Jay Hill, interim leader of the Maverick Party—a Western Canada separatist group—shifts from federalism after Justin Trudeau’s 2019 re-election, despite ignored scandals and Western alienation. Maverick targets Conservative strongholds (40+ ridings) to avoid vote-splitting, opposes carbon tax hikes (33% on April 1st), and demands global tech-sharing summits instead of domestic penalties. Hill calls COVID hotels "COVID jails," criticizes Trudeau’s pandemic handling (e.g., PPE sent to China, vaccine delays), and rejects extreme views, favoring autonomy over punitive policies. His focus: securing Western Canada’s future for his grandchildren by pushing back against federal overreach and misaligned priorities. [Automatically generated summary]
Oh hi Rebels, you're listening to a free audio-only recording of my weekly Wednesday night show, The Gun Show.
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It's Jay Hill.
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You asked, I delivered.
Tonight, my guest is Jay Hill of the Maverick Party.
I'm Sheila Gunn-Reed and you're watching The Gunn Show.
One of the most requested guests I've ever had in the history of this show has been Jay Hill of the Separatist Western Federal Party.
the Maverick Party.
I get emails, I get super chats, I get text messages.
Some of you have even found my personal email and are sending me email requests saying, Sheila, you have to have Jay Hill on of the Maverick Party.
Now, Jay Hill is the interim leader of the Maverick Party, and he'll explain his role in our discussion today.
He also explains what he hopes to achieve as the interim leader of the Maverick Party, what sort of some of the Maverick goals are, what that would look like within Confederation and outside of Confederation.
I ask him some prickly questions too about the criticisms that the Maverick Party receives for being accused of vote splitting.
That's something that's of great concern to us here in Alberta because, frankly, that's how we got Rachel Notley for four years.
I also ask Jay some questions about Aaron O'Toole, the federal conservative party convention that took place, some of his criticisms of O'Toole's speech, very similar, frankly, to my own.
Anyway, it's a very, well, it's not very long.
I think you'll find it engaging, but it's much longer than some of my normal interviews.
But there was so much to talk to, and you guys really wanted to hear from Jay Hill, so you're gonna.
The interview is over 45 minutes, so my advice to you is, you know, put on your stretchy pants, settle in, get a beer, because friends, here is Jay Hill, the interim leader of the Maverick Party, in an interview we recorded earlier this morning.
For me now is Jay Hill.
He's the leader of the Maverick Party.
Jay, thank you so much for taking the time to do this interview.
You're one of the most requested guests I've ever had in five years, five plus years, I guess, at Rebel News.
Jay, first give us a Poll's notes version of your background, who and what you are, before we get into what the Maverick Party is and then some of the more pressing issues of the day that I'd love to pick your brain about.
Sure, Sheila.
First of all, let me say it's a pleasure to be with you on your program today.
From Politician to Farmer00:08:13
A brief background for myself is I was born and raised in northern British Columbia, raised on a farm, so became acquainted with hard work early in my life, along with my brothers and sister, and ultimately returned to farming after working for a period of time as a young man in the oil and natural gas fields up in northern British Columbia and up into the territories.
Continued to work in a variety of occupations in the wintertime to subsidize the farm, as a lot of farmers in Western Canada do.
And great to have those opportunities to do that.
Ultimately, became quite disenchanted with where the country was going in the early 80s and on into the mid-80s and heard about this upstart political party called, in fact, it wasn't even a party when I first got involved.
It was called the Reform Association.
A young man at the time, Preston Manning, leading it, and increasing disenchantment, disillusionment, alienation being experienced in Western Canada really fueled the start of the Reform Party.
I was encouraged to run in 1988, even though I was, as I said, farming full-time with my one younger brother and my father.
I left the farm to campaign in the fall of 1988.
No reformers won in that election, and we can discuss why that was, because it has some bearing on the strategy of the Maverick Party today, ironically.
But in any event, I stayed actively involved, ran again in 1993, and won election to the House of Commons to represent Prince George Peace River, which is roughly a quarter of the land mass of British Columbia up in the northeast corner of the province.
It's the only riding that's split in half by the Rocky Mountains.
So I was pleased to do that, go as one of 52 reformers to Ottawa in the spring of 1994 and winter, I guess it was, of 1994, and served for 17 years in various capacities.
The majority of those 17 years, I was honored to be asked by successive leaders to serve in a caucus officer position, either as the whip or the question period coordinator or later on as house leader, both in opposition and in government.
Finished my career as a government minister with Stephen Harper as his leader of the government in the House of Commons, commonly referred to as the government house leader.
Retired in 2010.
So I've been retired from, or I thought I was retired from federal politics in 2010, the fall of 2010.
So about 10 and a half years now that I've been officially out of federal politics, moved to Calgary where my children were and started a one-man government consulting firm working from home.
I was very successful at that, enjoyed working with some terrific corporate clients, mostly in the oil and gas area of industry.
And ultimately retired about a year and a half ago, or I thought I did, until I got involved in June of last year as the interim leader of what has become the Maverick Party.
At the time, it was known as Wexit Canada.
That's how it applied for registration with Elections Canada.
And we changed the name last fall.
So the Maverick Party, as it exists, has only been in operation for just a few days over six months.
It was the 17th of September.
We got approval from Elections Canada to change the name.
And a small group of us represented by the board of the party have been working full-time, basically seven days a week ever since to try and get this upstart neophyte federal political party off the ground and operating in time for the next election whenever the prime minister decides to call it.
Now, I guess my question to you is, how did you end up going from the Reform Party motto of the West wants in to the West wants out?
How did you make that journey from, I guess, being a pro-Western federalist to now a separatist?
Well, that's an interesting question, Sheila.
And it was a bit of a transition, obviously, as a very strong federalist, somebody that had devoted a big part of my adult life, as I just explained, to federal politics, to serving the people of Northeastern British Columbia.
And to go from that to at least leading a party that has, and we can get into this, a twin-track approach to greater autonomy for Western Canada was quite a step.
And obviously, it surprised a lot of people, especially former colleagues, some of which are still sitting members of parliament with the Conservative Party, that were a bit shocked, shall I say, about this transition.
It was coming for a period of time after my exit from federal politics, but it really came to the fore when the Wexit movement got started across the West.
And of course, that was really inflamed by the 2019 election results when we saw what is largely viewed in Western Canada as a completely incompetent prime minister and government re-elected by Central and Eastern Canada.
If you look at the results from 2019, I have said, Sheila, that there is no greater example of why the West feels alienated than that re-election of that administration of Justin Trudeau's.
It is so stark that no one in Western Canada can doubt how little our voice and our votes count than when you see Central and Eastern Canada overlook all of the scandals that were present during that last election campaign and leading up to it.
And that they still re-elected this person that I believe is the most unqualified person to occupy the prime minister's office, certainly in my lifetime, if not in the history of our country.
And so I was absolutely dismayed, completely disillusioned the day after the 2019 election.
And I came to the realization that the system as it is is not going to work.
By and large, the majority of Westerners have supported conservatives or a conservative type of party like the Reform Party down through history for over 100 years.
And the reality is that it is not working.
We get, in our view, we get some better government when we have a government like Stephen Harper's, but it does not solve the inherent systemic problems of how we're governed.
And invariably, the East re-elects a liberal government at some point, and we're confronted by the same problems all over again.
And so that's what motivated me to end up where I am as the interim leader of this particular party that is the West's only federal party in the sense that we are committed to not running candidates anywhere but in Western Canada and the Northern Territories.
Now, tell me about the Maverick Party, because you just described, well, you alluded to, and I'd like you to describe this twin-track approach to, I'm sorry, how did you describe it, Western sovereignty?
Western Canada's Path to Independence00:15:10
Western, the autonomy of Western Canada.
It's not unlike what we saw by the Fair Deal panel that was struck here in Alberta that held a lot of public meetings and received input from Albertans as to how they believed that Alberta should move towards greater autonomy from Ottawa and from the federal government.
And of course, they came up with 25 recommendations that are now sitting with Premier Kenny and his government.
And I guess we'll see how all that turns out.
Maverick is supportive of the vast majority of those recommendations, I might add.
But what we structured when myself and our small board of directors got down to determining the strategy of Maverick is we took a look at the referendum campaigns on sovereignty that Quebec had both in 1980 and 1995,
particularly the latter one when Quebec came so close within a hair's breadth, I might say, of achieving secession from Canada.
And what became quite obvious was that a lot of the people that were undecided, that were sitting on the fence, as it were, became increasingly concerned through the referendum campaign.
Well, they became frightened of what might transpire if there was a yes vote.
And what that did, Sheila, in my opinion, was that it tipped them off the fence onto the no side.
And that's why they lost.
So what we as Maverick members learned from that, the Maverick party, was that somehow, if we're going to move forward with independence for Western Canada, we have to convince the majority of Western Canadians that that's the credible option.
That's the sensible option.
In fact, in the end, it's quite likely going to be the only option if we want to put ourselves on a track to achieve our destiny and our hopes and dreams for next generations.
So what we did was we came up with this, what we call our twin track approach for a mission statement.
And what it basically says, I don't have it in front of me, so I can't read it verbatim, but what it basically says is that we believe in greater autonomy for Western Canada, either through constitutional change or through laying the foundations for a future independent nation.
So it's an either-or type of scenario.
If we could achieve, like the Reform Party set out to do, substantive constitutional modernization, As you know, Sheila, Canada's Constitution was designed in the 1800s.
We're now in the 2100s and it hasn't been substantially modernized.
And so we've proposed under our option A to remain within Canada but make substantive change five potential amendments to Canada's Constitution, which we believe, if they were enacted by the other provinces and the federal government, could chart a new course for Canada that would help Western Canada remain within the country and ultimately to achieve our hopes and dreams.
Now, this to me, what you're describing is more of a Western block quebecois, I guess.
Yes.
Especially in that you plan to only run, which makes sense, candidates here in Western Canada.
I want to ask you, because just last week, Premier Jason Kenney announced legislation for citizen-initiated referenda.
Now, it seems to me that there's a bit of a poison pill in that legislation.
And he's also turned down the idea of something similar as to what Saskatchewan's doing, where they have an associate minister of autonomy, for lack of a better word.
And I know Drew Barnes here in Alberta has proposed something similar.
Jason Kenney has been very resistant to these ideas that give Albertans a voice or a chance to choose a way forward.
I want to ask your opinion, or I guess, representative of the Maverick Party, about this new citizen-initiated referenda legislation.
Well, first of all, let me say that, and there's constant confusion on social media about this, Sheila, is that Maverick is a federal party, even though we are only committed, as you say, to running in Western Canada.
So it's very easy for me to sit in an armchair and criticize provincial governments, but I'm resistant to doing that.
There's lots of provincial parties that can be critical, and rightly so, and try and hold provincial governments, whether it's the government of Jason Kenney or John Horrigan out in British Columbia or Scott Moe or Brian Pallister.
There's opposition parties that has that as their mandate to hold them to account.
And that's how democracy works.
Having said that, Maverick, obviously, as was reformed before it, very open to citizen-initiated democracy.
It would be nice if those systems, and I haven't studied the current one that Jason has put forward to know how workable it is.
You know, there's a fine balance there between citizens having the opportunity to put forward questions in the form of a citizen generated initiative that would ultimately end up as a referendum where your populace would actually cast a vote for it one way or the other, and having that basically be the too easy to achieve.
Isaac, I guess, is what I would say.
So there has to be that balance.
Efforts to achieve that in the past, I think, have failed.
And I'll leave it to some others to analyze Jason Kenney's effort in that regard.
I know he's committed to a referendum.
He's often talked about it for the last couple of years on equalization.
I don't personally, and Maverick doesn't support the direction he's going with that.
We are vehemently opposed to the existing equalization formula, and we will be speaking about that whenever we get into an election campaign.
Our candidates will be carrying that message.
But we're not opposed to the principle of a federation where the provinces that have resources share them with provinces that don't to try to bring us up to equilibrium in this delivery of social services.
I think that principle that's enshrined in the Constitution, there's nothing wrong with that principle.
It really strikes to the heart of most Canadians, Canadians being caring and giving and generous people.
The problem is with the formula that obviously dramatically impacts on one region and in particular one province of the country to transfer wealth elsewhere.
And just one of the examples I've spoken of is the fact that non-renewable resources is included in the calculation for the provinces, like our oil in Western Canada.
But hydroelectric, which is, I've been told, the biggest generator of revenue for the province of Quebec is not.
So that seems inherently unfair, I think, for most Westerners.
So that's where our direction is on that issue of equalization, not on the principle of fairness and equity.
I guess getting back to the referendum question.
So if there were a citizen-initiated referendum to take place in Alberta, would Maverick be actively involved in the leave side?
Would you organize, even though you're a federal party and this is a provincial issue, I mean, would you take the lead or at least get seriously involved in the leave side of that debate?
Well, I guess you, first of all, you have to define what the question is, in fairness, Sheila.
A citizens-directed initiative that ends up as a referendum in front of the people of a province, you know, could be on any subject matter.
So if you're suggesting it would be a question in some form of independence for Alberta, if that's your question, then obviously we would be actively involved in supporting that.
But there's a lot of steps before that were to happen.
Obviously, the Clarity Act, the Federal Clarity Act would come into play that requires the House of Commons to debate whether the question itself that's being presented to people, in this case, in your example, the people of Alberta, is it a fair question?
Is it going to hopefully result in a fair determination by the people of that province on the issue of independence?
So there's a lot that would go into it.
But if it was a fair question and if it was on autonomy slash independence, yes, Maverick would be actively involved in the campaign, as we would in any of the other three provinces, were they to go that route and have the opportunity, the people of those provinces, have the opportunity to express either for or against independence.
I want to ask you to address the issue of vote splitting.
So again, because I'm in Alberta, I always look at these things through a very Alberta-specific lens, but the Wild Rose and the PCs, they were both accused of vote splitting.
And then Rachel Notley was able to run up the middle and win election back in 2015.
How do you address concerns and accusations of, well, you're just going to bleed votes off the federal PC or the federal Conservative Party?
And for that reason, you're actually helping Justin Trudeau.
I'll tell you how I would address that.
Justin Trudeau is going to win anyway.
So whatever.
But how would you address that?
Well, I guess I'll start by the point that you just made for me, Sheila, is that, you know, you asked me earlier in our conversation what drove me to take the stand that I have now.
And it was the results of 2019, which very clearly re-elected Mr. Trudeau and his administration, albeit in a minority government situation, but before the votes ever got to being counted in Manitoba and West from there.
So that's the first point to me.
The second is that, and I've been very clear on this, I've actually, because it's come up and up many, many times over the last six, seven months, Sheila, I've been very clear on this.
I've made a number of videos that are up on our Facebook page and our website and our YouTube channel to try and communicate this to concerned Western Canadians.
First of all, when I reflect back on my personal experience and that of the Reform Party that resulted in three successive Liberal majority governments under former Prime Minister Jean-Pétain, when I reflect back on that, the vast majority of vote splitting took place in central and eastern Canada, especially in Ontario, where the vast majority of the votes and seats are.
I have already explained that Maverick's not going to run down there.
So Mr. O'Toole and his Conservative Party can have a free run down there as long as they can keep Max Bernier and the PPC at bay.
That'll be the only party, I suspect, that'll be seriously, at least potentially splitting the vote down there with the Conservatives.
So I would hope to see a very strong head-to-head contest between the Liberals and the Conservatives in Central and Eastern Canada.
You'll have a free run, certainly from Maverick's point of view, because we're not going to be there.
In the West, there's 104 ridings in the four Western provinces.
We've identified over 40 that where the Conservatives won by such massive majorities, okay, 60, 70, in some cases, 80% of the vote was cast in those ridings to Conservative candidates.
Obviously, if you split those Conservative votes right down the middle, and we didn't draw a single vote from the NDP or Liberals in those ridings, and we only took Conservative votes, either a Conservative or a Maverick will be elected.
There is no way that one of the other three parties is going to be elected in those ridings, simply because the people in those ridings by far predominantly support Conservative candidates.
So what we've been saying is, yeah, there will be vote splitting in those ridings, but it'll only be a vote split between a conservative and a maverick.
And the people in those ridings where we have the opportunity to field a quality candidate are going to have an opportunity.
They can vote as they've done for over 100 years and send another conservative to Ottawa, likely an opposition conservative, as you just said, if the polls are to be believed.
Or they can send a Maverick, which will be a true representation of their views, their hopes and dreams to Ottawa to represent them in the next parliament.
That's the choice they're going to have.
In the other ridings, we're going to try as hard as we can not to contest those ridings where vote splitting might occur and a liberal NDP or a Green candidate could potentially win.
We'll have to see when the election is and we'll have to see how it unfolds.
But at the present time, because of our infancy, our intention is to only run in those very strongly held conservative ridings in Western Canada.
You might ask where they are.
Obviously, as you would have guessed, predominantly they're in Alberta.
Predominantly, they're in rural Western Canada.
There's, I think, 30 of them of the 40, some are in Alberta.
Focus On Western Canada00:14:54
The remainder, there's quite a number, eight or nine in Saskatchewan, and then four or five in Manitoba, and the same in British Columbia.
So those are the ridings we're focused on.
And as I say, because we're very young and in organizing, we've got, as of the moment, and it could change by tonight, we have 17 EDAs or constituency organizations, associations organized to field candidates.
So we have 17.
So we're a long way to go to get even to 40, Sheila.
Now, would you be open to forming a coalition government with the Conservative Party if the Conservative Party was in that position in the next election?
Well, first of all, let me say that my role is not to lead Mavericks into the House of Commons.
I've served my time, as it were, and I'm quite happy to spend what time I have left on this planet with my grandchildren.
That's what I was doing before I got involved in this.
So my role, and I think the role of the majority of the board that I represent, is to lay the foundations for the Maverick Party and to give Westerners, where we can, a voting option for the next election.
And then hopefully we will see a very serious transitional generational change in Maverick.
That's what we're seeking.
So we would hope that candidates will come forward, including at some point in the near future, candidates for the leadership of the party.
So our role is to build the building blocks for the future for Maverick and then turn it over to the next generation.
So I'm not going to be running in the next election.
So as your question about a coalition, a potential coalition with the Conservatives is premature and it would be out of my hands in any event.
But I will say this.
I think it's quite natural to assume that Maverick MPs, once elected to parliament, if it's in the best interests of Western Canada and their constituents, Maverick MPs would work very productively with a minority conservative government.
I think that's a no-brainer.
I think that however many MPs we elect, they would do that.
That would be my expectation.
But that would be up to the caucus to determine at the time.
They're going to be governed by one of our, and I would say probably one of our primary guiding principles for our party and our future members of parliament.
And that is they will take, as you suggested earlier, they will take a similar approach and strategy to the House of Commons as the Bloc Québécois does for Quebec.
And it's pretty simple and it's easy to adhere to.
If a bill motion legislation is good for Western Canada and their constituents, they'll vote for it and they'll speak for it and they'll thump their desk for it.
That's my expectation.
And if it isn't, just like the Bloc Québecois does for Quebec, they'll vote against it.
So pretty simple strategy.
As long as a minority conservative government was adhering to that and not bringing forward absolutely appalling legislation like Justin Trudeau did on C48 and C69, which we could discuss, as long as that wasn't the case, Maverick MPs, I'm sure, would try to work productively in the best interests of Western Canada with a conservative minority government.
But I don't think you would see a formal formal coalition.
It would be an arrangement similar to what the NDP has in supporting Justin Trudeau today.
You know, it's funny because the NDP felt either broke, their leader's a flake, but boy, they sure hold the balance of power and they're sure dragging the liberals even further left.
And so for me, looking at the potential of the Maverick Party being able to drag the Conservative Party in the other direction by helping them hold the balance of power, I think that's probably the ideal outcome in the next election.
I wanted to ask you, sorry, I'll just say on that, just say on that, Sheila, just a quick comment that that's why I and Maverick Party wish Aaron O'Toole and the Conservatives the best of luck in central and eastern Canada.
Two-thirds, roughly two-thirds of the seats are east of Manitoba.
You know, I say to Aaron O'Toole, fill your boots, go head to head with Trudeau down there, and we wish you the best of luck.
We want to get rid of Trudeau as much as anybody else.
But as we've already been discussing in this conversation, Sheila, the answer is not for the West to continue voting conservative.
And we all should realize that, that we have to change something.
And we believe a step forward would be electing Maverick MPs.
Now, I wanted to ask you about the Conservative Party convention that just took place.
There were some things in there that stood out to me as a Westerner.
For example, Aaron O'Toole's speech, where he addressed Quebec directly in French and spoke to issues of Quebec autonomy, speaking about immigration, about culture.
And you know what?
Great.
But for Alberta and Saskatchewan, we were sort of a throwaway line in that speech where he said something to the effect of, you know, if you want to feel secure in Confederation, well, then just vote conservative.
But that's all we got.
There was no addressing directly the issues where we feel the same sort of alienation that a lot of Quebecers feel.
And to me, my takeaway from that speech and that convention was that the Conservative Party of Canada feels entitled to my vote.
They haven't really earned it.
Exactly.
I couldn't agree with you more.
I did a short video.
I think it was number 28 that I've done since last June, which is they're all up on our website.
And so I did it on the weekend.
I think it was Sunday, so right after the Conservative Convention ended.
And it was sort of my quick analysis of Aaron O'Toole's speech.
And I had a little bit of fun with it, but there was an underlying very serious question.
And it basically is exactly what you just said, Sheila.
He spoke at considerable length to display his command of French.
I don't speak French and don't understand French, so I don't know how well it was as far as his command of the language.
But as you say, he certainly made a huge effort to reach out to the Beckers to suggest that the bloc and the way they traditionally vote is not the answer that they should come to the Conservative Party.
I don't have a problem with that.
But as I said in my video, I too, I think, as most Westerners, certainly most Western conservatives, were looking for some sign of recognition of the historical and current grievances, legitimate grievances of Western Canada and Canadians, and some solutions.
And instead, what did he say?
His central message was that conservatives have to change to appeal to urbanites.
Okay, that to me was a slap in the face to every rural Westerner in particular.
You know, in other words, you're expected to change a lot of your thinking so that people in Toronto, Montreal, and Ottawa might vote for Aaron O'Toole.
That was his message.
And so I pointed out the hypocrisy of, on one hand, saying that conservatives have to change, but on the other hand, saying, well, wait a minute, no, in Western Canada, we want you to vote the same as you always have.
So change, but don't change.
And I too, as you said, Sheila, I was quite frankly very disappointed that he didn't properly address Western alienation in some form.
He had one line about a drive-by smear against Wexit movement.
But other than that, he didn't really mention it.
And as you say, his answer to it, to this threat to national unity, which I obviously believe that it's a very real threat given the growth of Maverick Party, his answer was, well, the best answer for your security and comfort is to elect a conservative government.
As if, you know, him getting the job and being able to sit in the PMO office, the prime minister's office, is somehow going to solve our problems.
Well, we know for a fact it's not.
And so I thought actually his speech really played into the central messages of Maverick.
I did too.
I felt like more of a separatist after I watched that.
And in particular, when he said, you know, the debate around climate change is over.
Now, whatever you might feel about climate change or don't feel about climate change, I don't think the debate should ever be over with regard to any contentious political issue.
And for me, it is definitely a political issue and less of a scientific one.
And again, that felt like Aaron O'Toole was willing to concede Western issues to appeal to Eastern voters because conceding a high ground on that issue trickles down into all sorts of issues of the carbon tax, of pipelines, of oil and gas development, export issues.
And it felt like we, in the West here, we were being basically abandoned, neglected, taken for granted again to earn those downtown Toronto, downtown Montreal votes that I don't think he's going to earn anyway.
Well, as I said, I wish him luck in however he wants to approach that, whatever platform he comes up with.
Another big part of his speech, of course, because he emphasized it was that he intends to come up with a serious plan to combat climate change.
Look, myself and Maverick Party, we haven't released our climate change platform yet.
I'm not going to say it's going to be serious plan, but it's going to be different because I don't believe that the approach taken by virtually all the other parties and the range, but you're all on the side that Canada must do more.
Canada must do more.
In other words, we need to flog ourselves and punish ourselves in order to show leadership globally that we're fighting man-made climate change.
Okay, and you're quite right, whether it's this carbon tax, which I might remind Westerners that Justin Trudeau again broke another major promise when he said he wasn't going to raise the carbon tax.
It's going up 33% on the 1st of April.
33%.
Who does that punish?
It punishes the working poor by far the most, right?
Because increasingly, Canadians that are on the edge as far as making decisions of whether they can afford to heat their homes, drive their vehicle to work, if we ever get back to work, or I lost my train of thought.
See, that's why we need generational change, Sheila.
We need the next generation, the new younger leader for Maverick.
But all joking aside, the reality is that our approach to climate change will be different.
I believe that the Conservative Party under Andrew Scheer, ironically, had a pretty solid policy by and large in the last election campaign.
The problem was that Conservatives themselves seemed fearful of explaining it to Canadians.
So our approach is really going to focus especially on all the improvements that we've made, most of which has been accomplished in the private sector, most of which has not been forced upon them by governments.
Certainly the oil and gas industry, mining, agriculture, a lot of the primary resource industries have taken great strides on the issue of the protection of the environment.
And we should be having a worldwide summit, I believe, to discuss how we can distribute that type of technology to the world's large emitters.
If we want to get serious about fighting global, and I don't call it global climate change, but certainly global pollution, real pollution, we're not talking about carbon now, then we should be sharing that technology and figure out a way to share that technology with the Chinas and Russia and India and Indonesia that are the real problem when it comes to emissions worldwide,
rather than trying to punish Canadians through a tax or through bringing in regulation that cripples our industries and puts us at a great disadvantage with our global competition.
Why are so many oil and gas companies and other industry leading companies leaving Canada?
That's what we need to determine, and we need to fight against that.
So long-winded answer, as is the way of a former politician, Sheila, but what I'm suggesting is that you're quite correct again that AeroTool should not be following the lead of these other parties.
that are saying, well, you know, I'm going to buy into the Paris climate change accord.
I'm going to buy into net emissions by 2050, you know, no matter what damage it does to the economy.
Vaccine Procurement Controversy00:07:03
Now, in fairness to Aaron, he did say jobs come first in his speech.
And I did take a bit of heart from that.
But we really won't know whether he's true to that until we see what his serious plan is about climate change.
Yeah, when I listened to his speech, I thought, you know what, if you think that global emissions are the problem, then Western Canada is the solution.
We are not the problem.
Because we have spent decades developing technology to bring emissions down, if you care about those sorts of things.
One other thing that wasn't in his speech I wanted to ask you about before I let you go because you've been so generous with your time.
One thing missing from Aaron O'Toole's speech was also the issue of civil liberties versus the pandemic.
I didn't hear anything about that.
I didn't hear really anything about the, I mean, of course, a lot of these civil liberties infringements are coming at the municipal level and at the provincial level.
But I think there are things that all politicians should care about, the rights of citizens.
And I didn't hear a word about the COVID hotels.
So Justin Trudeau snatching up Canadian citizens and stuffing them into these COVID jails against their will and against the Charter of Rights and Freedom, Section 6, provides for mobility rights.
I didn't hear Aaron O'Toole say anything about that or free speech or anything like that.
And I thought, you know, these are deeply conservative issues, free speech and rights.
And I just didn't hear anything about that.
What would be the Maverick approach, I guess, to civil liberties and in particular, the pandemic?
Well, because as you said in your question, Sheila, the vast majority of the restrictions that have been being imposed come from provincial governments, as they should, I would say that Maverick has been very hesitant to take a strong position one way or the other.
And let me answer this way.
Am I, and is Maverick, concerned about this infringement of civil liberties?
Absolutely.
And we should be.
And every Canadian should be concerned and keeping an eye on that to the greatest extent possible.
And I fully support them expressing their opinion one way or another on that.
Having said that, I have a fair degree of sympathy having been in government and having sat at a cabinet table where there's any number of very difficult decisions are grappled with as a government trying to ensure the best for their citizens.
I have a lot of sympathy for the provincial governments as they grapple with this issue.
And so there are two schools of thought, Sheila.
One is, you know, that the government must do everything possible to protect the vulnerable.
Okay.
So that's on sort of one extreme.
No matter what, even if it means killing our economy, apparently, you have to try and protect the vulnerable.
And then on the other extreme, it's the people that say civil liberties come first.
And, you know, if people have to die, well, so be it.
And the vast majority of Canadians and the people I care about the most, which is Western Canadians, since that's where Maverick is, I believe, fall in the middle.
They're quite willing to give up a civil liberty, if you want to call it that, and wear a mask in order to enter a grocery store.
They try as best they can for social distancing.
These types of, I would call fairly minor infringements of their rights.
Okay.
And that's where the majority fall, and certainly where I fall.
You know, I'm willing to do that if it's even minutely possible that I'm helping to protect a vulnerable person by doing that.
So as I say, I've been trying very hard not to be overly critical.
I think that there's lots of people out there that are being quite critical.
And, you know, that's their democratic right.
You know, I uphold that.
At the federal level, yes, specifically about these hotels, whether it's right or wrong.
I'll leave the courts and people that are fighting that to determine that.
We heard some stories about employees working there, sexually attacking people that were interned there.
Of course, the justice system and the government should be seized with those types of allegations and drive that forward as quickly as possible to resolution.
I will say there's lots of criticism that is justified, directed at all levels of government of how this has been handled for the last year now.
We've been into this for a year.
You look at the fact that originally Justin Trudeau was very slow to close our borders, in particular flights from China.
You know, he said he and Madam Tam, the federal health officer, said, you know, nothing to worry about here, folks.
You know, we'll just tighten things up a little bit and we'll be fine.
Well, we weren't fine.
And then, you know, it progressed from there or digressed from there, perhaps.
And, you know, then the next thing we heard that was finally revealed was he gave away how much of our PPE, our personal protective equipment, to China and other nations around the world.
And then we found out, oh, wait a minute, you know, it's important for our health care workers to have that equipment.
Oh, we don't have enough.
You know, so they've bungled this unquestionably from the very get-go in how they've handled this.
They were highly critical of Sweden for not closing down their economy.
I don't see where Sweden's a hell of a lot worse off on a per capita basis than Canada is.
And then the vaccine more recently, the vaccine procurement, he promised us, he being Trudeau, promised Canadians, don't worry, I've got your back.
I'm going to look after this.
For those Canadians that want to be vaccinated and not all do, you know, we'll make sure it's available.
Well, what's happened?
We're number 43 in the world as far as procuring and administering vaccine to those people that want to get the shot.
I noticed just yesterday that California is moving close to having half of their citizens, some, you know, 20-some million people vaccinated.
We've got a tenth of that roughly vaccinated.
And they're threatening, you know, we were talking earlier about Citizens Initiative.
They're talking about recalling their governor because they're so upset with his ability to procure the vaccine and get the shot to the people that want it.
So lots of room for criticism.
Go To Our Website00:03:10
I think Justin Trudeau, as he has with so many files, the evidence is ever clear, Sheila.
This guy is the most incompetent prime minister in the history of Canada, bar none.
And that the Central Canada and Eastern Canada is still intent, according to the polls, in re-electing him for a third term is not just astounding, it's appalling.
I completely agree.
Now, Jay, I know you've been, again, very generous with your time.
What is the best way?
If my viewers liked what you had to say, they want to get involved, what's the best way for them to do that?
To go to our website, Sheila, thank you for the reminder.
MaverickParty.ca.
We're easy to find.
We're on Facebook, we're on YouTube, and we have our own website where people can volunteer.
They can buy a membership.
It's 10 bucks.
It's 10 bucks in yourself, your children, and your grandchildren's future.
I'm doing this.
I came out of retirement because I have three young grandchildren that I just cannot see under the current system that we're governed under in Canada where they are going to have anywhere near the opportunities I was blessed with.
And that's why I'm involved and why increasingly a lot of Westerners are involved with Maverick.
Well, Jay, I think that's a great place to leave the interview.
Again, thank you so much for your time.
You answered a lot of questions that I had.
And I think you might have alleviated a lot of concerns that people who are reluctant separatists may have had about issues of vote splitting and other concerns that they may have had with the idea of throwing their vote behind a separatist party.
Well, thank you very much, Sheila.
And maybe I'll just add that ask people when they go to our website, check out our guiding principles, because we believe we're neither right or left.
We get accused of being alt-right.
It's nonsense.
We believe we're a common sense Western party that is advocating for Western Canada in any form, whether it's greater autonomy within Confederation, failing that, it's laying the foundation for an independent Western nation, as I said earlier.
And I think it's just common sense based upon our 150-year history and our experience down through that history.
So we welcome everyone to Maverick Party.
Well, there you have it.
I let Jay Hill have his say.
I tried to ask questions I thought our viewers would like answers to.
Now you know how to get a hold of him.
If you want to get involved, you know how to do it.
If you have criticisms to send him, you know how to do that too.
Well, everybody, that's the show for tonight.
Thanks for hanging in there.
Thanks for tuning in.
We'll see everybody back here or wherever I might be at the same time next week.