a real appeal to that for me personally, and it's very gratifying.

Republicans are Nazis; you cannot separate yourselves from the bad white people. Growing up, I never thought much about race. Never really seemed to matter that much, at least not to me. Am I racist? I would really appreciate it if I’m trying to learn. I'm on this journey. If I'm going to sort this out, I need to go deeper. Undercover racist! Joining us now is Matt, certified DEI expert. Here’s my certification! What you're doing is you're stretching out of your whiteness. This is more for you! In this, is America inherently racist?

The word inherent is challenging there. Want to rename the George Washington Monument to the George Floyd Monument? America is racist to its bones? So, inherently? Yeah. This country is a piece of... white folks, white supremacy, white woman, white boy. Is there a black person around? Black person right here? Does he not exist? Hi, Robin! Hi, what’s your name? I’m Matt. Just had to ask who you are because you have to be careful. Never be too careful!

They’re going to say you-RAC! Buy your tickets now in theater September 13th, rated PG-13. Yeah, well, you know, I talked to this Navy, ex-Navy SEAL. I think he was an ex-Navy SEAL. It’s one of the American special forces—Jocko Willink. Jocko is quite the bloody monster! He's about 3' thick, and he makes Joe Rogan—Joe Rogan isn’t very tall, but he’s tough and built—and you know Jocko makes Joe look like a... He’s a really tough guy, and he said that, you know, when he was a kid, he could have been a pretty bad guy.

He wanted to be a soldier from the time he was three, and he’s just wired that way, physically and mentally. And then he went off to military training, and he started mentoring other people. And he said that was so much more rewarding than anything else he ever did—that nothing compared. And it’s very interesting, you know, because it’s so easy—and this has to do with narcissism as well—it’s so easy for people to feel that, you know, if they had resources at their disposal, that they could do anything they want—and be, let's say, more sexually attractive, and to have the advantages that they assume would go along with unlimited power and resources.

And the pathological part of that is that there isn't anything that is more meaningful in the deep sense than being of service to other people. And like that’s a deep paternal instinct, and it’s a mark of paternal maturity that you find gratification in that, right? It's a sacrificial gratification—it is the basis for a competent society! You know, the lefties in particular—the postmodern types—who insist that everything is about power, they just reveal their own narcissistic hand as far as I’m concerned in that philosophy because everything isn’t about power!

If you think everything's about power, you haven’t got anywhere near the core of what makes it valuable to be a human being because you find all of that value in service to other people. Well, this is something I see more, you know, time and time again with the people on the left. Their ideology is more important than anything else, and so they will oftentimes be violent. Um, they will take away rights of other people because they believe that the ends is justified.

And so it’s a—it's a, you know, when you look at what the negative impact will be for what they’re actually doing, because, but they think it's for this greater good! And it’s an ideology that I struggle with, quite frankly! I just—something that just doesn't come to me naturally.

Yeah! Well, and it would be all right as far as I was concerned if it was actually for the greater good, if that was actually at the bottom of it! But I don’t think it is! I think that the easy moralizing that’s part and parcel of the utopian strain of central planning thinking, it has very little to do with even the end! What it has to do with is the possibility that you can be identified in the moment with someone promoting a positive end.

As someone promoting a positive end, and also with no sacrificial requirement on your part. If other people have to pay for your utopia, you don’t have any skin in the game. Yes! And so, we have these false solutions. See, this goes back to the environmental issue—it’s like the left—the worldwide green left—is willing to sacrifice the poor of the present for their hypothetical poor of the future!

And that—that crosses the line as far as I’m concerned! You know? And I often think about it just from the perspective of—people ask me, why am I doing this? And I explain this, you know, in terms of what I’m doing, but really it’s, you know, I’m planting my flag on a hill. I’m saying this is it! This is the fight that is worth fighting; this is the battle that is worth taking on because it’s the society I want to live in!

Right? I don’t want to live in that society that you’ve just described and that they’re trying to build. I don’t want to live in that, because in my opinion, if that’s what it’s going to be, I’m going to look at going elsewhere!

Yeah. I mean, why would I want to—I would want to live there, right? It’s not an enjoyable experience. It’s not something that is fulfilling. Why would you want to live in that kind of misery? And so to me, this is the fight that is worth taking on.

Okay, so let's delve into the nitty-gritty. This is another reason I wanted to talk to you too, because I'm always interested in talking to politicians who have done something that's, um, that's, what would you say, difficult to believe. The first politician I spoke with publicly—this is way before things blew up around me—was Preston Manning. And I was interested in—it was also the first time I ran into cancel culture. It was so interesting because I’d run this little salon at the University of Toronto that was composed of graduate students and professors, and these were all friends of mine and colleagues and very, very smart people.

It was really fun; we met about every week. And, uh, I’d invite people in, and we’d have a discussion. And the graduate students would join in. It was great fun! And then Preston Manning reached out to me because his nephew, I think—no, his son was in my class and liked it and suggested to his father that he make contact with me. So that happened, and I invited him to come to this salon, and not to discuss political issues. I wanted to ask him how in the world he managed to create a political party from scratch.

'Cause that's really hard! You know? Like, what did you do to bring people together so rapidly? Because he rose from nowhere to become leader of the opposition and then eventually joined rejoined forces with the Conservative Party. But it's a remarkable story; it happens now! In the—then in the West, you're kind of doing it again in BC. So I wanted him to come and just say how he did it, you know? And a bunch of my professor friends wouldn’t come.

This was like in 2014, 2013. I thought, what do you mean you won't come? It's like he was leader of the opposition 'cause they thought he was far right! You know, which was absolutely preposterous! But in any case, I actually didn't care about his politics at that point. It was like, well, you build a political party; how do you do that? That's hard. And there’s—it's psychologically interesting.

Anyways, three or four of my friends didn’t show up, which—well, like I said, that was the first time I ran into cancel culture. Now you didn’t start a political party from scratch, but you did, more or less. Like you took something that had a history, and Preston had done in some way the same thing. How exactly have you managed to bring the Conservatives from essential obscurity up into the position where they're an actual contender for the throne in the next election? The election's when? October 19th?

October 19th, okay. So, we’re cutting close to the wire here. So what did you do? What's the nitty-gritty of what you did, and why do you think it was effective? You know, and there's no substitute for the formula of doing this; it's just hard work. And so the first time you go out and you talk to people, you have 7 or 10 or 12 people that will come out. Then they like what they hear, and so they invite friends. Next time you come back, you've got 30 or 40 people. Next time you come back, you've got 70 or 80 people.

And it depends on—you hit it right. If you've hit it right, if you're hitting the tones that they want to hear, and if what you're talking about is reflective of what they're looking for. And I also, you know, I'm a firm believer that politics is not so much about policy—although policy obviously drives everything that results from politics—but if I talk to people and give a speech, more often than not, most people won't remember much of what I've said.

Yeah, they might latch on to a few little ideas or things that they’ve touched into, but what they get from it is a feeling—it’s whether it is, you know, you're authentic or whether it is they’re happy or angry or whatever that may be. And that often drives people far more than, you know, they’re trying to figure out if they can trust you or get something from you, let’s say. Those be the options; it’s whether it’s—whether or not, you know, you align, whether or not they’re comfortable.

And you know, no one will ever be 100% aligned with everybody, but that has been a big piece of what we’ve been doing. And so, right from day one of doing this, I hit the road. I just went out and lived out of a suitcase and went traveling everywhere around the province, connecting with people, talking to business people, and talking to the average everyday person, and just, you know, slowly building up these groups' support.

And, uh, it’s just—it’s been this multiplier effect that’s just been growing. What it's tapped into really is that desire for change because there's people that are so upset with what is going on in society. I mean, when you've got these tent cities and these drug dens and all these things happening all over the place, and crime is rampant, and criminals are just getting a slap on the wrist and put it back out on the street.

Um, you know, and they don’t like what’s going on in the education system, and the economy, you know, is sputtering, and inflation—all people are just looking at thinking this is nuts; we need change! And so, you know, we’re tapping into that desire for change in many ways, um, that is in a way that people can look at and say, yes, that is the direction that we would like to go in.

Okay, so we talked earlier with regards to the Liberal Party. Because you said you have to hit the right tones, let's say. Okay, but when we talked earlier about the Liberal Party, one of the things you pointed out was that—and your unhappiness with the fact that the Liberal Party, in your estimation, was using the climate issue as a means of garnering votes, and that that was inappropriate.

So what's the difference in your estimation between attending to the people that you’re speaking with and providing them with a message that they need and want to hear and playing a false populist game? Like, how do you personally, how do you balance the necessity of having principles in your discussions, in your speeches, and pandering to the crowd? And do you think you’ve walked that line successfully?

How do you distinguish those things? So what it has to come down to is just the principles of what you're trying to do. And so when you're—when you're talking to the crowd, you always have to talk from the perspective of, you know, what's in your heart? What is—what is the belief? What are the things that you are standing for? What is it that you've planted your flag on and said, this is who we are, this is what we’re going to do?

And there’s many people initially that were very skeptical, that, you know, weren’t supportive. But as you start talking through the