>> Steve: In the last three federal elections, the conservative party won plenty of
votes.
But not enough to win.
Political consult Andrew Leslie long-time conservative activist Tasha Kheiriddin, who almost
threw her hat into the ring for this year's leadership contest maps out what she sees as a road
to victory for her are party in her new book, called "The Right Path: How Conservatives can
Unite, Inspire and Take Canada Forward."
And Tasha Kheiriddin joins us here in the studio great to see you again.
>> Tasha: Great to see you again, too.
>> Steve: Let's do a little background here.
You posit the opinion that the conservative party mostly has two different conservatives.
Club Conservatives and convoy Conservatives.
Who are they.
>> Tasha: They're the new social break down of conservatives.
Really since the convoy came to Ottawa earlier this year you have seen a division played out
within this leadership of people who supported -- if not the means -- the aims of the convoy.
Who felt that pandemic restrictions were too severe.
Who felt the government overstepped in invoking the emergencies act and politicians
including the leader, candice bergen who stood with the supporters of the convoy.
>> Steve: Had her picture taken with them.
>> Tasha: Did indeed.
Posed for photos all that stuff.
Then you have the club conservatives and I reference that because in a way the convoy
conservatives created them.
It's the elite of the conservative party.
But not just elites.
People who have been involved for a long time.
People who may have been members of the Albany club in Toronto that's why I called them club
conservatives.
Mostly centred in eastern Canada who have been long time either bill Davis conservatives or red
Tories or centre right conservatives but who did not share the perception that convoy
conservatives about did.
Law and order is a big issue between them how they saw the convoy and how it played out.
>> Steve: We know they have a lot of things not in common.
Do they have things that unite them?
>> Tasha: They do have things.
This is the thing that this leadership has failed to bring out as much because it really
focused on divisions.
They have the commonality of fiscal conservativism.
They're united in saying throat bums out.
But they are not united in the approach ha-has been taken.
I.e., who are you appealing to?
What is the basis of your position, your rhetoric, the approach.
The cast of it.
Because the convoy conservatives are really populists.
In a sense they're not fully conservative at all.
The aims and means of populism with actually what conservativism was created to
fight because conservativism was created against the French revolution as we know back in
1789 which was a populist uprising a more cautious approach to social change than
populism represented.
Populism is let's go fast, hard, and conservativism is more look to the past, tradition.
Stephen Harper was actually quite a conservative.
He was very incrementalists.
>> Steve: Conservative without the guillotine.
>> Tasha: Conservatives don't love guillotine.
Edmund Burke did not like the guillotine.
>> Steve: Which one are you?
>> Tasha: I would say I'm the common sense Canadian in the middle.
I've never been a member of the Albany club.
I wouldn't say I'm establishment.
I'm centre right, definitely.
I did not support the convoy this is true.
I didn't support it because I felt that if it had gone on for just the weekend I think I would
have understood.
But subjugating the City of Ottawa and border crossings.
The way it devolved into a lack of law and order which is something that a true
conservative really upholds that is a pillar of conservativism is you need order not for order's
sake so everyone knows what to expect and people in Ottawa certainly didn't have the horns
honking 24/7.
>> Steve: You say you're not a convoy conservative.
You say you're not a club conservative.
But you had your own radio, your it newspaper columnist.
You almost ran for the leadership.
You are one of the people who are convoy conservatives and say come on, you're a club
conservative, aren't you?
>> Tasha: That's one of the things relevancy say in the book.
All the demonization of elites it ignores the fact that one of the things we aspire to is to
come from nothing and reach a certain level whether it's elite or influential or other by your
merits, your work.
Which is my story, quite frankly, the story of most I would say new Canadians, the
aspirations for their children is that they can become a club conservative.
It's not that they want them to be held back.
So in demonizing people who have achieved something and many of them if not most of them through
their own work it's actually contradictory to what conservativism is which is the
idea that, you know what?
We want people to have a fair playing field, quality of opportunity.
Work hard and reap the fruits of those labours.
So am I a club -- some people might consider me a club conservative.
I certainly wasn't born one.
>> Steve: Right.
What influence do you think Donald Trump has had on the convoy conservatives in the
country?
>> Tasha: I open with that when trump came to Canada and I say tongue in cheek.
He did have an Ip fluency think in the political culture what we consider acceptable forms of
expression by "acceptable" I mean lines that we probably wouldn't have crossed before.
You know, swearing at the prime minister.
Lots of, you know, "F" Trudeau bumper stickers.
I see them everywhere.
A certain vulgarization of how we express ourselves.
I find that unfortunate.
I understand people are angry and people have been angry through the pandemic for a lot
of valid reasons but it's the way we feel we can let that out that he has brought to our
culture.
And also I think the zones also that, again, this division between the elites, drain the
swamp.
The type of language.
If anyone is an elite in the United States, it would be Donald Trump.
>> Steve: A billionaire property developer?
You think?
>> Tasha: And he plays with people's fears and the common people as you would say he uses
them to get his vision across.
And he plays on that.
And that's a populist, too.
That's why I'm not a populist.
I see populism not as the voice of the people it's a voice of some people but also the use of
people and their problems to advance a political agenda and I have trouble with that.
>> Steve: I don't want to spend too much time on the leadership campaign that is --
>> Tasha: Wrapping up.
>> Steve: A number of people have made the observation that Pierre Pollievre is playing with
the Donald Trump play book.
With elites populism and the elites holding you down.
In fairness, Mr. Pollievre has gained a lot of attention talking about freedom. Andrew
Leslie that is a message that has a lot of resonance in this country at the moment.
You've said it really shouldn't be about freedom, Pierre it should be about opportunity.
What's the difference?
>> Tasha: The polls just came Out validating this that 70% think less of politicians who
support the convoy and the convoy slogan was freedom but the freedom they were advocating
was not the traditional conception either conservative or small "L" Liberal which is
freedom to achieve your dreams, freedom to do what you wish, say what you wish.
It was a freedom circumscribed by the pandemic.
Freedom to not get a vaccine, freedom to not wear a mask.
Those were the freedoms that were taken away.
In a way that's true.
But the point is that that is not what freedom is only about.
And that is why a lot of people look on this and say the freedom I see or champion is when
Gorbachev, when respond Reagan said please Mr. Gorbachev tear down that wall or when Brian
Mulroney said we have freedom in South Africa under apartheid for black people who were oppressed
to a point that we can't even imagine.
You know, people in the convoy, you lost freedoms but it's a different level.
And that is why I feel that by saying "freedom" and also it's seen as a dog whistle,
unfortunately.
Which really makes me sad.
A pillar of conservativism is individual freedoms.
But it's also seen as a dog whistle for racism.
When you use just the word "freedom" and you use that it turns off a lot of people, too.
It turns off a lot of new Canadians.
I spoke to hundreds of people writing this book and the message I heard from new
Canadians over and over was, you know what?
When I hear "freedom" I hear a dog whistle.
It's code.
I don't believe it's talking about freedom it's not what I'm looking for.
I want a better life for my kids.
That's what people in the convoy want, too.
This is the irony that you can get that sense of being blocked and frustrated.
Really you can appeal to that and say we're going to fix that through opportunity be.
>> Steve: That's what the commonality is.
>> Tasha: That's what I'm saying it's just not being expressed.
Language is important.
If you use certain words you will turn off a base of voters that otherwise you could get in
addition to those that are there and you need that base to win.
We're not going to win with just one small segment and not with the base we have now.
>> Steve: This is the issue.
I heard this phrase all the time when I was a kid, can the centre hold.
As I look at politickings from the outside -- not an insider as you are.
And I don't say that in a pejorative way it's wonderful to be an insider.
I'm looking for the centre.
I wonder where it is.
I see a huge chunk of the conservative party that wants to be very much over on the
populist, grievance-based right.
I see a federal Liberal party that acted much more like the new democrats when I was
younger.
I asked not does can the centre hold does it even exist anymore?
Where is it.
>> Tasha: That's the common sense Canadians that's where I would put myself who look at the
two extremes and say I don't see myself in either.
I'm looking for good government.
I'm not looking for too much government but I'm looking for good government.
I'm looking for a fair playing field.
I'm looking for lower taxes.
I don't want to be overgoverned.
I'm not interested in that but at the same time I want to know that the people who are there
are not taking the same directions of conspiracy theories or extreme politics.
That they're interested in my well-being, right?
There's no other agenda in there that's being played just for votes.
Because that's what you end up feel.
And those people -- there are groups -- you know, centre ice Canadians is a group that I am
involved with as well Rick Peterson started that.
Initially, it was basically conservatives who felt they needed to have a voice at the
centre right within the policy process.
It's not a party.
It's a voice outside of it to influence other parties and influence government a and that
I think you are going to see more out of because people are feeling left out of the
conversation.
>> Steve: When you talk about opportunity in the book as being the watch word for unifying
conservatives, the first thing that popped into my head and I think you touch on this in the
book is something NEWT Gingrich called the conservative opportunity society.
And I remember thinking, okay, I know how that ended up.
And Ted Cruz talks about it a lot today.
>> Tasha: He does.
>> Steve: And I don't know why any conservative in Canada who is looking for a unifying,
futuristic, future looking thing would want to hitch their wagon to those two guys.
>> Tasha: It's not hitching it to the buys it's attaching it to the three voter bases we need
and those are the urban conservative, urban/suburban, the new Canadian conservative
and the young conservative.
Arguably, freedom as a concept -- and I found this in my research with the
conservatives I spoke to does resonate particularly with younger people.
If you are a young person, freedom is something that generally you are looking for.
You don't want to be blocked in those aspirations.
Freedom is appealing and that's a watch word I think that Pierre Pollievre is gaining currency
with.
But when you look at the other groups, you know, the suburban family doesn't care, I don't
think, that Canada is the freest country on earth.
We are the sixth freest country in the world.
They care that they can't afford now mortgage rates are rising they can't afford to live where
they want to listen.
They can't afford to buy the groceries they were buying last year or last week.
And Pollievre is hitting on those.
It's discussed in that context.
You want the opportunity to buy groceries.
You want economic policy.
You want that, too, because wages have not kept pace with the cost of living.
This is the big issue.
>> Steve: How does the party in relatively recent memory, how does the party that ran on a
barbaric cultural practices snitch line repave the road to immigrants and refugees and so
on.
>> Tasha: That's why you can't hitch your wagon to something that is associated with racism
in any way and that is a big issue.
That is probably because if that hadn't happened I think there would be less of a sensitivity
around this.
But the party's own report that was done just before -- when I started writing the book it was
one of the pieces I looked at.
It came out in October or another and it found that, indeed the barbaric practices
snitch line was still a factor in the October election.
>> Steve: Seven years later.
>> Tasha: The conservatives are labouring under the impression that there is some kind of anti
immigrant, anti minority agenda whatever you want to call it.
If you tack on a to that support for the convoy or what happened in Ottawa, in particular, were
there were flags that there were some racist elements many that were not but there were some and
they weren't called out sufficiently in my view and other people's view.
So you're associating yourself with that.
And why would you do that, because it's not going to help you with that cohort.
>> Steve: In our last few minutes here you've been helpful to Joan Charest had his run for
the conservative party.
The book is a good read and it is a completely defensible argument.
Are you out numbered in today's conservative party and, therefore, there aren't enough
people who want to hear this message?
>> Tasha: I think there are a lot of people.
Tiff' been going across the country with the book.
It's been really well received.
Honestly people have said my inbox has been filling up with people who say I've read your
book.
Thank you for saying what I've been thinking.
Thank you for laying this out.
I've also been the subject of a lot of attacks in this campaign by certain other camps.
And over my book.
And I'm thinking wow I guess it may beings you nervous because you realize that maybe I'm
saying something that's valid here that's resonating with people and you should listen to
it.
Whoever becomes leader has to understand how are we going to win the next election.
You've got to be able to keep the family together.
And grow the family.
You cannot otherwise.
So, you know, I really don't care.
I wear it as a badge of honour.
The power of the pen is real.
>> Steve: If it is Pierre Pollievre who rips this thing can you imagine can you imagine
putting this forward?
>> Tasha: He has been using the word "opportunity" in a lot of his videos.
His campaign is one they think will win him a leadership.
I personally don't believe that's the way to win the country.
I think you can win the country if you give the message that those missing voter bases -- and
also present conservativism as it really is.
People have an impression.
It is not only about the individual.
It is not only about championing.
It is also about community, the small platoons of society, supporting the family as an
anti-thesis to the state.
There are so many things to say this relates to the average person, local government,
decision-making.
You want power.
You want control over your life.
He why, you want government close to the people.
That's a hugely conservative concept and no one's talking about it.
>> Steve: We are here.
And we thank you for coming in to talk about it.
It this is Tasha Kheiriddin.
Author of "The Right Path" Good to have you here, Tasha.
>> Tasha: Thanks so much, Steve.