We crashed the Conservative convention—here’s what members told us

Transcript:

Conservative party delegate: Well, do you really want to know my answer?

Yuri, the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers mascot: We’re just expressing our views as correctional officers.

Martin Lukacs: Doesn’t that throw people out of work and make them suffer?

Delegate: It’s gonna happen it’s either inflation is gonna make you suffer, or you can.

Lukacs: What’s got you excited at the convention?

Delegate: Only one person, Pierre Poilievre.

Lukacs: He’s been talking a lot about, you know, supporting workers and taking on the establishment. What are your thoughts on that?

Delegate: I think those are just kind of idle words. I don’t know what it means, and so that means very little to me. It’s just to appeal to a certain group, just because it gets them on their side, I’m not sure.

Nora Loreto: What is on your mind?

Delegate: Same thing that’s on the minds of all Canadians right now: cost of living, and basically survival. You know what’s on my mind? Single moms that are having to leave their homes they’re in because they can’t afford to rent.

Loreto: So what in the policy of the party or at this convention would specifically make that woman’s life better?

Delegate: We’re going to empower municipalities to build more homes, get rid of the gatekeepers, free up land. Canada has the most land, second largest country in the world.

Loreto: Rent would not be affected by that. So how do you actually address something like rent affordability or food affordability?

Delegate: Well, rent’s affected by supply and demand. So we have more supply, brings the demand down, and rent’ll come down. I gotta go. I’m starving.

Delegate: But if you add two bedrooms and a bathroom and a kitchen, you should get an extra $60,000 in value. That’s my initial assessment. Okay. I think it’s worth it. I’m telling you can get an extra $60,000. If you spend $40,000 then I don’t know if it’s totally worth it.

Delegate: As a realtor, you know, housing prices went up. I got a lot of happy clients and so forth, but it’s not sustainable. I mean, where’s everybody going?
What would Conservatives do specifically to make life more affordable for Canadians?

So supply and demand, basic economics. If you provide more supply, then there’s more of things.

Lukacs: I mean, we’ve seen supply increase in housing, and that’s only lead to higher prices.

Delegate: I don’t know about that.

Lukacs: Tell me your name, animal or human.

Yuri: I am Yuri, and I am the UCCO SACC CSN mascot for correctional officers of Canada. We’re just expressing our views as correctional officers, to our Conservative leaders.

Lukacs: Can I ask you about the disproportionate rates of incarceration of Indigenous women?

Yuri: I actually can’t speak on that because I work in a male facility, so that would be wrong for me to talk about. I don’t know the statistics offhand.

Lukacs: But what about the disproportionate rates of incarceration of Black and Indigenous men?

Yuri: Again, I don’t really discriminate.

Loreto: Do you think it would help Poilievre or be liability for him to come out in favor of positions like banning abortion, other, you know, other social conservative issues that you’ve talked about?

Georges Buscemi, president of the anti-abortion Quebec Life Coalition: It’s a call that he has to make, and I think that he has to make this point, however, he makes it, but he has to make it. He has to defend innocent life. We want to protect the weak, these points have to be made by any leader who is principled. Now how he does it, when he does it, that’s his choice.

Loreto: Talk to me a little bit about how much support you think that you have at this convention? Do you have a percentage idea?

Buscemi: We have a good portion of grassroots voters who are with us in the Conservative party. Percentages are hard to estimate, and on top of that, this particular convention, the dominant note, I would say is one of: let’s not fret about issues which may be divisive, or which may cause us trouble at any kind of impending election, any kind of imminent election, we are set to win. We have a great leader who seems to be having a lot of success. Our war chest is full. Let’s not fool around. Let’s not talk about social issues.

Lukacs: Can I ask you about some of the resolutions that have been getting, you know, media headlines? There’s one that would prohibit trans women from using women’s washrooms? What are your thoughts on that?

Delegate: I think it’s brilliant. I make no bones about that.

Delegate: Well, do you really want to know my answer? I’ve been interviewed on this before.

Lukacs: Sure.

Delegate: It’s a no. Right?

Lukacs: What’s the concern about letting trans women use women’s washrooms?

Delegate: Of course, most males, male-born people, are not violent. We know that. They’re very nice people, most people, but there are a few predators that have recently been using the trans excuse to come in and be predators against women and females.

Lukacs: If someone wanted to commit assault, what would stop them from going into the washroom of the opposite sex anyway?

Delegate: Very few assaults happen when it was female only bathrooms. It happens now because they’re allowed to be in there.

Lukacs: Is there actually evidence for trans women committing these kinds of assaults, or is it just based on a, you know, bigoted stereotype about trans people being predators?

Delegate: No, I’m just saying I don’t think all trans people are predators, we don’t. It’s just males tend to predate on females, and we’re just saying we need a private safe space.

Lukacs: But they’re not males, they’re trans women.

Delegate: I mean, the mainstream media likes to talk about it to wedge Canadians, so apart from everything, I mean, everybody’s focused on affordability and housing here, it’s only the media that brings it up.

Loreto: Except there was a riding that served this motion, so obviously, there are some people here who care about that.

Delegate: And the biggest problem is climate change, and the World Economic Forum. We shouldn’t be following those agendas. Carbon tax is wrong. CO2 is wonderful for plants, trees, and whatever else, and the more CO2 we have, the better the plants thrive, and we need plants, that’s the essence of civilization, if you’d like. If you don’t have plants, you don’t have people. So CO2 is good.

Lukacs: So you’re not worried about the extreme weather disasters that are being exacerbated by climate change?

Delegate: No, the extreme weather is no more extreme now than it was years ago. But so, you know, was just as bad back then. That’s weather. Nothing new about that.

Delegate: The biggest issue right now is honestly it’s not, I would say unemployment is going to increase because of inflation, if in order to, what do you call it, control inflation? You need a higher unemployment rate.

Lukacs: Doesn’t that throw people out of work and make them suffer?

Delegate: It’s gonna happen. It’s either inflation is gonna make you suffer or you can…it’s bound to happen really.

Lukacs: What if instead of, you know, throwing people out of work, we tax corporations so that that would bring inflation down?

Delegate: Taxing corporations, like if we tax them, they’re gonna end up taxing the regular people. If you always look at it, when we tax the corporations, they end up taxing us.

Lukacs: What about if, you know, instead of throwing people out of work, the government brought in price controls, which is happening in European countries so that, you know, the corporations can’t pass on the costs to customers?

Delegate: Yeah, you could do that.

Conservative MP Melissa Lantsman: Hey, I’m Melissa Lantsman and I am the proud Member of Parliament for Thornhill.

Lukacs: What would you say to people who say that, you know, Pierre’s pro-worker posture is just the kind of populist cover for a big business agenda of Conservatives?

Lantsman: Well, I haven’t heard anybody but you necessarily say that. Look, I would say that we have a leader who is in tune with what Canadians are actually talking about. We are the only party in the House of Commons, we are the only party in this country actually talking about affordability because that’s what Canadians are talking to us about. Thanks very much.

Lukacs: Thank you.