Manitoba’s Conservative government proposes limited reforms to its Human Rights Commission—capping awards at $25,000 (down from unlimited), faster hearings, and dismissing frivolous complaints—after a $75,000 "hurt feelings" ruling. Critics like Andrew Lawton argue the changes are too weak, with both Liberals and NDP opposing them, while left-wing media pressure may force a retreat. Meanwhile, the Conservative leadership race lacks bold voices: only Aaron O’Toole ($300K raised) and Peter McKay meet requirements, despite Derek Sloan’s late push. O’Toole’s surprise potential hinges on endorsements from Jason Kenney and support from Waleed Solomon, but his avoidance of conservative media like Rebel News risks alienating core voters. Past candidates, including Scheer, have shunned tough interviews, fearing backlash over open borders and political correctness—yet engaging with grassroots audiences could decide the race’s ideological future. [Automatically generated summary]
Today I take you through a very modest proposed law in Manitoba that reforms the Human Rights Commission out there.
It's baby steps, but these days we'll take what we can get.
I'll show you the good, the bad, and the ugly of it.
But before I do, let me invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus.
Just go to rebelnews.com.
It's $8 a month and you get the video version of this podcast.
Okay, here's the show.
Tonight, Manitoba takes some baby steps to rein in its out-of-control Human Rights Commission.
Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?
There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.
The only thing I have to say is government.
But why?
It's because it's my bloody right to do so.
Manitoba has introduced some amendments to its human rights law.
I'll show them to you in a moment.
It's a small step towards good news, but that's the problem with it.
You have to pull a weed out by the roots.
You don't want to just trim its leaves.
Look, Canada's human rights commissions are not real courts.
We already have real courts, lots of them.
Criminal courts, civil courts, provincial courts, federal courts, tax courts, divorce courts, and of course, all of those courts I've just mentioned deal with rights, human rights.
The Charter of Rights and Freedoms, that limits all the laws in Canada.
So why would we need a special non-court to also deal with human rights, especially non-courts that are staffed by non-judges?
What a mess.
Now, I know the answer.
At least the answer that was used at the time back in the day.
These human rights commissions were deliberately loosey-goosey to catch anyone who fell through the cracks.
These things really got started in the 1960s and 70s, these human rights commissions.
So they be, it was said, I don't know, for an Aboriginal person who was denied a ride on a greyhound bus, or a black person, or a gay person who was kicked out of an apartment because they were black or gay.
They said it would be used as a shield, not a sword, to protect the underdog.
But you're probably thinking, is that necessary in 2020?
I mean, if you fire someone for being black, let's say, that's covered by employment law.
That's wrongful dismissal.
If you fire someone for being black, get ready to be sued for a lot of money as ordered by a real court.
Employment law is a real thing already.
Or if you're in a labor union, labor law.
There are labor boards, labor tribunals that are a kind of specialized court for that.
You don't need a human rights commission, also.
Same thing with apartments, an example I used before.
Most places have a specialized landlord and tenant board, like a mini court with a specialty in that field.
And I should say, both the labor board and the landlord and tenant board in every place I've studied it, and I've actually years ago been a lawyer in some of these commissions, they're very underdog-friendly.
I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy the lopsided law of being a landlord in a landlord and tenant dispute.
Same with being an employer in a unionized shop.
So why do we need human rights commissions again?
Why exactly?
You can't fire people for being the wrong color or the wrong religion or wrong sex or sexual orientation.
You can't.
You can't kick someone out of an apartment for that reason either.
You'll be sued in both cases in real courts.
And demographically speaking, anyways, Canada's biggest cities these days are already majority minority.
Toronto, Vancouver.
Imagine being a landlord and not renting to someone who's a visible minority in Toronto or Montreal.
It's really not a real-life problem.
Actually, the opposite is now true.
As we showed you a while back on Rebel News, there is now Muslim-only tax-subsidized housing in Toronto.
Defended by the city is perfectly proper discrimination.
So much so they kicked a white guy in a wheelchair off the waiting list.
So yeah, where's the Human Rights Commission?
Anyways, my point is, there's no real purpose for these human rights commissions that can't be better handled by the real courts or by expert tribunals or commissions on a particular subject matter.
There's just no reason anymore.
But keeping with the weed analogy, they're not simply going to go away now that we've discovered the uselessness.
So they engage in what's called mission creep.
There really isn't a lot of racism or sexism or even homophobia in public life in Canada anymore.
There just isn't.
I mean, a stat I like to point to is how women now overwhelmingly dominate university campuses.
There are far more women enrolled in universities now than men, including in professional fields like medicine and law.
So what does the Human Rights Commission have to do?
Well, they've got to look for trouble now.
They've got to look for problems, maybe stir up problems, because otherwise they won't be able to justify their work.
They'll have to get a new job.
Which is exactly why Jonathan Yaniv has been able to hijack the BC Human Rights Tribunal for years to terrorize and shake down minority immigrant women, as you know, by demanding that they wax his private parts, saying he's got those transgender rights.
Tell a human rights advocate 50 years ago that their human rights tribunal would be used by some fat white guy to force immigrant women to wax his private parts, and they'd call you crazy.
They'd say, no, we are trying to protect immigrant women, but it happened.
Like I say, mission creep.
And in this case, Yaniv is the creep.
Shut them down.
Just shut them down.
Hurt feelings is not a thing.
There is no human right not to be offended.
That's a fake way of saying the power to censor.
That's not a real human right.
I've long advocated the absolute shutdown of these legal menaces.
Fake courts run by fake judges enforcing fake rights for fake victims going after real money, though.
The process is the punishment.
See, complainers don't have to pay for lawyers.
They don't have to pay the costs of the matter if they lose, unlike in a real court.
They just make a complaint and then they'll walk away with 10 grand, no matter what.
But I'm happy to say that some news comes from Manitoba that they're at least pruning their weed.
Not weeding it out by the root, but pruning it.
Here's the story.
Manitoba Human Rights Commission awards for damage to be capped bill.
Let me read it.
The Manitoba government has introduced legislation that would cap the amount of money the Provinces Human Rights Commission can award.
Justice Minister Cliff Cullen said the proposed change would speed up the process to get decisions.
Right now we have a three and a half to four year wait for hearings, he said Tuesday.
So when someone submits a claim, it takes up to four years to get it done.
This legislation allows to expedite the process.
Like I say, the process is the punishment.
Imagine three and a half years in a kangaroo court to have your hurt feelings adjudicated.
I suppose that's good for the complainer, and it's good for the lawyers and the bureaucrats at the Human Rights Commission, but it's not good for anyone else.
Let me read some more.
The bill calls for a $25,000 limit on damages for injury to dignity, feelings, or self-respect stemming from a human rights complaint.
Currently, there is no limit.
It would also allow the Commission's executive director to dismiss complaints that are being addressed in another forum, introduce time limits, and give authority to adjudicators to mediate complaints.
Imagine that.
That's shocking to me.
The people right now can sue in a real court, but then sue for the exact thing, go for a top-up at this kangaroo court, just for kicks.
That's called double jeopardy in most normal places.
I should state the obvious.
Both the Liberals and NDP in Manitoba oppose these minor changes.
In fact, it's a bit of a miracle that the Conservative government there even dared to introduce this bill.
I won't be surprised if they lose their nerve after a few squawking editorials by the hard left-wing Winnipeg Free Press, which is now getting huge bailout money from Justin Trudeau, who just loves these human rights commissions.
The bill isn't too long.
It's 15 pages, most of which is just technical changes.
There's only a few real changes.
Let me read some of them to you.
Here's one.
The law now requires the chief bureaucrat of the Human Rights Commission to investigate a complaint and to do so reasonably quickly.
Can you believe it?
That's new.
And look at this.
The complaint can be thrown out now if it's crazy.
That's new.
It had to be proceeded with before.
Let me read.
Dismissal of complaint without investigation.
The executive director may dismiss a complaint or part of a complaint without causing it to be investigated.
If the executive director is of the opinion that it is frivolous or vexatious, the acts or omissions described in it do not contravene this code.
It is not within the jurisdiction provided by this code.
Its subject matter is being or has been dealt with appropriately according to a procedure provided for under another act, or additional proceedings in respect of it would not benefit the person against whom this code is alleged to have been contravened.
So I call this the Yeneve Amendment.
That last point is interesting.
It means you can't go in to these human rights commissions as some sort of busybody claiming you're a white knight championing some other person who is disincriminated against.
You have to have a claim yourself or get out.
So the Commission can throw out junk complaints even before investigating them if they're ridiculous on the face of it.
But here's another innovation.
After they investigate them, and if they are found to be junk, they must throw them out.
That word must is in there.
Dismissal of complaint after investigation, 29-1.
Following the completion of the investigation into a complaint, the executive director must dismiss the complaint or a part of the complaint if the executive director is satisfied that A, it is frivolous or vexatious, B, the acts or omissions described in it do not contravene this code, and the rest of the list is the same before.
Can you believe this wasn't in there before?
So the Human Rights Commission may throw out junk complaints without even investigating them if it's so obvious.
And if they investigate them and confirm that they are junk, they must throw them out.
I can't even believe that's new.
I told you how these things dragged on for years.
So there's some new timing rules.
Here's one.
Time period for commencing hearing.
The hearing must be commenced within 120 days after the day the adjudicator is appointed, unless the adjudicator extends the time period at the request of a party.
So it's still fairly loosey-goosey, but some hint at a limit.
Here's another one.
Time limit for making decision, 41.1.
Subject to section 2.
The adjudicator must make a final decision respecting the complaint within 60 days after the day the hearing is completed.
Yeah, get off your duffs, you lazy bureaucrats.
They're not real judges.
They're often not even real lawyers.
They're pretend judges in a pretend court, and they like to take their time because they need to justify their budgets.
But here's the most important part.
Maximum damages for injury, 4321.
The amount of damages for injury to dignity, feelings, or self-respect ordered by an adjudicator under clause 2C must not exceed $25,000 and must be proportionate to the seriousness of the contravention and its effects on the party.
25 grand for hurt feelings?
That is still an extreme amount of money for hurt feelings.
Our reporters here at Rebel often get physically punched.
And so we sue them in a real court, like we sued Dion Buges, the thug who hit Sheila Gunread in the face.
We went all the way to trial using our own money.
We spent over 30 grand.
And Sheila, in the end, was awarded, I think it was $3,500, $3,500 for being punched in the face.
So Manitoba will still allow hurt feelings to be paid $25,000.
That's a shockingly high amount of money for a fake feelings crime.
But right now, before these changes are implemented, it's literally unlimited.
Just the other day, someone in Manitoba was awarded $75,000 for hurt feelings.
Hurt Feelings Crime00:02:19
What a bonanza.
No wonder these human rights commissions are popular with malingerers and liars and losers and fakers.
No real court would ever give you that.
No real human rights advocate would regard hurt feelings as a human right.
You don't have the right to feel good and you don't have the right to make others feel a certain way either.
The law in Manitoba still permits a shakedown even after this bill is passed.
It's just a slightly smaller shakedown.
This is a baby step forward.
Like I say, I'll believe it's the law when it's actually passed.
The Manitoba PCs have a habit of caving in.
I hope they actually go through with this modest bill.
But even if they do pass it, why are you just pruning a weed instead of pulling it up by the roots?
Stay with us for more.
Well, the last time I saw our next guest, we were together in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where a convicted confessed terrorist named Omar Khadr was being celebrated by Dalhousie University as a guest of honor and honored speaker.
It was grotesque.
So many people at that event were cheering him, literally a standing ovation.
It was good to see one fellow conservative reporter.
I wouldn't even call objecting to Omar Carter a conservative point of view, just a citizen, patriotic point of view.
And I'm talking, of course, about my friend Andrew Lawton from TrueNorth.news, or TNC.news, who joins us now via Skype.
Andrew, I'm sorry, I got, it's TNC.news, TrueNorth.
And before we get into the news of the day, remind our viewers how they can watch your show.
And then we've got a lot to talk about.
Thank you.
Well, if you go to AndrewLawtonshow.com, it'll bring you to the page where all of the episodes of my show are posted.
We're twice a week, and you can watch it on YouTube, or you can listen in whatever podcast form you like, whether it's Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or anything else like that.
Good.
Absolutely.
And folks, if you're watching this, that means you're a supporter of Rebel News, and I thank you for that.
But we've got to support like-minded folks like Andrew and his team, Candace Malcolm, Anthony Fury, good folks over there.
Wuhan Flu Controversy00:07:09
There are two few independent groups.
And by the way, as you know, True North is fighting the Debates Commission alongside Rebel News.
Yeah, and like you, we're still waiting for our check, so we need the support.
Yeah, you know what?
Of course, you're referring to the check that Justin Trudeau was ordered to pay us for losing in court.
That was in October, what's that, five months ago?
But he doesn't pay us as quickly as he pays Omar Carter.
Anyhow, so much to talk about.
I want to talk about a story on TNC.news.
You're breaking down the expenditure of Trudeau's billion dollars for the Wuhan flu.
And I call it the Wuhan flu because we say Spanish flu or German measles or Legionnaire's disease or Ebola.
All of these are named after the place where the disease was from.
And this flu, this virus, was from Wuhan, China.
I note, though, that Chinese communist propaganda says anyone who blames China or names China or calls it the Chinese flu, the Wuhan flu, is a racist.
And the Chinese government itself is propagating this.
What do you make of that?
Should we stop saying that?
But it's not even just Chinese propagandists.
Even American liberals are saying it's racist to call it the Wuhan flu.
And by the way, the technical name in the early days was Wuhan novel coronavirus, because this is how you categorize things.
The taxonomy is very important in epidemiology and virology.
But of course, the GOP House majority leader had made a comment, or a House minority leader rather, had made a comment about the Chinese coronavirus.
And then Ilhan Omar jumps down his throat saying unequivocally that it's racist.
So now identifying the factual point of origin for a disease that's claiming thousands of lives is seen as offensive.
And it's interesting.
I mean, the World Health Organization, if you look at their updates, they have a whole page devoted to the Chinese numbers because everyone knows this is a disease that originated in China, the disease caused by coronavirus.
So I find it interesting that the propaganda from a state dictatorship has actually been embraced by the Western left.
Yeah, well, the World Health Organization is dominated by China.
In fact, they sort of shut out Taiwan, which they regard as a rival, which is a terrible idea because you need Taiwan to fight this.
They're so close physically.
Well, just on that note, Ezra, they actually list Taipei as a province in China when they list all of the other actual areas of China in this report.
So they don't even recognize Taiwan as a country, even when it comes to saving lives.
And Taiwan has a very different way of dealing with this.
Taiwan has actually had a level of success in dealing with coronavirus that the Chinese government hasn't.
But to the globalist World Health Organization, it's just a little line under the Chinese jurisdictions.
Yeah, that's crazy.
The reason, there's another reason I say Wuhan.
It's because China's central biological warfare lab is in Wuhan.
And maybe that's a coincidence.
And maybe it's a coincidence that Justin Trudeau approved sending Ebola samples to this Wuhan lab.
And maybe it's a coincidence that there have been Chinese spies frog marched out of Canadian virology labs for spying for China.
Maybe that's all a coincidence and it just happened that this thing started in Wuhan.
Maybe we'll, I don't know if we'll ever know.
It's like the Chernobyl explosion under the Soviet Union.
We had to wait till the communist dictatorship fell before we got the full truth about it.
But I say Wuhan flu on purpose.
I also say coronavirus.
Because I don't want to let China off the hook.
They have a biological warfare program.
And by God, it happens to be headquartered in Wuhan.
I don't know if that caused the flu.
I don't think any of us can say for sure because we don't know what's true or not coming out of China.
Well, what we can say is that China, and in particular Iran, which is the one I've been following a fair bit the last week, have done the world no favors by focusing more on containing information than they are on containing the virus.
And you always can tell when one of these dictatorship or regimes is more focused on censorship and blocking access to information than it is on dealing with the problem.
And in the case of China and Iran, I think that we can all say safely that their numbers cannot be trusted.
And in China's case, I think very markedly we could see that in the early days they were trying to pretend there was no problem.
And we've all seen the same reports.
People that have been arrested for sharing information.
People that have said, you know what, these crematoriums are running around the clock and the death rate that is being reported from the ground that is not in alignment with the official numbers that are being reported.
So asking these questions is not only not racist, but I think it's irresponsible to not ask these questions.
Yeah.
You know, it's funny.
I'm reading the story on your website.
Trudeau announced about a billion dollars and some of it's going to bring home Canadians stranded around the world.
I think that's a good idea.
Some of it is going for personal protective equipment.
I think that's a good idea.
But I noticed in your report that $2.6 million of taxpayers' money is going to, quote, research on how to combat discrimination, racism, and social media misinformation.
I would expect that from the Chinese dictatorship, but Trudeau is literally spending $2.6 million, not fighting the virus, but fighting people like you and me who might say Wuhan, because apparently that's racist.
But calling the German measles German measles ain't, I just think it shows that even in the midst of this crisis, Trudeau will put political correctness first.
Well, yeah, that's actually, I think, the only thing they're interested in screening people for is whether or not they've tweeted anything unpleasant that uses the word Wuhan.
So famously, the health minister Patty Hajdu had said a virus knows no borders.
So the government was not going to do any border screening.
But certainly if you try to enter Canada with a t-shirt that says Wuhan flu, you'll be detained.
Not for having the Wuhan flu if you do, but for wearing a t-shirt that uses that term.
Yeah, it's always the things that the government chooses to focus on, the most minuscule and arguably ridiculous issues in comparison to the bigger picture.
And look, like you mentioned, Ezra, a lot of those things that are being spent on are not unreasonable things.
However, if you want to take a serious approach to containment, you have to stop.
For Canada being geographically removed from the point of origin of the virus, the one thing we could have done right from the get-go was travel restriction, was travel screening, in some cases shutting down points of entry altogether.
I wouldn't have gone to shutting down land border between Canada and the U.S., but flights from China.
Peter McKay's Front-runner Status00:14:23
I mean, why was everyone not subjected to quarantine coming from hot zones?
So the reality is the Liberals didn't want to do what was ultimately settled on by a number of countries, even liberal countries, because they said it was racist.
And even now, they're not acknowledging that the importation problem is going to be the number one way that this virus is spread within Canada.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's very interesting.
And I think it's wrong.
Viruses can be stopped at the border because it's not inevitable that we allow people to come in here.
I suppose it's like when you have a border wall around your country, maybe you don't need to have high fences around individual homes.
I don't know.
I'll explore that analogy another time.
I want to talk to you about one more thing in Canadian politics.
I want to talk about the opposition party, the Conservatives.
Of course, there is a leadership race to succeed Andrew Scheer.
It's a very high entry.
I'm just covering a few bases that I know you've been following over at TNC.news.
It's a very high barrier to become a Conservative Party leadership candidate.
Maybe it's a reaction to having, what was it, 14 candidates the last time around.
You need to raise $300,000.
You need 3,000 signatures in a variety of electoral districts.
So far, only two candidates have met all those qualifications.
Aaron O'Toole and Peter McKay.
Give me an update on how are the other candidates doing and will they actually raise the 300 grand or is this going to be a two-man race?
Well, it's worth noting, Ezra, that $300,000 is just the part that goes to the party.
You've still got to raise money on top of that to actually run a campaign.
And, you know, if you want to so much as hop on a flight to go to a meet and greet or go to one of these debates, you've got to get there.
So there's a cost that goes beyond that.
That's just the part that the party takes.
And some of that is refundable, assuming you don't break the rules.
So look, they put these into place because they didn't want it to be an absolute clown show.
You've got eight candidates that are at this point in the running, two that have met all of those criteria.
Just yesterday, Derek Sloan, who's a social conservative and a first-term member of parliament, he submitted the second of three batches.
So he's put in 2,000 signatures and I think $150,000.
So he still needs to raise the other half of the $300 and get 1,000 more signatures.
Of the other five candidates, none of them have so far advanced past that initial $25,000 buy-in and 1,000 signatures.
So we don't know how many of them are going to be on the ballot when all is said and done.
They have until February 20, or sorry, March 25th to do it.
Listen, I think the one point that I raised, and this is especially true with the disqualification of Richard Descarie, is that it's one thing if you have a coronation, which in many respects people have said we're headed towards with Peter McKay.
And I don't think it is as locked down as a lot of people might like to say.
But the worst thing for the party were there debates and a campaign that did not reflect what is ultimately a party that has diversity among its members.
So if there was a debate stage that had the Aaron O'Toole camp, the Peter McKay camp, and no social conservative voices, no libertarian voices, no one that's taking a bold fiscal stance, no one that's talking about immigration, the party and the country would be very underserved.
And the reasons for that are twofold.
Number one, I think these are issues that I personally care about in many respects.
But the other part is that they prove if they have a race that doesn't have anyone talking about these things, that those things are no longer relevant to the conservatives and to the country.
And that's very dangerous moving forward if the only ideas that are talked about are ones that represent a small sliver of the conservative movement.
Yeah, you're so right.
I mean, there's not a lot of ideological diversity between Peter McKay and Aaron O'Toole.
I know Aaron O'Toole would claim he's on the right.
Peter McKay is not even claiming that.
That doesn't reflect all the interests of the party.
I don't think it's a good idea.
And you're so right.
If there was a fellow whose social conservative views were odious to the party, let party members make that decision by not voting for him.
I have no idea who made the decision to keep up Mr. DeKerry.
I don't know.
I find it a little bit depressing.
And especially when we've watched in the United States the rambunctious presidential primaries that the Democrats had, where there were a lot of candidates.
And I have to say, I was riveted by it because there were so many colorful characters.
And it's sorting itself out.
It's winnowing it down.
I just feel frustrated that the Conservative Party of Canada is pre-whittling it down.
And I really don't see a lot of excitement from either Aaron O'Toole or Peter McKay.
I do want to disagree with you on one thing.
I agree with you that Peter McKay looks like the frontrunner.
He's got a lot of endorsements.
He's probably the more famous name.
But I see that Aaron O'Toole got the endorsement from Jason Kenney, who I think is the leading Canadian conservative right now.
Yeah, next to Stephen Harper.
I mean, that is probably the most relevant endorsement to conservatives.
Yeah, I think you're right.
And also, Aaron O'Toole's campaign chairman is Waleed Solomon, who's a Muslim activist.
He's a lawyer for Den, sorry, for Norton Rowe's very large law firm represents Saudi Arabia.
I know because they threatened to sue me years ago, the kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Waleed Solomon is a great organizer in Ontario PCs.
He was Patrick Brown's right-hand man.
And don't forget, Patrick Brown had a sort of upset victory when he was running for party leader.
I guess what I'm saying is if Waleed Solomon brings his organizational prowess to Aaron O'Toole, and if Jason Kenney gives his ideological blessing to Aaron O'Toole, those two things together might beat Peter McKay, the Red Tory downtown lawyer.
I don't think McKay has run away with it.
Well, and Jason Kenney, remember, is also in his own right a very good organizer.
And I'm not sure there's going to be a lot of Alberta love for Peter McKay.
So those two factors, as well as some others.
And listen, the one thing that Aaron O'Toole has going for him that Peter McKay doesn't is that Aaron O'Toole is free of baggage.
No one dislikes Aaron O'Toole.
In fact, he was in 2017 the caucus favorite.
He had more endorsements than Andrew Scheer, more than Maxime Bernier.
Whereas Peter McKay right now has more caucus endorsements.
But there are a lot of people from the old Alliance PC days that I don't think look favorably upon Peter McKay or in general, someone who is an old school PCer.
And obviously, those people are getting older in their years, the people that were around then and would have a strong enough emotional reaction to someone.
But no, I would agree that it's not locked down, and there are a lot of other moving pieces to this.
The one point that I would stress here is that, you know, Aaron O'Toole is at this point saying that he is a lot more open to having those different factions of the so-called big blue tent represented in his party.
And I think that's going to go a long way because we saw this with Maxime Bernier in 2017.
A lot of social conservatives did get behind Bernier, even knowing that he wasn't one, because they trusted that he was going to allow social conservatives to be social conservatives.
And I think that's a very important distinction where there was criticism that Andrew Scheer, who is personally a social conservative, wasn't as amenable to those voices speaking up.
And I think we saw that during the election.
So I do think there's a big opening for Aaron O'Toole along that vein.
Yeah.
Well, I'm going to make a prediction right now that Aaron O'Toole will be the surprise victor.
I have no hard data on that.
I don't think such a prediction can be backed up by anything other than gut feel.
I just don't think the raw information is available to pundits like us.
Let me ask you the question that depresses me.
Would either Peter McKay or Aaron O'Toole be able to defeat Justin Trudeau if an election were held, let's say, next year, as could be under this minority government?
I don't like so much can happen in politics.
I mean, we saw Justin Trudeau win re-election after having been found to have spent much of his adult life in blackface.
I mean, that's not something that I would have predicted if you had put that scenario to me even three months earlier.
I'd say, oh my God, no, for a guy like him, the king of the woke, that's done.
So I do think there's a path to victory for both.
However, the one thing that I would caution people on is that you get a lot of this from the left.
Oh, if all conservatives were like X, I would vote for them.
And we hear this with Peter McKay now.
Oh, well, if Peter McKay was the leader, I would vote for him.
But the second a conservative is the leader, they become the new Hitler.
And this is the problem, is that the middle, the media, the independents, the people who are soft left, they only love the conservative who's not actually in a position to do anything about it.
I mean, we saw how many people in Ontario were saying, oh, if Christine Elliott were the leader and not Doug Ford, I would vote PC.
But if she were there, she would have been the evil.
Peter McKay is the same.
If he somehow becomes the conservative leader, it's going to be like, oh, well, he's this.
He was a Harper minister.
And the name calling begins, and they'll find someone else.
Well, if only they were the leader, then I would vote conservative.
So I'm a firm believer and don't capitulate to that because when you seed that ground, you happen, you move to this circumstance where the acceptable parameters of debate get smaller and smaller on the right and larger and larger on the left.
And it gets to the point where there's no room for a true blue candidate because the furthest right that we've allowed is someone who 10 years ago would have been considered a centrist.
Yeah.
Well, let me ask you one last question.
I guess it's sort of a personal question.
We've interviewed three of the candidates.
We've extended an invitation to Aaron O'Toole and Peter McKay.
I don't know if they're going to accept it.
Part of me thinks they don't want to accept an interview with Rebel because we'll ask some prickly questions about truly conservative things.
We'll ask about open borders, migration, we'll ask about political correctness.
And, you know, they think we're probably a little bit wild and populist.
My thoughts on that is if you can't handle rebel news, how are you going to handle the CBC that's out to get you?
How are you going to handle the tough liberal campaign?
You personally have interviewed a great range of political leaders in your time, especially on radio.
You interviewed Justin Trudeau himself.
Do you expect to be able to interview these candidates or are they afraid of you?
Do they think you're too conservative?
Give me your plans.
I mean, don't give away any secrets or anything, but do you think they're being too scaredy cat, these leaders?
What I will say is it's early days.
I mean, the race is going till June.
My plan is, and I've extended invitations to all of the candidates.
I haven't done any of the interviews yet.
I have a number scheduled, a number that I'm working on scheduling, and I have a couple that I haven't really heard anything back from.
So I won't get into the names of who's in which category.
What I will say is that if a conservative leadership candidate doesn't want to speak to conservative media, there's a big problem because all the leadership candidates are doing interviews on CTV, CBC, global, et cetera, which is fine.
But it's the conservative base that's going to get them elected.
The average CBC viewer is not going to buy a Conservative Party of Canada membership.
So if you're not prepared to speak to people who have audiences with Conservatives, I think there's a problem with the campaign strategy.
Yeah, I think you're right.
I think we do have that problem.
I think Andrew Scheer was partly infected by that problem.
And I dare say it may have been one of the reasons he didn't have the most enthusiastic support he had.
We'll have to see how.
Well, and Andrew Scheer, I will say, during the leadership, I think I had done three interviews with him on my show.
Shortly after he became the conservative leader, I spoke to him at least two or three times.
During the election, I could not get an interview with him.
And I think that's where we get into the big problem here: if you want to be the voice for all Canadians, speak to conservative media, speak to liberal media, speak to everyone.
Just don't be afraid to articulate what your position is.
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, listen, I enjoy the banter with people who disagree with me.
In fact, that could be a very powerful moment for a conservative to come on the Rebel and say, well, here's where I disagree with you, Ezra.
That could be a powerful moment.
I'd be interested in that.
I mean, listen, we'll do our job no matter what.
We too interviewed Andrew Scheer when he was in his leadership race, but boy, he didn't like our company afterwards.
And I think it's because we were pressing him to be conservative and he was more afraid of what the CBC would say and do to him.
He thought he could appease them.
I don't think he could.
Well, listen, if you land Peter McKay or Aaron O'Toole will be watching, and if you put it on YouTube, we'll embed that on our website, too.
I think it's sort of pitiful for these guys to avoid you or us or other conservative-leaning sites because I think we do talk to the Conservative Party grass tops and the grassroots too.
I want to be more optimistic.
I want to be more positive.
Right now, I don't quite have the reason for that, but we'll keep an eye on things.
It's great to catch up with you.
Give us one more time a website where people can sign up for your show.
It's AndrewLawtonshow.com.
Yep, AndrewLawtonshow.com, or just head to TNC.news and you can find it that way.
Great.
Well, keep it up, my friend.
Keep up the great work.
And thanks for fighting side by side with us in court against Trudeau's censorship too.