Well, Derek Sloan, leadership
candidate, as you know,
freedom of expression is a vitally
important issue.
Sixty three percent of the viewers
of the B.C. debate, which I
directed, voted.
Free speech as the most important
issue. In fact, out of the 42
ridings.
A majority of them requested
free speech as a topic.
And it was discussed.
But I really wanted to speak to each
one of you and get a deeper
understanding of your platform on
this, because clearly there's a huge
demand for it.
So, you know, to start off,
why do you feel that free speech is
so prominent at the moment?
Well, I think we're seeing more and
more the cancel culture
that's rampant
not just on university campuses,
although it is rampant there, but
elsewhere.
And I was pleasantly
surprised, but not truly surprised
to see that being the
number one issue for in
terms of response in my campaign.
Any issue dealing with freedoms,
whether it and I've done webinars
with free speech as a subject,
I've done webinars with freedom of
religion as a subject.
Anything dealing with freedom.
Those webinars have just been jam
packed. And it's clearly
freedom is clearly an issue that's
resonating with conservatives.
And I've said several times, we need
to make our election strategy
based on freedom, not on, you know,
boutique tax credits, but on,
you know, structural values like
freedom.
Yeah, well, absolutely.
I mean, I couldn't agree more.
You know, in terms of what we
do at UBC and nationally,
the Free Speech Club
deals with young individuals who
care about freedom. They may not
necessarily be conservative,
but, you know, a lot of younger
folks who volunteered
during the election, they weren't
motivated around tax
cuts or taking the GST
off of the home heating.
You know, it's just not it's
not really inspiring when
you compare it to freedom of
expression.
You know, your slogan is
conservative without apology, which
I think speaks a lot to
the issues in the conservative
movement.
Do you feel, you know, that
there is a splinter in
conservatism in terms of people
who see free speech
as an issue and say, you know,
that's too controversial?
And people like yourself who are
willing to tackle it head on?
Yeah, I think there's certainly
there's certainly a difference
between a faction of the party
that believes we need to go along to
get along.
And another faction which
believes that we have to stand on
our principles.
I don't think any conservative would
say free speech is unimportant.
And I think probably every
conservative would consider that
free speech is under attack.
But, you know, we actively have
to address these issues.
And it means said dealing with
controversy. I mean, you know, no
one who's getting canceled or
or banned on university campuses
is the reason they're getting banned
is because they're not toeing the
politically correct line in some
way.
And so, you know, we as
conservatives have to be
you have to be confident enough to
say, you know, free speech is a
value where even if I don't
necessarily agree with what someone
else is saying, I have to.
I mean, we used to we used to say
things or or, you know, some people
used to say things like, you know, I
may not agree with what you have to
say, but I will die to protect your
right to say it. I mean, I don't
think anybody says
things like that anymore.
And nobody really
stand strong and free speech.
Very few people and
very few even fewer in politics.
Interesting. So, you know,
free speech is an indefinitely
vital to society.
I think we both agree on that.
How do we balance the criticisms
that we're going to receive that I
receive a lot and no doubt you
probably do from our opposition,
which has all well, you know, you
support free speech.
That's just, you know, hidden
hate speech.
You want to promote hate speech.
How do we articulate to the voter
and to the membership and to the
general public that we're not
promoting anything hateful,
we're just promoting freedom of
expression?
Yeah. You know, and it's interesting
because that's actually the very
trick that the left is lefties
used to weaponize
political discourse and hate
speech laws generally.
And basically their move
is to define anything
that runs counter to their political
aspirations, their political goals
as hate speech.
Now, it's true, for example,
that the courts have not weaponized
the concept to the same degree as
as the left would like them to.
But the fact that, you know, we have
these laws means
that. And as you know,
these left wing activists, which I
went to school at law school with,
as they start to populate the bench,
we're going to start seeing a
movement towards
basically the politicization of
speech. We're already seeing that in
cancel culture.
But we're going to see this movement
where, you know, if you say the
wrong thing, you know, the wrong
think of George Orwell.
You're going to be you're going to
be penalized for it.
And, you know, to to quote George
Orwell, again,
he said, if liberty means anything
at all, it means the right to tell
people what they do not want to
hear.
And you know, it as simple as
that concept may may seem,
we're not seeing that on our
university campuses today.
We're we're seeing, you know,
if you if you say something I don't
like. Well, that's because you hate,
you know, such and such a group.
And therefore, you need to be
silent. So, you know, the
weaponization of free
speech is very troubling.
Or the weaponization of speech, I
should say, the weaponization of
these laws that try and curtail.
You know, I believe personally that
the protections that we have in law
for free speech,
free for speech
are are sufficient.
I mean, we have laws against
spreading falsehoods.
We I mean, libel and slander.
Right. We have laws against
threatening others.
We have laws against
coaxing others to commit a crime.
I mean, we have all kinds of laws
that deal with creating
situations that might actually cause
physical damage or other damage
to people.
And to me, the
the the construct
of hate speech is created in such
a way that it can be used
politically to silence
political dissent on the other side.
And to me, in a free society, that
should be troubling to anybody.
Yeah, yeah. It does seem to be a bit
of a foot in the door technique to
tug away at your heartstrings
on issues that are very nuanced.
You know,
it all comes down to a what do we do
about it on our end?
We're actually taking UBC to the
Supreme Court because they have now
moved to just cancel
our events that are controversial in
their eyes or that antifa want to
protest. But on a larger scale,
I think a lot of people are curious
about policy.
And that's I think you stand out
there. I think you're very, very
vocal about that.
So I'd love to hear,
you know, your pitch.
What do you got? Let's say you're
prime minister tomorrow.
What do you do?
What do you do about this issue,
which is a cultural issue?
But clearly, there there's a lot of
legalities to it. What do you do
about it?
Yeah. So there's a lot of things
here. And of course, we have the
overall cultural issue, which is
something that isn't changed
overnight.
But we do have another issue
as well, is that we have there's
a lot of human there's a lot of
provincial human rights laws and
commissions that seem
to impact free speech as well.
So, you know, the first thing is, is
that the government can take a
decidedly pro free speech
stand.
So if someone is,
you know, having court issues over
speech that the government can
intervene. They can they can have
the attorney general intervene on
on behalf of that person
when it comes to federal funding
for universities.
We can make that contingent on
robust protections for free speech.
And I believe I was the
first candidate in this race to make
an issue of that particular
funding issue.
We also need to look at
what we need to look at laws in
the federal jurisdiction that that
impact free speech.
So hate speech laws are one.
And I know that that's controversial
to talk about, but we need
to have a real discussion on
the utility of them.
I've also highlighted Bill C 16,
which is a bill that Jordan
Peterson testified against
in the Senate, which became famous.
In part, his initial movie was was
in part about this spill C 16.
You know, again,
we live in a big country where
there's all kinds of people and I
have nothing against transgender
people or any other type of person.
But, you know, to a bill
like C 16, which,
you know, inculcates certain
ideologies into the human rights
system. And basically, if if
if you don't agree with that or
if you don't necessarily understand
or even know certain pronouns and
someone says you have to say it, I
mean, it's a it's a big
imposition on somebody.
And I don't think that any law
should force another person
to to say anything.
So Bill C 16 is it is an
issue that I've taken on head
on. I think that we need to repeal
Bill C, C 16.
Another issue that I've championed
or spoken about is the
issue with social media
and the banning and the shadow
bargaining and the De platforming.
And I think that we need to take
that on. And I think you're right.
You may ask me about that later so I
can I can go into that more later.
But we need to take on this
this banning, because the social
media companies there,
they're basically just doing
whatever they want.
And we're seeing some very troubling
political biases.
I'll just quickly say
I'll quickly say one more thing on
the free speech.
Sorry I'm going on here, but.
No, no, absolutely.
I was just speaking to a couple of
a couple of young conservatives here
in Montreal.
And as as you're probably
aware, being a young conservative
in Montreal is kind of like being a
young conservative at UBC.
You know, there's there's not a lot
of you. And you stick out like a
sore thumb.
So, you know, these these
people over here, they
are getting what's known as
being doxxed where, you know,
someone is is saying where you live
or where your kids go to go
to school.
These people here are being actively
doxxed by and antifa
and other types of groups just for
being conservative.
And, you know, I think
that we need to have criminal laws
against doxing in this country
because it's a form of threatening
people into silence and
be doxing is illegal in some other
jurisdictions.
But we need to have criminal
sanctions against that, especially
when people are doing it with a
malicious intent.
So that's that's another
issue that I'm in favor of.
Yeah, well, I know I know all
about doxing.
Well, as you know, I mean, it's
you get a lot of people who who
want to silence you by posting
where you live, posting pictures of
your loved ones.
There's a lot of malicious people
out there. So I certainly sympathize
with with those young conservatives.
One one of the policies I was
very curious about is the policy
related to social media, which
essentially what you're arguing
is, is to essentially make it
illegal for social media like
Facebook or Twitter to ban someone
unless they committed a crime
or something like that to you.
Can you explain that a bit more on
how that would work out?
Yeah, I'd love to do that.
So, you know, we we have
an issue. And,
you know, Donald Trump has actually
spoken a little bit about this as
well. But we have an issue where
our our social media platforms.
They claim to be neutral platforms
and they are exempted
from things like libel and
defamation
because they they're they're not
they're not a published they're not
a publisher like a newspaper.
They claim to be a neutral platform.
But at the same time, they're
actively, so far
as we can tell.
And there's some good evidence that
this is so they're actively
and politically, politically
censoring people on Facebook
for political views or
even deeply held moral
convictions.
And there was a great
interview done by rebel news
on this issue.
They had a guy that was actually
hired by Facebook during the twenty
nineteen election and his
group was actively deleting
thousands of posts that were
critical of Jagmeet, saying
that we're talking about, you know,
being critical of the open border
situation.
And to me, that is
that is serious.
I mean, Facebook is is viewed as
sort of a medium for exchanging
information.
And a lot of people, for better
or worse, get their information on
social media.
And to think, I mean, we're you
know, on one hand, the left is
talking about Russia, of whoever
it is they think is is putting false
information.
And yet they're they're they're
enabling Facebook from
from censoring real information.
I mean, real Canadians are
sharing their opinion about Jagmeet
or the border,
and they're erasing it like it never
existed. And I think that's
very troubling. So what
I've said is that
is that platforms, if they want to
maintain this is protection
as a neutral platform, they
will need to either, a, have a very
clear code of conduct.
So if you want to say something
like you can't use the F word or
something. That's fine.
I mean, you can express a political
opinion without using the F word,
if that's what Facebook wants to do.
But if they if they
if they if they have a more generic
code of conduct, like, you know, we
want a welcoming atmosphere and no
hate speech and no this,
it could be construed.
I mean, how do I don't understand
how a criticism of Jagmeet Singh, in
all honesty contradicts Facebook?
Code of conduct.
So, you know, whether these
you know, whether the code of
conduct is is appropriate or not.
Facebook and these other
organizations, it's a
Wild West, they're free to do
whatever they want when it comes to
banning and even shadow banning
people. You know, YouTube
will demonetize somebody who's
making their entire living online
just because they don't like them.
I mean, you know, to me, that's
wrong. That's discriminatory.
And if a social media company wants
to do business in Canada, if they
want to be free from
liability for these types of things,
they won't be able to ban someone
for their political views.
So their ability to ban
will be based off of either a very
straightforward code of conduct
or if someone's breaking a law
of Canada. So if they're threatening
somebody, if they're doxing
somebody, if they're
inciting violence, if they're,
you know, inciting terrorism,
I mean, these are things that, of
course, you know, we shouldn't be
giving a platform for.
But if they are expressing an
opinion about the open borders,
expressing an opinion about the NDP,
these are expressing opinion about
a moral conviction, about whatever
abortion or the status
of marriage.
I mean, these are things that people
have opinions on and they should be
free to express them.
Yeah, no, absolutely, I mean, I
think in many ways, 2016,
the election in the United States
set a certain precedent when it came
to freedom of Information
where you now have these major
companies worried that they
can't control information, they
can't control people's freedom to
actually spread information that now
they're they're banning and Shadow
banning. And trust me, in terms of
demonetization on YouTube, I'm
I'm well aware.
And, of course, the other side will
use our own argument against us and
say, well, hey, they're a private
company, you're all for the free
market. Go and make your own version
of Facebook or your own Twitter.
And there are there is parler and
different, you know, news, different
social media sites.
But no doubt something as
big as Facebook and Twitter are at
this point, the publisher.
Right. So I think
I think that's really fascinating.
I just wanted to ask you
one more topic on
your policy. So Billl C16, you
touched on this before, obviously
very prominent, very controversial
as a bill that made Jordan Peterson
very famous.
What is the precedent
specifically on Bill C16
that is troubling to you?
Well, the the
the the implicate, the implication
that Jordan Peterson brought up is
the idea that
provincial human rights courts
have interpreted similar provisions
in such a way that not using
the correct pronoun
in an area that's covered by the
code would constitute
discrimination.
And that was the basic argument that
that Jordan Peterson brought
forward. Now, thankfully,
and maybe, maybe, maybe somebody can
prove me wrong.
I don't know of anybody who has gone
to jail for not using
the correct pronoun that's been
asked of them.
So, I mean, that's good.
But I don't think it changes the
original argument that that, you
know, people like Jordan Peterson,
one of my old professors,
Steve Bruce Party,
these people were bringing this
forward at the Senate and they were
showing how,
you know, not using a
designated pronoun that you were
asked who could be constituted as
discrimination.
It could be followed up with a fine
or some sort of a reeducation
component.
And if you were to refuse to do
that, you could be
called in contempt of court and
eventually thrown in jail.
So that was the line of
reasoning that the different lawyers
were using.
So, you know, I think that that
concern I think that that concern is
real.
You know, I've heard, for example,
a particular case that
the details are not privy to the
public. But there's a particular
case in B.C.
of a father whose daughter
was transitioning
and he didn't want her to.
And there's been a publication ban,
I believe, on the details of that
case. But as I understand
it, Bill C 16 was used
as kind of
a law that was spoken, ever used as
a precedent in this particular
case. So I believe that this was
having far reaching implications and
we don't necessarily know all
of them. But I believe the original
concerns that Jordan Peterson and
others raised are valid.
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, you know, I wanted to ask you,
I find it interesting that we
have a similar history
in terms of our university career
with Jordan Peterson.
You mentioned in the the B.C.
debate that you were part of a
group that invited Jordan Peterson
to campus. I myself, with the Free
Speech Club, have invited him
numerous times.
So I wanted to ask you,
do you feel as though this culture
war
that has occurred on campuses, I'm
sure it's occurred in your own
academic career which involved
Jordan Peterson.
Do you feel as though that has
really shaped you as a conservative?
Yeah. So, I mean, I was certainly
so I was I was certainly a
conservative before
I brought Jordan Peterson to campus.
And I wouldn't necessarily
call myself a Jordan Peterson
conservative, but I
do.
And by by that, I don't mean I
dislike him. I just mean I don't
feel like I'm Jordan Peterson
Junior or anything like that.
But, you know,
I think that Jordan Peter, the case
of Jordan Peterson shows
the broad
the potential for outreach the
Conservative Party has to a broad
coalition because Jordan.
Jordan Peterson
basically may
reach they reached out to a broad
and diverse group of people
who are concerned about cancel
culture and censorship and
other things.
And, you know, the party
best, best able
to capitalize on that
sort of outreach is the Conservative
Party.
And another interesting thing
is that Jordan Peterson
made it, made his hay, so to speak,
on what really would be called a
social conservative issue if it
wouldn't have been him that brought
it up. So, you know you know,
anything to do with transgender
rights or being against
a bill that's related to change.
Transgender rights would typically
be considered a social conservative
issue. And it's very interesting to
me on the intersection
of social sort of social
conservatism and then also the
pragmatic sort of libertarianism
of somebody like Jordan Peterson.
And, you know, often libertarian,
you know, traditionally libertarians
have felt different than social
conservatives. But it's funny that
the nexus of libertarian ideas
right now is really
focusing on, you know, the
transgenderism and the compelled
speech in this area.
So I think it's a way to tie
a lot of loose ends together in our
party.
And, you know, I believe
that, you know, the fact that Jordan
Peterson is so popular with youth
should be evidence to us that
we have to
make liberty and free speech
a bedrock of not only our
party, but our campaign strategy.
And, you know,
I will say when I
when we invited Jordan Peterson to
Queens, I went out to
eat with him afterwards and
I was having a conversation with him
across the table for about three
hours.
And we we
didn't speak about gender or
anything. We spoke about Jordan.
Peterson is one of the most
fascinating people you'll ever meet.
And he has ideas on
his time as a
working with honeybees, too.
His ideas for cleaning plastic out
of the ocean. I mean, the man
has ideas on absolutely everything.
He's a fascinating person and
he's a great example of someone
with intelligence and creativity
and courage and and what a human
being can do if they don't confine
themselves to the politically
correct strictures that that
society tries to put on.
So he's a great person.
And I look forward to
meeting him again.
He was he was somewhat famous,
but not world famous.
When I had him there and I, of
course, was was a mere student
and not a politician.
So I hope our circles,
our paths cross again.
And I wish him all the best.
Yeah.
Well, as someone who who has also
had dinner with Dr. Peterson, I can
attest to the fact that the dinner
is very long and it's him talking
90 percent of the time.
And, yeah, it's it's quite an
experience, especially after he's
already spoken for two and 2 hours
at the event.
I don't know where he finds the
energy, but but I certainly wish
him well. And I agree with you.
You know, I think this goes back to
what we were discussing before,
which was that young people aren't
going to get very motivated by,
you know, we're going to take the
GST off of home heating or
or something like that.
We need something inspiring.
And, you know, when I look at your
campaign and when I look at the fact
that that this is being talked
about, to me, the
free speech issue isn't even a s
con issue or a libertarian issue.
It's just it's a freedom issue.
And to me, it is a winning issue.
If you speak to your average,
you know, hockey mom and dad
and you explain everything that's
going on to them and articulate to
them they'll agree with you.
But I think the other side has just
done such an effective job of
of pushing the Overton Window.
It's sort of.
And it's also that people aren't
public about it.
It's sort of like a dinner table.
Transparency is how I think about
it, where at dinner, when it's
in private, everyone's honest with
you and says, here's what I think,
but I'm too afraid to say it in
public.
So I like you.
I've pushed I've pushed this idea
to the party multiple
times that, look, this is actually
an issue that I believe
is a winning issue.
So I'm really glad to see that
you're. You agree
You know, I asked Erin a similar
question on this.
I know your a father.
And this really matters to you.
Your kids are gonna go to university
one day, and I assume you don't want
them to be indoctrinated.
So you know
what message of motivation
or hope do you give to
a young conservative on campus right
now, a young conservative who feels
like, you know what this is and
I don't have a place here.
I have to retreat and just focus on
myself and the culture is lost.
What could you say to to motivate
them?
Well, you know, I think that I think
our movement is winning.
And I think that,
you know, social media,
for example. I mean, we're seeing an
explosion of,
you know, varieties of opinions and
independent journalism.
And, yeah, Facebook is trying to ban
them in YouTube is  demonetizing
them. But there's the YouTube,
Facebook and YouTube are losing
on that front.
You know, people can find out
anything on the Internet in a matter
of minutes that before they
would have to use a newspaper to
find out.
And, you know, there's
it's it's it's a great day
for humanity that we have the
Internet and other things like this.
I think that our movement
is reaching a tipping point.
I think there's a lot of different
people who are coalescing
behind this
new it's kind of a new conservatism
in the sense that it's very
grassroots oriented.
It's very freedom oriented.
I believe it's a true conservatism.
And I meet people every day that
say, hey, look, I've never been in
politics before.
But like, I think I'm conservative
and I really like what you're
saying.
And I believe there's a lot of
people out there like that.
And I would just say, you know,
you can't keep your head high.
Doing what you're doing is great
over there.
And I would just say,
you know, keep hope to these people.
And I think we're winning.
And it may look it may look
grim, but I think that the
grassroots movement is coalescing
behind us.
And I think we're about to see some
big changes.
I couldn't agree more.
And, you know, I know you're a busy
man, so I thank you for
for coming on and talking about free
speech. It's, again, a highly,
highly requested topic.
So I wish you nothing
but luck in the race.
I know it's sort of go time.
It's homestretch right now.
So I thank you for making time.
I know it's late over there, but
thank you again.
Thank you.
Well, thank you for all the work
you're doing. And I appreciate you
having me on this evening.
All right.
