Front Burner - The controversial political life of Maxime Bernier

Episode Date: October 3, 2019

In the sixth and final Canadian leadership profile, Jayme Poisson speaks to the CBC’s Jonathan Montpetit about Maxime Bernier, the controversial head of the People’s Party of Canada.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, I'm Jamie Poisson. If you've been listening to the show over the last little while, you know we've been doing profiles on all the major political party leaders. And today, we're going to scratch the final name off our list.

Maxime Bernier, former Conservative cabinet member, now the leader of the People's Party of Canada. Some people in September last year, they were saying it's only a one-man party. But look, with these men and women and people who believe in the freedom ideas, I'm not alone. That party and Bernier have proved controversial throughout this campaign. Flashpoints have been Bernier's stance on immigration and the people or groups with far-right views that have supported the PPC. Today, I'm joined by the CBC's Jonathan Malpetit in Montreal to discuss the political life of Maxime Bernier.

This is FrontBurner. John, hey. Hey, Jamie. Thanks for being here. So let's talk about Maxime Bernier today, our final federal leader profile. And can we start with what he did before politics? There was this really great profile written a while ago by Maxon Bernier. He actually, as a student, was so committed to free trade that he memorized large sections of the NAFTA deal. Really? And yeah, so I think this is actually a good thing to keep in mind throughout our conversation about what his outlook on life is informed by.

Yeah, that's a good anecdote. So he graduates with a law degree and his first kind of real big job is working for the Parti Québécois, the Parti Québécois government in the late 90s. He worked for about two years and identified as a sovereigntist. After that, he goes into the finance and the insurance industry, and he moves away from sovereignty, embraces federalism, but really doubles down on his commitment to free market principles and his belief that the market is the solution to all social problems. Right. These are like sort of fundamental libertarian conservative principles like freedom of markets, political freedom, individual choice. Classic libertarian philosophy.

Then he gets a job at a free market think tank in Montreal called the Montreal Economic Institute. And here, Bernier begins to kind of develop a bit more of a public profile. He's often in the media talking about studies that the Institute does. He actually published a book in 2003, which calls for a flat tax. And so a flat tax is basically where everybody would pay the same tax rate. And he says the progressive tax rate, which is what we actually have in Canada at the moment, he says a progressive tax rate is a form of discrimination against rich people. I think that really illustrates just how committed he is to the libertarian ideology.

And then from the Montreal Economic Institute, he gets recruited by Stephen Harper. And then from the Montreal Economic Institute, he gets recruited by Stephen Harper. And Harper basically says to him, hey, man, why don't you run for us? And why don't you run in the Beauce, the region, the riding, where your dad was a MP for the Progressive Conservatives for a long time? Right, right. I mean, his dad was a big player in the Conservative Party for a while, right? And he was also a very popular radio host. It's interesting, you talk about the Beaus, you know, obviously the Bernier family has a big profile there, but the town itself is also sort of in keeping with Bernier's like entire ethos,

right? Like it is known for entrepreneurship. The Beauce is, yeah, kind of known as the entrepreneurial pulse of Quebec. It's this area actually that kind of extends just south of Quebec City all the way down to the main border. It's kind of in the north part of the writing is largely agriculture, dairy farmers who will feature a prominently Bernier's career. And in Saint-Georges-de-Beauceently in Bernier's career. And in Saint-Georges-de-Beauce, where Bernier's from and his family is from, you get a lot of small business owners. It's a lot of industrial parks, manufacturing, steel, textile, that kind of stuff like that.

And it's kind of a classically conservative area. The whole Quebec City area tends to vote conservative at the federal level. The Beauce is for a long time considered the heart of the conservative movement in Quebec. You know, let's talk about Bernier's time in government a little bit. You know, I think for a lot of people, he probably came on the scene when he was a cabinet member in Stephen Harper's first cabinet. He was one of the few MPs from Quebec for Harper, and he was named the foreign minister, which is a pretty sweet posting. Bernier strode onto the national stage just 19 months ago. And Bernier has no international experience politically. His friends say his savvy and leadership skills will make up for his lack of experience. He believes in what he does. He believes in what he says.

And he's a great team player. And how did he do in that job? Well, things started off quite well for him. In August of 2007, he shows up at Rideau Hall for the swearing-in, and he's accompanied by his new girlfriend, Julie Couillard. They're a very attractive couple, and they're on the front page of every newspaper in Quebec and a lot of newspapers in the rest of Canada the next day.

Probably a little bit of sexism going on here. A lot of people were commenting on what Julie Couillard wore. Yeah, I remember this. Wasn't the outfit typical of a partner of a Conservative cabinet minister? When she got out of the car that's wearing in, I thought, you know, who's that? Was that his girlfriend, his sister, his cousin? We all asked the same question. We had no idea.

You had no idea who she was. So it started off quite well. He goes to Afghanistan as foreign minister. He hands out Joe Louis in Afghanistan. I remember this, too. People are like, don't be handing out Joe Louis in Afghanistan. You know, this is a serious situation. Here's a life or death situation.

What are you doing handing out Joe Louis? Should be noted, Joe Louis are made in the boats. So he caught a lot of flack for that. And then in the spring, about a year, just under a year into the job, reports begin to surface. It turns out that Julie Couillard had been married to a member of the Rockers, which is a big biker gang, like an organized crime here in Quebec. The prime minister weighed in.

I hear that one of my cabinet ministers has an ex-girlfriend. It's none of my business. It's none of Mr. Doucette's business. It's none of Mr. Dionne's business. Mr. Doucette and Mr. Dionne are quite a group of gossipy old busybodies. The private life and the past of my ex-girlfriend, people's private lives are none of your business. And then she gives this interview to TV, a big television network here in Quebec.

What happens is that during the interview, she says, Maxime Bernier, foreign minister at the time, left classified documents about a NATO meeting at my house. That document made me very uncomfortable. I was told by my lawyer that the document in question was the property of our government and it had to be returned to them. So this was the last straw for Harper. All of my ministers have to respect the key roles of government and obviously the key role one of the key roles is government. You obviously don't disclose classified materials.

Whether Harper, whether he was fired or, you know, resigned under, you know, officially he resigned. But behind the scenes, we understand that Harper kind of gave him no choice. Maxim Bernier is devastated. He's devastated, you know, to be stripped of a cabinet portfolio. And what he does, he hops in his car and he drives to a monastery in the eastern townships and spends a week. A monastery. Exactly. A monastery. Spends his days in complete silence. And then at night, apparently, discusses his political future with the monks there. Should I quit? Should I not quit? And in the end, he decides not to quit. And just a few months

later, is reelected in the boast with a crushing majority. Have you forgiven Mr. Bernier? I, Mr. Bernier, Maxime is a great friend and a great member of my team. Obviously, he mends some fences with Harper because he makes his way back into cabinet in a smaller posting, the Minister of State for Small Businesses and Tourism in 2011, and later agriculture is added to that. And then when the Conservatives lost the election in 2015, he becomes a member of the opposition's shadow cabinet.

And then in 2017, of course, he runs to be the leader of the Conservative Party. He says he will be the candidate for small government, low taxes, and end to subsidies for big business. I think it's time for our conservative movement to have a leader who speaks openly with passion and conviction. And he was the frontrunner. What happened? Well, as you may remember, things did not turn out well for Max Le Bernier.

Not the way that he wanted them to. Not the way that he wanted. So he really was the favorite going into the race. He seemed to be polling well. Right up to the eve of the vote, it looked like it was his race to lose. Maxine Bernier had led throughout the previous 12 ballots. The Conservative leadership race had a kind of complicated system. It's a ranked ballot system and basically had to go through lots of rounds of voting in order to get to 50 percent. In every round, Bernier was tops. Scheer was second until the final round, the 13th round of voting.

And the next leader of the Conservative Party of Canada with 51 percent of the vote. The prochain chef, Andrew Scheer. What happened to allow Scheer to come over the top was, I think there are two things here. One is a social conservative. So Maxime Bernier, his whole life has been pro-choice. His whole life has been pro-choice. And right at the end of the final rounds of voting, social conservatives like Brad Trost, as they drop out of the leadership race, they throw their support behind Andrew Scheer. And that kind of tips him over the top.

So the other thing that Maxime Bernier felt worked against him was that his opponents in the leadership race went to Quebec dairy farmers and signed them up as conservative members. Now, a big part of his campaign platform was an end to supply management. Right. We'll bring the price back to the real market price, which would be half the price for poultry, milk, and eggs. Maxime Bernier hates supply management.

As we will, about to find out just how much he hates supply management. It's really part of his core being. And again, it's part of his libertarian mindset. You know, the government should not be setting prices. It's the free market who should be setting prices. And just for our listeners, you know, supply management is defined essentially as limiting the supply of things like dairy, poultry, eggs to ensure this like predictable, stable price. You know, as you mentioned before, lots of dairy farmers in Bernier's writing as well. So he's had to contend with them. Exactly, exactly. And Bernier felt like, you know, people were kind of signing up these farmers just for the vote, and none of them renewed their membership cards. And so he felt there

were some politicking, so to speak, behind the scenes that worked against him. Right. And basically, it's this resentment or this feeling that dairy farmers cost him the conservative leadership essentially gets him kicked out of his shadow cabinet position because after he loses the leadership bid, he publishes a chapter of this book that he wrote where he basically goes on the record. Bernier started writing a book called Doing Politics Differently. It was a chapter about supply management.

And notably in that chapter, Maxime Bernier suggested that Andrew Scheer won because of, in his words, fake conservatives. Exactly. And so he relates in this sample chapter that he begins to circulate while he is still a member of the shadow cabinet. He's still a member of the caucuses at this point. And basically he relates how after the race, Scheer goes up to him and says, look, man, I know that you're against supply management, but for the sake of the party, you have to get up behind the position. And the position of the party is we support supply management. Bernier is like, I can't.

It's just too fundamental to me. I can't. It goes against every fiber of my being. And he has to speak out. And that kind of begins the process of his divorce from the Conservative Party. Right, right. You know, this chapter gets released in June 2018. And he quits the Conservative Party. that what we will get if Andrew Scheer becomes a prime minister is just a more moderate version

of the disastrous Trudeau government. I have come to realize over the past year that this party is too intellectually and morally corrupt to be reformed. But a little bit before that in August, But a little bit before that, in August, we start to see something that's familiar now for people, but maybe hadn't been up until this time. And that's Maxime Bernier tweeting about things like extreme multiculturalism, right? So let me read you one of the tweets that he wrote in August of 2018, which also caused a lot of controversy. So, quote, Trudeau's extreme multiculturalism and cult of diversity will divide us into little tribes that have less and less in common apart from their dependence on government in Ottawa. Those tribes become political clienteles to be bought with taxpayer money and special privileges. And so how did other conservatives react at the time? They reacted very negatively.

They felt that Maxime Bernier was beginning to use rhetoric that was outside the pale of Canadian politics. If he was embarrassed, Andrew Scheer chose to avoid confrontation. Conservatives will continue to recognize and celebrate the contributions made to Canada from people from diverse backgrounds that have enriched our history and society, said a spokesperson. He's an individual member of Parliament. He doesn't speak for the party. I think Canadians know where we stand. He doesn't speak for the party. He speaks for himself. Multiculturalism is such a fundamental part of

the Canadian discourse. And even though you can be critical of it, they felt that the way he was critical of it was beginning to engage in kind of a more divisive politics, engage in more of the populist rhetoric that we see in, say, the United States or in Europe, which takes the critique from multiculturalism kind of outside of the kind of safe area and into this more divisive, potentially xenophobic rhetoric. The Trudeau government, they're focusing on diversity,

diversity and diversity. And I'm not against that. But the goal must be unity in diversity. We, people who came here, they came here to share the Canadian values, the rule of law, equality between men and women, respect, tolerance. Tony Clement's response at this time was really interesting. So he supported Bernier in the leadership race for the Conservative Party. And he said, quote, the Max Bernier that I supported during the leadership race wouldn't have taken the position that he's taking now. I think that Max may soon find that he's a guy raging at the sky rather than being taken seriously on some of these things. And I think,

you know, you just go back to that leadership race. Kelly Leach was in that leadership race. She proposed a values test for newcomers to Canada. Maxime Bernier ridiculed her and said she was engaging in Trump-style politics. And as you know, we're not like in the U.S. We don't have the same problem in the U.S. with illegal immigrants. It is not the same thing. I think we are opening to immigration, and we don't need this karaoke version of Donald Trump. Lo and behold, a few months later, he begins using the same kind of rhetoric

that he criticized her for using. then free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Over the past three weeks, I have received thousands of messages of support from Canadians across the country who want a real choice in October 2019. And of course, as you mentioned, he quits the Conservative Party. He starts his own party, the People's Party of Canada. We want a smaller government because we support individual freedom and personal responsibility. We have faith in people. We have faith that they have the ability, the dignity and the right to make their own decisions and determine their own destiny.

And let's talk a little bit about what they're running on. Sort of unsurprisingly, Maxime Bernier wants to end supply management, but let's go through some of their other main policy planks. So we were talking about multiculturalism just a bit before, and so he wants to repeal the Multiculturalism Act, and that kind of goes with his plan to radically reduce immigration in Canada. So our current figures are somewhere in between 280,000 to 350,000 per year. He wants to drop that down to 100, between 100 and 150,000 every year,

which is a big, big change from what we're used to seeing in Canada. For us, it is mass immigration. If you have 250,000 a year newcomers every year, after three years, you have a million people. That's the population of Nova Scotia. In this federal election, you know, of course, the influx of migrants at the border have been a topic that has been debated among the parties. The actual number of immigrants has not really been a controversial one among the other major parties. No, I think the general figure, plus or minus a few tens of thousands, is generally in the same ballpark. And so for his proposal, it's almost more than a 50% reduction,

depending on how you calculate it, is really a big shift in Canadian immigration policy. Okay. And let's go through some of the other policies that we're seeing from this party. Another thing that he's proposed to do is hold back funding from universities who don't, quote, protect free speech. You know, anybody who follows American politics will hear a certain resonance there. You know, a big issue for a lot of American conservatives. There is also his positions on climate change, which are fairly controversial, to say the least. Right. He kind of bemoans climate alarmism. There's no climate change urgency in this country.

Kind of saying, you know, I don't see what the big need is for us to rush to reduce emissions. He does not believe that there is a scientific consensus on the fact that climate change is man-made. Other factors like the sun, like other, the river, the ocean. I'm not a scientist. We are not scientists, but we are doing politics based on facts. And we know that other scientists are having another point of view. There's also got into a fair amount of controversy over his critiques of Greta Thunberg. Right. He's called her mentally unstable on Twitter, which is a comment that he's walked back, but he certainly did that on Twitter, and it was out there for several days. He's pro-pipeline. He wants to find a buyer for the Trans Mountain Pipeline,

because, you know, obviously, keeping with his, like, libertarian, conservative roots, he doesn't think that the government should own the pipeline. We need to have a pipeline that would be viewed by the private sector. No, exactly. So he hopes to encourage or have the private sector come in. Pipeline, of course, is very unpopular in Quebec, in his own backyard. He's faced a lot of resistance there. And it's actually quite interesting. You know, I monitor a lot of far right groups here in Quebec and what they say online. There's a lot of openness to his positions on immigration, but a lot of these groups also are opposed to the pipeline policies. And a lot of them see that as a big strike against Bernier. You know, let's talk about social issues,

because as you mentioned before, this is one of the reasons why he lost the conservative race. Where does this party stand on social issues? Yeah, so we mentioned that Bernier for his whole life, at least his voting record in the House of Commons, he's consistently supported pro-choice policies. But now he's kind of opened his party to people from all walks of the ideological spectrum, especially those who will say controversial things about, say, trans rights. So again, it's Bernier taking on this new dimension to his conservatism.

He, you know, for so much of his life had been this economic libertarian, and now he's kind of engaging in identity politics, you know, that people who have known him for a long time find this is kind of a new battleground that he's taken to. Let's talk a little bit about his rallies as well, which have also come under criticism.

So last weekend, 100 people showed up to a protest at Mohawk College in Hamilton Hamilton and four people were arrested. Tell me a little bit more about that. So Hamilton obviously has its own issues with far right and so there were some anti-racism protesters and some community activists out there decrying Bernier's positions on especially immigration. There was a confrontation outside and video was being circulated. Basically, I think the moment that was captured that went viral was an Antifa protester.

Right, dressed in black with masks on. Exactly, confronting an elderly couple who were trying to access the Bernier rally. Right. And so this has kind of been one of those issues that's been quickly appropriated by Bernier supporters and other people on the conservative spectrum who say that, look, you know, free speech, the radical left is opposed to free speech.

And Bernier himself tweeted out his support for this elderly woman. You know, these kinds of scenes are beginning to become a bit more common outside of Bernier rallies. There was, you know, a rally in B.C. where a bunch of people were also trying to shout him down. Protest on the campaign trail is not unusual, but protests that are this vocal and this confrontational are something that we're not used to seeing on the federal campaign trail. Right, right. There have been a couple other moments that I also want to highlight here. He was photographed with members of a far right group connected to soldiers of Odin. You know, he has since said that he didn't know who they were and that people are like welcome to come to his events. But like he does denounce people with those views. But, you know, one candidate, Brian Misra,

says he was dropped by the party after asking Bernier to publicly denounce racism. If you can't be adamantly clear about that, I don't know how the hell you expect me to campaign for you, right? You're putting, like, the onus on me to show that we don't do this. Like, do you understand? I mean, you should understand how hard it is to canvas and talk to people. I don't want to be berated by people who think I'm an actual Nazi.

And another candidate actually dropped out himself, Chad Hudson in Nova Scotia. He said he dropped out because of, quote, recent information regarding the People's Party of Canada's values and the choice its leadership have made. And this is something we've seen, too, even before the campaign with the Writing Association in Manitoba, which resigned en masse over the kinds of people who internal confusion over what the party's identity is, what its principles are, and how it's trying to go about building a support network. So, look, the polling says that he's at about 2 to 3 percent across the country. The People's Party of Canada is at 2 to 3 percent. I think it's fair to say he's not going to be prime minister. But polling also shows that he has a good chance of winning in his own riding. And there's such an interesting fight going on there right now because, you know, as you mentioned before, this has been this conservative stronghold, right? For many years, conservative stronghold, and the conservatives

really want to prevent Maxime Bernier from winning this. They've recruited somebody they consider a star candidate, this guy called Richard Lehoux. He's got a great experience in the region at the municipal level, agricultural level, economic development level as well. He's got the support of 20 mayors in the Beauce region. It's a great sign for our party. I'm very confident that we're going to keep this riding blue in the next election. And so he comes from a long line of dairy farmers. So here again, this kind of the other running theme of Max and Bernia's career, supply management and dairy farmers. This guy is like, you know, a fourth or fifth generation dairy farmer. He was a local mayor for many years.

So somebody who really has high profile in the riding. And my colleague, Kate McKenna, was just up there the other day. She's saying every lamppost, every telephone pole has a picture of Max and Bernier on it. Wow. He's taking this really seriously. And I think it really speaks to how close this race is, but also for the Conservative Party, the potential of excluding Maxime Bernier from the House of Commons.

If they're able to defeat the threat in Beauce and the People's Party is without a seat, I think for Conservatives, it would kind of potentially eliminate the threat now of the People's Party to their own support and kind of remove this party from being a long-term thorn in its side in the years ahead. The idea that if you have a seat in the House, you know, you've got a voice. The People's Party may not be polling very high, but they only need to be polling, say, between zero and five percent to potentially sway a few

ridings in what's a very close election. It's interesting to me, this guy who Andrew Scheer, you know, ends up beating in the conservative leadership race could potentially, and again, we don't know yet, but could potentially cost him the election if they spoil enough ridings where things are really hot between the Liberals and the Conservatives and they take enough votes. You know, if you're a novelist, you couldn't write a better ending to the election campaign. But I think it's really important to point out that the People's Party of Canada, for a lot of people in this country, you know, represent something dangerous, representing an area where Canadian politics hasn't really gone before. So on the one hand, Maxime Bernier cuts a kind of interesting figure for us journalists.

But on the other hand, there's a lot of people out there who are very worried about what the People's Party means to the institution of Canadian democracy. Jean-Montpetit, thank you so much. My pleasure, Jamie. So earlier this year, we went to a Bernier rally. You can find that episode in our feed. You can also find the five other leader profiles that we've done in our feed as well. That's all for today.

I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening and see you all tomorrow.