Maxime Bernier’s People’s Party of Canada (PPC) defies mainstream conservatism by capping immigration at 150,000—down from today’s 75% unskilled influx—while opposing carbon taxes and Trudeau-style reversals. With 125 candidates approved for 2024, Bernier plans to sue debate commissions excluded in 2021, mirroring past legal wins like the COVID-19 appeal with Brian Petford. Rejecting CBC’s dominance, the PPC funds outreach via social media and influencers, positioning itself as a populist bulwark against establishment drift. If elected, Bernier warns Polyev’s Conservatives may abandon bold reforms, forcing the PPC to push harder for sovereignty and fiscal restraint. [Automatically generated summary]
But in doing so, we let you know where we stand on issues like freedom, on privacy, on national sovereignty as opposed to globalism.
And on these issues and more, there's perhaps one political leader in Canada who most firmly fits with our worldview.
It's always a delight to talk to Maxime Bernay, the leader of the People's Party of Canada, who joins me today in studio.
Maxim, great to see you again.
Thank you, Ezra.
I'm very pleased to be with you today.
You know, we admire you in the People's Party because we see a lot of our ideas in your party, populism, freedom orientation, political incorrectness.
We are opposed to cancel culture.
And we'll always remember that you personally took a stand and were even arrested for it during the civil liberties bonfire of the pandemic and the lockdowns.
I mean, that was, I think, really a dark stain in Canadian history for civil liberties.
Yeah, I never thought that, you know, I'll be arrested after a political gathering in a park for fighting for freedoms.
That was just before the last general election in 2021.
And actually, you know, a leader of a political party being arrested, handcuffed, and put in jail for a non-crime.
That's supposed to be in a democratic country all over the US.
But it was not, as you know, except you and the independent media were saying, you know, well, how come we are doing that here in Canada?
But that's the country of today, and that's why the People's Party exists.
You know, I remember one moment from the last election where you were kept out of the leaders' debate and all five party leaders, it was almost like they held hands together and made a pledge about the vaccine or something.
Let me just remind our viewers, remember this from the last election?
We're all in this together.
We've come so far in the fight against COVID.
It's time to finish this pandemic for good.
So get vaccinated.
If you know someone who hasn't, talk to them.
For our kids, for our communities, for our economy, it's how we get forward together.
Vaccines are safe and effective for use.
Vaccines are the best way for you to protect yourself, your family, and your community.
So get vaccinated.
Let's fight COVID-19 together.
Pour vous protéger vous-même, pour protéger les plus fragiles d'entre nous, pour protéger l'ensemble de la population, le meilleur moyen connu demeure le vaccin.
We all agree getting vaccinated is the way forward.
We're all in agreement.
This is not a partisan issue, so please get vaccinated.
We're united, and it's time to get the shot.
Vaccines save lives.
They're how we're going to beat COVID, and it's time for everyone to do it.
Get the shot.
Get the shot.
To me, that showed that it was basically a unique party, that there really were very little differences amongst those parties.
But things are a bit different now.
And I think that truckers deserve credit for it.
The truckers helped break the false consciousness that we were all in it together.
The truckers helped get rid of Aaron O'Toole from the Conservative Party.
And in his place is Pierre Polyev.
And so here's my first question to you.
You were extremely principled during the pandemic and the lockdowns to the point that you were personally arrested.
But the world has changed.
Many people have moved on psychologically and politically from the lockdowns.
Pierre Polyev is not perfect, but he is more freedom-oriented, I think, than his predecessor.
It's not difficult anymore.
And so what is the raison d'être of the People's Party?
In 2023, almost in 2024, you've got a new landscape out there.
And in some ways, your key differentiator, your views on the lockdown, it's no longer in your hand.
You're right about that, but we have a lot of other issues that are very important.
And you are speaking about that on a regular basis, about the open borders mass immigration policy.
We are the only national political party that is speaking against that.
That is destroying our country.
Polyev is not there anymore.
Podiyev did a nice 15-minute videos on the housing crisis, but he didn't speak about the elephant in the room, immigration.
So they're scared.
And I can understand why, because when I opened that debate five years ago in 2019 at our first election, some people were saying that I was a racist because I wanted to have fewer immigrants.
And, you know, I wanted our country not to be like in France or in Germany or in the UK where they have big challenges with that mass immigration.
But Canadians, and I must say most importantly, the mainstream media were not there.
But now, you know, after five years, I was right in 2019 and I'm still right today.
But for Podiev and the Conservative, they won't touch that.
Podiev doesn't want to speak about immigration.
And I believe it's because to be in power, that's his only goal.
He will need a lot of support from the GTA and from also Vancouver.
That's big leftist cities.
And he's afraid to speak about that.
But we have a role, and our role is to tell the truth to Canadians.
And the same thing on another issue, that issue that is very important, actually you are covering that as a media.
It's the radical trends and ideology, gender ideology.
That's happening everywhere in our country.
And, you know, men that are saying that they're women and they want to go and compete against women in sports.
That's not our society.
There's no such thing as transitioning.
There's no such thing as feeling.
If you're a man and you feel that you're a woman, I think you have a problem.
So you've highlighted immigration and transgenderism.
Are there other principles or policies that you believe set you apart from Pierre Polyev?
Because under Aaron O'Toole, I think an enormous number of conservative grassroots felt the party just wasn't conservative.
And they were desperate for a successor.
And I think that to differentiate yourself from Pierre Polyev is harder than to differentiate yourself from Aaron O'Toole.
Transgenderism, immigration, are there other issues?
Give me a couple.
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
It's wrong.
Climate change.
Poliev won't do anything about that.
I agree that Podiev, and I know and I believe him when he's saying that he won't impose a carbon tax, but he's saying at the same time that he wants to put more regulations.
He wants to give subsidies to the green industry because he's in agreement with the Paris Accord.
The problem is the Paris Accord.
We will withdraw from the Paris Accord like Trump did when he was a representative of the United States.
So climate change, it's a big issue.
And they're using climate change actually to do what they did with COVID-19, spread fear.
And I was watching TV and it's very rare, CBC yesterday, and I saw an ad during my football game, I like football, about the climate crisis.
They want to put in the minds of Canadians that there's a climate crisis.
And Polyeb is playing that playbook because he's okay with the climate change agenda and not.
So that's very different.
I can go on with other issues.
The woke, wokeism, that ideology, it's everywhere.
He says he's anti-woke.
He attacks the CBC.
He repeatedly says he's going to shut it down.
You don't think Pierre Polyeb is anti-woke?
But he is saying, you know, it's popular to say that, but you must ask more questions after that.
What he will do for that, to end that.
You know, is he saying that there's only two sexes?
No, he's afraid to say that.
He's afraid to say that.
Is he saying that, you know, a kid cannot transition?
No.
Is he, you know, our Canadian forces, it's a woke organization right now.
They're pushing that ideology with the army and everywhere.
So we need to get rid of that.
That's bad ideologies, and we need to replace that by good ideas.
And our role is to push Polyev to do the right thing.
So that's why at the next election, I will tell Canadians when the time will come, you know, we are your insurance policy that Polyev will stay in the right direction.
You need us because we will vote with Polyev when he will be a real conservative and we will shame him when he won't.
So it's a win-win for Canadians.
We have a role to play in Canadian politics and we are very different.
And I'm very pleased that our support is, you know, step by step, this party is growing.
I'm not telling you, Ezra, that I'll be prime minister after the next election.
I don't believe so.
But our ideas will become more popular.
And I believe that we'll be able to elect our first candidate at the next election and we'll start that common sense revolution.
I'll come back to your electoral prospects in a minute, but I want to touch on something you said about immigration, how every politician is afraid to talk about it.
You know, the last time I interviewed Andrew Scheer, when he was the leader of the party, I asked him repeatedly about immigration, and he was so upset with my questions that he never talked to me again.
And here's a quick flashback of how that went.
Immigration Fears00:09:23
Do you have anything to say about the Syrian migrants or about John McCallum's new numbers?
I mean, that's something that I think conservatives, maybe it's just me, but I think a lot of conservatives want to hear something on that.
I think you're right.
And I think it's more than just conservatives.
I think a lot of Canadians are concerned about issues like security.
And one thing we saw with the Syrian refugee issue is that it became very apparent that it was a political goal on a political timeframe and that it looked like that the Liberals were sacrificing things like security and proper vetting to reach that.
And the feedback I got from my constituents and premiers around the country, a lot of people saying, look, we have to get this right.
Yes, Canada can play a role in providing a compassionate space for people in danger, but we have to get the security component of that right.
But then she's not talking about security.
She's talking about values.
What's your view on values?
So look, yeah, you mentioned a couple of issues, immigration and values.
Let me talk about immigration first.
I think it's important that we arrive at a number based on some kind of logical formula.
What is the need that we're trying to address?
Is it an aging population?
I'm doing my part.
I've got five young kids.
I'm trying to help with that.
But, you know, we do have a need for immigrants to counter that aspect of our aging population.
We also have some economic needs.
You know, there are some shortages of skills in different regions in Canada.
Let's arrive at a number based on some criteria.
Let's identify what that criteria is.
Does our economy need X number of people with skills and trades, X number of professionals, X number of engineers?
What is an appropriate level of family unification?
That is important.
And then let's determine that number from that.
I'm not going to be in the business of trying to participate in an auction of, well, one party says $300,000, another party says $400,000.
I'm not going to try to output it.
It should be based on logical rationale.
Okay, well, McCallum has said he's going to jack up the numbers probably by 100,000.
Do you oppose that?
Well, what's that based on?
Yeah, so if it's not based on something logical or coherent, then I think it's just a political target aimed at trying to win over a segment of the electorate.
I'm not going to do that.
Are you against that?
Well, I am against a policy that just throws a number out for shock value or to try to gain attention.
I want our immigration policy to be based on what the needs of the economy are, what the needs of our society are, and then let's arrive at a number.
And that'll be defensible.
I think your point is right.
There are areas where people are looking and saying, well, do we need that many in this region?
If it's based on common sense or logic, but Kelly Leach has said before they get here, they should be some sort of a values screening.
Do you think we should ask and ask any values-laden questions of people before they get here?
Well, I'm not sure what she's saying.
Okay, forget about her.
But just tell me your answer yourself.
Do you think you're saying once people get here, integrate them, teach them?
I don't think anyone disagrees.
But before they even get here, should we ask them about their values?
Should we ask them about Canadian values before we let them in?
I think it's important that we focus on certainly looking at what type of activities people have been involved in in the past with a view towards security.
I think you're right that politicians are afraid of that because if you say you're against immigration, people call you racist, even though, by the way, many new Canadians think that the immigration numbers are out of control.
But just about a week or so ago, I saw Andrew Lawton from True North sit down with Pierre Polyev and press him several times on immigration.
And it was the first time I had heard Polyev say he wants to link immigration numbers with housing construction and number of doctors in the country.
Here, we'll play a quick clip of that.
Do you accept that immigration is inflaming the housing crisis?
Well, it's very simple math.
If you have more families coming than you have houses for them, it's going to inflate housing prices.
It's no question about it.
That's not, I don't even think the liberals are now seeming to acknowledge that themselves.
So my common sense plan is to link immigration numbers to homebuilding numbers.
And that is how you're going to restore housing affordability.
Look, we built fewer homes last year than we built in 1972.
50 years, we're building less homes.
In 72, we had a population of 22 million people.
Now we have a population of 39 million.
So that's he's not coming out with his immigration numbers yet.
And he's not saying, I'm going to cut it.
But he's sort of telegraphing that, I mean, there's no way that immigration is over a million a year right now.
It's astonishing.
It's just, it's gone crazy.
I think Polyev is signaling that he's going to rein it in, but he's not giving numbers yet.
I think that's significant that he's willing to talk about it for the first time.
You see even the liberals saying, well, maybe some of these student visas are a little bit out of control.
I see polling in mainstream media that suggests immigration is too high.
Is it about to become socially acceptable to challenge immigration levels?
I think it is more socially acceptable than it was in 2019 when I started that debate.
And if you look at what Polyev said in that interview, he said also a couple of months before that he wants to tie immigration with the demand coming from big businesses.
Big businesses want more cheap labor and also with the reification of family.
All these people that are coming here and they want to have their family with them.
But for the federal government and for Polyev, the definition of a family is the huge family.
Your mom, your mom, your dad, your grandmom, your granddad.
A family for us is husband, wife, and the kids.
So he won't touch about that because it's very popular in ethnic writings and he needs to have that support to be in power.
So Polyev is playing and he's with Andrew and with that media.
So he wants to please a little bit people who are listening to that media.
But when he's speaking outside that, he said he didn't say anything.
And the main thing that he did was that video.
He didn't speak about immigration.
Yeah, on his 15-minute infomercial about housing.
Now, I saw an astonishing statistic the other day that in the last quarter, that is in the last 90 days, Canada had 400,000 migrants.
That's more than we had in an entire year before.
What is the People's Party number per year?
If it used to be 250, then it was 300, then it was 400, now it's over a million.
What would be the number that you propose if you were Prime Minister?
What immigration levels would there be?
Well, speaking about migrants, first, we must withdraw from the migration compact coming from the UN.
Polyev won't withdraw from that.
And that's important, like he won't withdraw from the Paris Accord.
So that's why I'm saying he's not serious when speaking a little bit about immigration.
So for us, our numbers, the same one that I said in 2019, 150,000 immigrants a year.
And the big majority of them must be skilled immigrants.
Right now, 75% of our immigrants are not skilled immigrants.
A skilled immigrant is a person that will come here because a Canadian business person was not able to find a Canadian for that job.
So we need, but now 75 of them are not.
They're refugees, like we said.
They're coming under the reunification of family.
So we must stop that.
And that's a proposal that is realistic.
And also because mass immigration has a huge impact on housing, yes, for sure.
And Pierre won't speak about that.
He said also that he will push for more for building more houses in this country.
But the data that he's using, and I think he's right about that, he said we built about 230,000 houses 50 years ago in 1970, 50 years ago.
And last year, we built about 230,000 houses.
But the population in 1970 was about 22 million people.
Now it's 40 million people.
So there's a problem there.
And Polyev was we need to build more houses, but we won't be able to build more houses as fast as we need.
We need to stop.
If you want to solve that problem immediately, the solution is there.
And the federal government has the control, just stop mass immigration.
But Polyev will work with big cities and try to change the regulations on housing and big cities.
It's a provincial matters.
It's a municipal matters.
More interfering in provincial jurisdiction.
The solution is evident.
It's all there.
Just cut mass immigration.
But it's not only the problem mass immigration.
Pro-Hamas Rallies and New Immigrants00:02:18
There's also multiculturalism, radical multiculturalism.
Polyev is not speaking about that.
Multiculturalism has failed in Europe, in UK, in France, in Germany, and also in Canada.
We will abolish that legislation.
Polyev is not speaking about that.
I've attended some of these pro-Hamas rallies.
I'm calling them pro-Hamas rallies because many of the people there just say that they are for Hamas, even though it's a banned terrorist group in Canada.
It is a terrorist group, and I saw one of your video on that, and you have a young lady.
With machine gun earrings.
Is that the one you mean?
Yeah.
And saying, no, Hamas is not a terrorist group.
Sorry, it's a fact.
And I think it's Prime Minister Upper who put Hamas under a terrorist group when he was prime minister.
Well, I've attended a number of these pro-Hamas rallies in Canada, but I've also attended one in London, England, which was huge.
And my observations, I mean, our reporters cover them all over the country, is that most of the people marching are either new immigrants who might not even be Canadian citizens yet, or they're not what used to be called old stock Canadians.
There are some.
There are some communists with the communist flag.
They actually bring the communist flag.
In the UK, there's the Socialist Workers' Party.
But most of the people chanting for Hamas are new immigrants.
And I'm worried about that, not just, I mean, I happen to be Jewish, so I have a special, my radar is very sensitive to this.
But even if I wasn't, people chanting for, you know, Intifada, which is a kind of riot.
So it's not just the quantity of immigration.
How do you make sure that you're not bringing people into Canada who have a belief in fascism or violence or racial or ethnic superiority?
We have certain Canadian values, equality of men and women, separation of mosque and state, nonviolent solutions to problems.
One approach is reduce the numbers, but how do you vet people to stop these hate marches?
Because most of them are new immigrants.
Absolutely.
You're right about that, Ezra.
Actually, we did it.
Preston Manning's Vision00:15:21
What we did a couple of decades now ago, we had an interview with each one of them.
It's a privilege to be Canadian.
And it's not true that everybody can come to our country.
And no, we need to have a values test.
And when I said that in 2019, you were saying, oh, no, we don't need that.
Yes, if you don't share our Canadian values, sorry, I write about that.
You're not welcome.
So we need to have an interview with each one of them and ask the real questions if they believe that men and women are equal under the law, that there's a rule of law, and asking the real questions.
It's a privilege to be Canadian.
Now it's not the case anymore.
So that's part of immigration policy.
It's altogether a value test, being sure that we have the right people and they're coming here to build our country based on our values.
You know, a few weeks ago, I went to the Netherlands and I met with a political leader named Geert Wilders of the Party for Freedom.
And there were certain similarities between the Party for Freedom and the People's Party of Canada.
Both take a very hard line on immigration.
Both are anti-woke.
Wilders doesn't like globalist institutions, whether it's the UN or the European Union.
There was a lot of things that I thought were very interesting.
But here's the main difference.
In the Netherlands, they have a voting system that if you get 5% or 10% of the vote, you get 5% or 10% of the seats.
And so he wound up with the largest chunk of seats.
Whereas in Canada, the People's Party can come in second or third in dozens of ridings, but you'll get zero seats.
It's just the nature of our system.
And you know that, I know that we all know that.
But I was listening to Hearbuilders, and I thought in Canada, we sort of have someone who's taking that populist freedom-oriented approach.
But the difference is Heerbuilders got a quarter of the seats.
And the fact is, the People's Party doesn't have one.
And how are you going to overcome that?
You're right.
It's a big challenge for us.
You're right that our electoral system is very different than in Europe.
In Europe, they have proportionality.
Like you said, if you have 2% of the vote, you'll have 2% of the representation.
We had 5% of the vote at the last election, and we don't have 5% of the MPs in the House.
That would have been 15 MPs.
That would have been a good base.
Yeah, absolutely.
But we will win, but it will take a little bit more time.
And that's what I'm saying to our candidates.
You know, our time will come, and the truth will always prevail.
But, you know, instead of taking maybe one election or two elections, it may take three elections.
But this party is there for the long term.
We know that there's important issues that we need to debate in this country.
And now it's all canceled by the mainstream media.
Establishment politicians don't want to speak about that.
But we have a future.
We have a future.
And that's why, you know, I told you in the beginning that I will support Polyev when he's a conservative.
So if you vote for a People's Party candidate, it's a win-win for you as an individual because we will support Polyev when he'll be in the right direction and we will shame him when he won't.
So, but I understand that it could take a little bit more time.
But Ezra, I'm young.
I'm 60 years old.
I think I'm young.
So I said to my wife, I like what I'm doing, and I'm there for the next 10 years.
And my wife said, okay, Maxim, I'm with you.
So we'll take the time to do these reforms.
Well, that's the thing.
Keir Builders has been plugging away for around 20 years in obscurity.
They prosecuted him.
They banned him from, he was banned for a while from going to the United Kingdom.
And he persevered.
Now, things I think in some ways are worse in the Netherlands in some measures than in Canada.
But he did have that proportional representation.
Let me tell you a personal story.
I was involved as a young man with the Reform Party of Canada and Preston Manning.
And it felt like a romantic undertaking.
And it was populist and it was freedom-oriented.
And it was very inspiring to me as a young man.
And I went to Ottawa to work for Preston a little bit.
But now that I'm not quite 60, I'm 51.
And I look back on that, I think, well, we did elect a chunk of people.
But actually, what we did is we gave Jean-Cretchen three election wins in a row.
And so, and I look back on that, I said, I enjoyed my time, but did we have the result we wanted?
It was only when Stephen Harper took the Reform Party, then called the Kleini Alliance, and joined it back to the Conservatives that they were able to win.
And so I'm asking this question not because I want to be critical, but to me, this is the tough question.
If you are splittest in our system and the other guy gets the win, this is not the Netherlands.
So how do you, let's say you get 5% or 10% of the vote.
It sounds almost everything you've said to me today has been a criticism of Pierre Polyev.
And it's the same on these issues.
But I think most of your vote would come from Polyev, I think.
Or for non-voters.
There are 40% of the population who don't vote.
And I believe if they don't vote, it's because they don't believe in these establishment politicians.
They're all the same.
And I'm telling, yes, you're right.
They're all the same.
You can come with us.
So answer your question, please do.
I have a point.
I like Preston.
I like the Reform Party.
But the Reform Party was successful.
How was this successful?
Remember, Preston Manning, every day in the House during that time, the 1980s, he was asking for a balanced budget, a balanced budget, a balanced budget.
And speaking about that, that was not popular in the beginning.
And Preston Manning was a principled politician, and he was speaking about that.
And it became popular.
And what happened?
Trudeau and Martin look at the polls and say, oh, if we want to stay in power, we need to balance the budget.
And they did.
And I must tell you, the Quetzen government was more conservative than the Harper government.
In some ways.
More conservative, more fiscally conservative than the Harper government.
It's because of Preston Manning.
The mistake that the reform did, they wanted to grow very fast and they merged with the conservative.
I was with Harper.
We had a minority in 2006, another minority in 2008, a majority in 2011.
And I said to myself, okay, will be conservative, could be deregulation, privatization, smaller government.
No.
What is the legacy of Stephen Harper right now?
Yet.
Zero, nothing.
What is the legacy?
Nothing.
Trudeau destroyed that in his first year in power.
There's no legacy from Stephen Harper.
So what will happen with a majority, Polyev, and I hope that Polyev will have that majority because that argument about spitting the vote, splitting the vote, people will see that Polyev majority government will be a little bit like a Harper majority government.
Polyev will look at the polls like he's doing right now, and he would be afraid to do the bold reforms.
So, and I can use another example: the Green Party of Canada as well.
They didn't elect anybody, but they were successful.
Every establishment, national political party except us, they have a green platform against climate change, including the Conservative.
They won the battle of ideas.
So we have a role to play and will play that role.
We can win by being in the opposition, being elected, but also we can win by influencing and pushing the Conservative Party to the right and doing the right thing for the country.
Polyev is afraid to speak about immigration right now, and he was afraid to, and he's afraid to speak against the Paris Accord.
Maybe a day will change.
And when it will change, that would be a victory for us.
I look at your position with a political party that doesn't have seats, but you have candidates, you have organizations, you're traveling, you're in Toronto here today.
And I think in some ways, I understand what you're doing because we too don't have any seats, but we're always campaigning.
You know, we're always putting out ideas.
And because we don't get government money, we're always crowdfunding.
Well, that's like a political party, always fundraising.
And so I was thinking: are you really describing a kind of think tank?
Because you talk about the Green Party as being an idea generator that the other parties copied.
You talk about Preston Manning as being an idea generator that even Jean-Cretain copied in some ways.
Is the people's, is a future for the People's Party that you are sort of the keeper of the flame of what freedom and populism and grassroots sovereignty means?
Because that could pack some real punch.
I don't know if the Conservative Party of Canada is trying to steal your ideas, but if you were a think tank, I don't know, I'm not telling you what to do.
I'm just trying to imagine.
What is it like?
What is an BBC?
The BBC is a principled political party.
Because when I'm speaking about big ideas, and we don't change our platform at every election, that's a big difference.
The Conservative, if you look, if you go, and I hope people will go to the Conservative Party of Canada website and try to find Pierre Polyev's electoral platform.
They won't, because Polyev doesn't know what he will believe in when the election will come.
He will need to do polling and focus groups.
We are different, and I'm saying that we are doing politics differently because our platform is always the same.
What I said at the last election, I said that at the first election for us in 2019, and that will be the same.
You can go on our website, People's Party of Canada, and read our platform.
So, what I'm telling you, we are speaking about things that may not be that popular today, but we believe that an idea that is not that popular, that doesn't mean that the idea is not just and true.
And an idea does not become just and true because it's popular.
That idea will become popular because we will speak about it.
And the more we speak about it, the more popular it is.
But for the conservative and the liberals and every established political parties, they will speak about something when they're going to see in the pool that maybe there's 50% of the population on that side.
For us, if they're only 5%, 2%, or 3%, we don't care.
We have a vision for this country, and we will push that vision and speak about it.
And actually, I believe that if you look at the past, I was right.
We started that party in 2018 with 0%, 2019, 1.6, and we triple our score in 2021.
And I don't know what will be the future, but we'll have a candidate in every riding, and this party will be ready to do the fight.
So, we are a principal alternative, populist principal alternative, fighting for common sense ideas, and we're not afraid to speak about the truth.
Last question for you.
I remember working, again, I'm thinking my own experience with Preston Manning trying to build the Reform Party and the Canadian Alliance.
And one of the things he tried to do was recruit candidates who had some name recognition.
It was very hard to do because if you were sort of a local celebrity, like a mayor, odds are you would run with a power with a party that had power or that promised you power.
So, he had a tough time getting star candidates.
Same thing like us.
But, you know, there were other people on the team.
For example, Preston Manning found Stephen Harper to be his policy chief.
And over the years, there was a bench of talent that developed.
And I look at Pierre Polyev's team right now, and you can see people that he's sort of grooming to have different positions.
Tell me about the People's Party.
Are there other people who have positions?
Are there other policy bosses or spokesmen?
Is there a member's convention?
Because again, the difference between Kleer Builders, who now has 37 MPs with him, is that he's got a team now and he's expertise and grassroots.
What's the PPC like?
I'm trying to understand how you get from here to where you want to go structure-wise.
Yeah, that was a little bit difficult at our first election to have candidates in every riding with a star status, a star candidate status, if I can express myself like that.
But I can tell you right now, we have candidates who are lawyers, teacher, truck drivers.
So we have different candidates coming from different backgrounds.
But I must admit that we don't have a person that is well known with the mainstream media right now.
But actually, we have about 125 candidates selected and approved for the next election.
We'll do a call for candidates early January.
Our goal is to have our full slate ready before the end of next year.
And I hope that we'll find a star candidate.
But our people are star candidates in their communities.
They are well known in their communities.
And for us, that's important.
I'm going to end with a request.
Yes.
And you can ignore it or you can think about it.
You don't have to ask me now.
But you and I did something similar in 2021.
We both wanted to go to the government-run election debates.
We applied as journalists.
You applied as a political leader.
Both of us were rejected by Trudeau's hand-picked Election Debates Commission.
So here's where we differed.
We went to court in an emergency lawsuit, and we got the federal court to order the Debates Commission to accredit us.
And it gave us a real victory, and we were allowed to go.
I imagine that if, let's say there's an election in 2024, it's going to be, the debates are going to be run by the same government commission.
I think they're going to ban you again.
Why wouldn't they?
My request is that you sue because at least you'll try.
And if, like us, you get in, then you can put these ideas to a wider audience.
Because if, I mean, I love rebel news, obviously, but we are not as big as that leaders debate.
That would be an enormous forum.
And it would be your way of not accepting the cartel.
You would break into the cartel the way we're trying to break into the media cartel.
What do you think of that?
Did you ever regret not suing?
No, we did our best at that time.
And that was their decision.
But also because they put forward a rule.
They just said no for me, but they said you need to have at least 4% of the vote to be part of the national debates.
We had 5% at the last election.
So I'll be there.
And if they're inventing a new rule, I will fight that.
And I will fight that in court for sure.
Now, you know, I'm there.
And I'll be there.
Breaking Into The Media Cartel00:02:38
They will have to change their rule.
And I hope they won't do that, but I cannot trust them.
You're right.
If they're doing that, absolutely, I'll be in front of, I'll be in court and I'll fight that.
I'm glad to hear it.
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
Not just because I like it.
Like I was in court for COVID-19.
You know, I fought that in course with Brian Petford.
We did win, and we are appealing that to the Supreme Court of Canada.
Yes, I'll do that fight up to the end.
Good, because I think that they want to keep out alternative voices in political parties.
They want to keep out alternative voices in the media too.
Yeah, but I'm very pleased that we were successful and I was watching that.
And I must say, you know, I hope that a lot of people will support you.
You know, because our policy on the media is to cut out the fundings, as you know, CBC and everything, and all the fundings to other media.
I want them to fight you at the same playing field, same level.
And now you are raising money.
You're a small business, but it's a very important small business for our democracy.
And I'm very pleased that you are there and doing the same fight for more, you know, another point of view in the media.
When do you think the next election is going to be?
You know, I don't believe that Trudeau and the NDP will call an election.
They won't win right now.
So they will wait until the end, maybe 2025, September or fall 2025.
But the People's Party would be ready for 2024.
And it's sad that we have to wait another maybe two years for that.
I hope we can have an election as soon as possible.
But yeah, we'll be there when the time when they're going to call an election.
We'll be there.
I'll be at the national debates and we'll have the candidates in every riding.
So every single Canadian will be able to vote in line with their values.
What's the website that people can get more information?
People's Party of Candidates and they can follow me on Twitter, Maxim Bermier, on Round Ball, YouTube, and all these social media.
Actually, what I'm doing, you know, to I'm traveling across the country, like you said, but also I try to be present with a lot of influencers on social media, podcasts, like a little bit Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is doing in the U.S. Robert F. Kennedy is canceled by the mainstream media, but he's very popular in the news with the people, sorry, because he's doing alternative media like your media and podcasts.
So that's our strategy to be able to reach more people.
All right.
Well, good luck to you.
Thanks for stopping by.
Thank you, Ezra.
Right on.
There you have it.
Maxime Bernier, the leader of the People's Party of Canada.