Nuanced. - 237. Iain Black: Can He Lead the BC Conservatives? DRIPA, Deficits & Deregulation

Episode Date: May 4, 2026

Former BC Liberal MLA and cabinet minister Iain Black is running to lead the BC Conservatives. He sits down with Aaron Pete to discuss B.C.’s $13.3B deficit, DRIPA, deregulation, reconciliation, public sector growth, free speech, vaccine passports, and whether the province can regain economic confidence.Send us Fan MailSupport the shownuancedmedia.ca

Why are you running to lead the BC Conservative Party? I was literally the guy that would get hired when things are not going well. I'd be brought into basically fixed product strategies, corporate strategies, people, and the financial situation. Every organization I got involved and was hemorrhaging money, which if you think about it kind of describes BC at the moment as well. But what's broken in BC that you think needs to be turned around? You know, we've got a $13.3 billion deficit that's been put on the books, which is the highest it's ever been projected. And given the government's track record, I'm not sure they'll meet that rather dismal target. How would you go about deregulating? What does that look like?

When I was in government before, we got rid of 55,000 regulations over a couple of years, which if you put each one of those in a stack of paper, it's a stack 65 feet tall. Why do you want to repeal DRIPA? Because British Columbia has become uninvestable. What is the plan over the long term to bring the reconciliation file to it close? I think the word is finality. That should be the goal of reconciliation. Do you believe that Camloops needs to excavate in order to come to a conclusion on the 215 anomalies?

Ian Black, thank you so much for being willing to join us today. For listeners who might not be acquainted, would you mind introducing yourself? Sure, my name is Ian Black. I am running for the leadership of the BC Conservative Party. I am a career-long technology executive who interrupted that journey as a CEO of a six different organizations to take a run at provincial politics back in 2005 and 2009, where I successfully ran as an MLA and ultimately cabinet minister in Gordon Campbell's administration. Why are you running to lead the BC Conservative Party?

Well, I actually thought my time in politics was done, Aaron. I think, you know, I had a really good experience in it. I've had a wonderful career. I've been great opportunities to lead organizations to make a meaningful difference. And along the way, I developed a particular skill in transformative change, call it a turnaround, if you will. And that's, I was literally the guy that would get hired when things are not going well. I'd be brought into basically fixed product strategies, corporate strategies, people and the financial situation. Every organization I got involved and was hemorrhaging money, which if you think about it kind of describes B.C. at the moment as well. But I thought my time in politics was done.

I really, I loved the experience. I was Gordon Cowbell's youngest MLA and then ultimately his youngest cabinet minister back of the day with three different economic portfolios. And it was a really, it was a privilege to have the job. And you realize the sense of responsibility that comes along with being able to fundamentally change

the life of 5.7 million people with a stroke of a pen. So it's, it's heavy stuff if it's done well by thoughtful people, but it's very meaningful work and I loved it. But I thought those days behind me. So I'm sitting talking to you right now because I've got a profound concern about where we're at as a province and at a broader scale as a country as well. And I believe that my background of fixing things and being a leader who knows how to organize people and get them on the same page,

but also as a pretty deep understanding of economics and indeed public policy, like having sat at the cabinet table, positions me very well for not just leading this party, but going to the general population of our province and asking them for their trust to replace the NDP and to form government. I have a suspicion. Some people are going to roll their eyes when I ask this, but what's broken in BC that you think needs to be turned around? And some people may equally roll their eyes by my answer.

What's working well? I think, you know, we've got a situation now where the provinces, the worst place I've ever seen it financially. You know, I am a business guy. It's easy for me to dip into the numbers. You know, we've got a $13.3 billion deficit that's been put on the books, which is the highest it's ever been projected. And given the government's track record, I'm not sure they'll meet that rather dismal target. But it's the same size as the profits of Ontario.

Ontario has three times our population, right? And they've got the same deficit we do. And Ontario is one of the worst fiscal situations of a subnational government anywhere in the world. So this is not a good place for British Columbia to be. We've had five credit rating downgrades such that we're now spending about six and a half to seven billion dollars a year on the interest on the debt that these guys have accumulated. And let's be clear, that's like two brand new state of the art, St. Paul's hospitals. That's what we're spending every single year on the interest only on the debt that's been accumulated by the NDP. So there's that.

I mean, you know, we're not in a competitive place from a taxation standpoint. point. Investment is fleeing this province, primarily most recently due to the unnecessary anxiety that has been created around the NDPs management on the First Nations file and DRIPA's the obvious poster child for that. But you've also got the fact that nobody can get a family doctor and you've got a school system sending children home from school talking about concepts that moms and dads and dads are not comfortable with at their dining room tables every night. And frankly, we've also, for the first time, at least in my lifetime, we've surrendered our streets. You can no longer go for a walk in the evening down to your local park.

And I don't mean two in the morning. I mean 9, 30, 10 o'clock because we have across this province surrendered our public spaces to criminals and untreated mental health and drug addiction. And so these are all fundamentally flawed problems, or they're fundamentals, rather. And it's having a ton of people look around and going, whatever this is, it ain't working for me. So, I mean, for the first time on our history last year, we had a net migration. out of British Columbia. That's never happened

in our province's history before, ever, right? And it's a lot of them are 40, 40-ish year old, 35 to 40-year-old young moms and dads who are looking maybe just over the Rockies to Alberta where they can buy a house for a third of the price, get higher wages and more money left at the end of the day. And they're looking at that as a better place to raise their families.

And that's got to change. This is an outstanding province if we get it right. And I want to get us back there. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you're positioning yourself as the free market candidate. Can you walk me through that position? How would you go about deregulating?

What does that look like? Sure. I don't position myself as a free market candidate. I certainly understand a lot about the economy. I'm the only one in the race who's actually signed the front of a paycheck as well as the front of legislation. I think my positioning in this is I've got the balance of experience because experience really does matter.

And that there is a lot of risk associated. with picking the wrong candidate in this particular competition because the problems are many. And the job of a premier is not an entry level position. We don't want to be sending people into the premier's office who barely know where the office is, never mind what it does. So there's a lot weighing on this competition that we have to be very, very careful with. So, but you ask me a specific question around deregulation. I think to get our economy back on its feet, there's several things that need to be done quite

candidly. And, but one of them for sure is, is a regulatory bird that is born by businesses small and large. And this, this is, this is something that the NDP has done before. Like, when I was in government before, we got rid of 55,000 regulations over a couple of years, which, if you put each one of those in a stack of paper, it's a stack 65 feet tall. And government does that by way of typically of neglect. If they don't have the discipline from the political masters, making sure that the bureaucrats don't add bureaucracy, it tends to happen. So what I've committed to is, is in the first two years, that we will get a regulatory burden back down to 10% below 2017 levels when the NDP took office. And that will impact our natural resources sectors in a good way.

It'll impact the construction industry and our development industry, which desperately needs some help at the moment in a very good way. But it also clear up a lot of confusion because you, You've got conflicting regulations in a lot of places, often across levels of government. So the regulatory burden is one part of about 15 things that I think we need to do to get the province back where it needs to be. But you ask me about regulation. So there's your answer on that one. The government is also the largest it's ever been in terms of employees and staffing. Yes.

The fear, I'm sure you followed Pierre Polyev's role in the last election. And he was running on addressing the size of government. And since there's a lot of government employees, when they see the idea of downsizing government or reducing the amount of staff, they react. And certainly a portion of why Mr. Poliev was not successful within his own riding was in part because of the people who are working within his region for government, not wanting to lose their own positions. How do you navigate the size of government right now and trying to address that while also bearing in mind that many of those people, people are also voters. Yeah. No, it's, you're right.

I think it's very important to remember the human element of it. I mean, I've, because of how I built my career, like, I've restructured companies and I've merged companies, et cetera, et cetera. And when you are going through that experience, one of your jobs is you are changing people. And I'm, I probably fired over 400 people in my career, uh, directly or indirectly. Um, but until a couple of years ago, when we, when we stopped sending Christmas cards, I got three Christmas cards a year for people that I fired like 20 years ago. And that speaks to the dignity that you have to take to that conversation.

You can't be cavalier about it. But at the same time, when you're the government, you are accountable to 5.7 million people. And when you've got a government that has grown as recklessly as the NDP has allowed this one to grow, we're 55% larger in our province in terms of our civil service compared to when the NDP took office in 2017. Now, this is often where I'd sort of a little joke that says, I mean, I'm sure we all feel 55% better served in every way. way by government. But putting it another way, 60% of all the job creation in the last nine leading into 10 years has been in the public service.

That's like the snake eating its own tail, right? Because those jobs are provided by the taxes created by business and people. And that tax base is shrinking while the cost is going up. And it is unsustainable. And it's got to be reversed. So there is built into my platform as a commitment to reduce the size of the civil service to get it back down to where it should be commensurate with the growth in our province over that period of time. But it is pretty aggressive. And I, as a conservative, I believe

very firmly that anything that can be done by the private sector should be. And so if there is still a demand for the types of work that our public service people were doing, who may be impacted by this, then it's my optimism that the private sector will pick them up in their specific capacities. But it's not government's job to pick winners and losers. And it's not government's job to provide employment. It's government's job to set the table so that the private sector can provide employment. And for the government itself to be as small as possible, but also with a very important understanding that you're providing those sacrosanx services like health care and education and looking for the vulnerable and our seniors, et cetera, et cetera. So it's very, very, very, you know, you have to put the brackets around that very, very clearly.

last point, if I may, when I speak about reducing the size of the civil service, I'm specifically excluding from that any frontline workers. I'm not interested in having fewer doctors, nurses, teachers, social workers, et cetera, et cetera. We've got layers of bureaucracy that have been built in by this government that are not serving the end public particularly well. And that's where you're going to, that's where we're going to find the savings. How do you go about doing that? because I imagine your opposition, whether it's the BC Green Party, and I spoke to Emily Lohen and tried to lay this out in a way that people who lean left might be able to grapple with. Because I basically tried to lay out this argument of, okay, we're spending more on like healthcare than we ever have before.

And to your point, the services are very concerning. So we don't, it's not a lack of spending that's the issue on some of these things. And so when I laid this out to Ms. Lohen, the point. was if you could have your dream policy and it saved you $5 billion, would she accept that? And she said, absolutely. And I said, but everybody else will call that a $5 billion cut, right? And so it's a matter of framing sometimes on how you think about these types of issues. And I think all of you are going to be framed in the light that you are cutting and that this is going to have an impact on core services, even if it is the manager and not the frontline worker, that this is going to have a negative impact. How do you grapple with that argument? Well, there's quite a few. You gave me lots of threads there to pull on. Let's see if I can remember a couple.

First of all, I would accept that argument if those same people would say, listen, I am getting served 55% better by government because of all the extra people they've added over the last nine years. So when they talk about you're going to cut frontline services. I'd say, as opposed to what? Where have the frontline services been added? Show me those areas. And we can have that conversation so that we might ring fence them and protect them if they're providing that valuable service to our tax. pairs. So that's a, that's a good conversation, but I suspect it would be a short one, right?

The other, the other challenge that I've got in, in those conversations is making, is the transparency of where we're at. If you look at Norway as an example, it's a country that's approximately the same size as British Columbia. It's got an economy, not far off ours. It's got an energy sector and they, they've managed that well. They've got a sovereign wealth fund there that is an enormously large fund. And they have a public health care system. Right. For every manager in the Norwegian health care system, British Columbia has 17. And if you want a Canadian example, look at Alberta, right, 25, 20, 20, 25% smaller in population than British Columbia. And the ratio is not 17 to 1, but it is 7 to 1. So for every manager that the Alberta health care system has, B.C. has got 7.

And Alberta's population is 20 to 25% lower than ours. So there's lots of places you can point to. Um, we're, we're, we're overspending. And the, uh, you're never, so those are just two points of kind of numerical reference, but you're never going to win an argument with somebody who's left of center who honestly believes. And they believe it in their heart. So this is, you know, that's, we just think differently and that's okay. But they honestly believe in their heart that part of of government's job is to provide employment. No, as conservatives, we believe that government's job is to service the people at the lowest possible costs to those people who are paying the tab. It's a philosophical difference for sure.

And it's one that I'm comfortable defending. The other piece I just wanted to ask about on the economy is how do we make sure that that transition is ready? Like if you came out tomorrow and laid off a bunch of people, the private sector is just not there today in order to take on all of those positions immediately. You would need to have some sort of deregulation first. before, how do you kind of map that out in your head? Or maybe you have a different perspective and I've got this wrong. How do you go about making sure that transition is smooth so people aren't laid off?

Because then you're going to have a recession. The economy is going to hurt. People can't pay their taxes. You're going to have like it can spiral quite quickly depending on how you go about doing this. Well, the number of people involved on their own, given the size of our economy, wouldn't trigger a recession per se. And I don't mean that in any way disrespectful for anyone who might be impacted one day by this. so that there's not a macroeconomic impact from laying off government workers.

But what I would say, and that's not, again, to be very clear, that's not to be dismissive of the journey of those individuals at a very personal level. But you said something really important there. You linked it the way that I plan to link it around deregulation. If you've got layers and layers and layers of regulation in place that are slowing down our economy, that is, you know, we are the department of no right now as a province and as a government. And a lot of that is that we just, we send away investment because we're just so difficult to do business here. So if you get rid of those layers of regulation that I commit to doing,

what you'll find is that if you no longer have regulations that need to be enforced and measured, the people who are doing the enforcing and measuring, that's where the jobs disappear. Right. There's typically a correlation. So as so it would be kind of phased out as that, as those regulations would take place. The other thing is, is also attrition. You, you, you can lean into attrition a fair bit to get some of those savings as well. But it would be modeled out pretty specifically. It's something I've done before many times. And you just have to do it thoughtfully and carefully.

But you also have to remember you're accountable to 5.7 million people first and foremost. Those are your, that's your boss. And those are the people who is once elected are expecting you to deliver on a mandate of getting the books back in place. Put it this way. Another way. Every single person that gets added to the payroll in government, every single raise that gets given in government right now. is borrowed money. You're borrowing money to hire somebody new. You're boring money to give whatever raises are being paid right now or maybe maybe negotiated from this point forward.

So you're literally putting it on credit cards. And as we all know in our personal finances, at some point, that interest gets too high and those bills need to be paid. The other piece, and you sort of mentioned it, and as you start to reference other countries and other provinces, I think it's just worth having a brief conversation about democracy itself because I don't believe that democracy just appears once every four years during an election. I think it manifests itself in a lot of different ways. And one thing we saw in Alberta was their Alberta next panel where they did townhouses or like, yeah, town halls across their province where they gathered input on the most pressing

issues facing them. And a lot of people outside of the province of Alberta don't love what's ending up in their referendum coming up this fall. but you can't deny that that's a really valid form of democracy. And what I see right now is a society in British Columbia not being engaged on issues. Now, you're all running for party leadership and then you'll run against each other to its parties. But on very specific issues, I feel like we've gotten away. I think the last referendum BC had would it have been the combining of the HST and that process.

would have been the last one. That's been a long time since British Columbians have had their voice heard on issues. And I don't think we're doing town halls. And one of the pieces that we'll talk about in a bit is on the indigenous file. I think if we were to go to British Columbians across BC and do town halls, what's working, what's not working, what do you support, will you not support? To derive a mandate from the people and let them express their frustrations, their concerns, their fears, I think is important for a province. And I guess that's a piece that I'm missing. So I'd love to get your, what is your view on democracy and how we enact that? That's a great question. That's a great setup too.

That's a good setup. I think, well, a few things. Your context for this I think is really important to reflect on as well, which is this is right now. And obviously, I'm a partisan, you know, full disclosure. But you are dealing right now with a government that is the least transparent and secretive government that I've ever seen. And again, we'll leading into the indigenous conversation in a minute, but the hide-a situation where the government took a deal that had been cut with the nation and then had it constitutionalized in secret where the minister responsible didn't even know that that was being done such that when

the reporter said to the minister, why didn't you tell the people that you're planning to constitutionalize the deal and put it beyond the reach of any subsequent government who might govern in British Columbia? The minister's answer was, because I did. didn't know what was happening, right? So there's there's a lot of secrecy, a lot of lacking in transparency from this government. So it kind of puts a fine point on your question. I think town halls, I think it's good, I don't think it's just good politics. I think it's good governance. You learn a lot from them. And yeah, let me tell you, having been an elected guy, when you show up at town halls and, you know, you put it to people, what do you want to ask about? You know, be careful

what you wish for because you're going to get people who are happy to see it, people who want to know, tell you what they think about something you've done, they don't agree with. That's part of democracy in action. And the politicians and elected leaders at any level that survive are the ones who aren't afraid of doing that, in my experience, at least. And an example of that was, although it's not as grassroots, perhaps, but when I was a small business minister in this province, a ministry that, by the way, the NDP got rid of, they had what's called the Small Business Round Team.

And what an amazing feedback venue that was. committed. It was typically once a month. I fly over the province. So those three of them a quarter, 12 a year, where you'd go to different communities and you were sitting with owners of small business in that case. And they'd be like, I know, 12 to 15 people. But you'd need for half a day. And they would tell you directly that's a, you know, this thing you tried over here, that ain't working so well. That needs to be. And in fact, one of my favorite examples was we, at the time, because we were managing the government well and the finances were doing well, we were able to produce a fund of, I'll call it three or four million dollars. I can't remember the exact number.

But a fair bit of dough to help small businesses hire some summer students and get them some experience and, you know, it gives them just a bit of a fund that they could draw upon. And we were told that the application form took three and a half hours to fill out. And they said, look, I'm chasing you for five grand, maybe 10 over the course of a summer job, right? And I don't have time after I do all my books at home, get my kids to bed and make their lunches for the next day to sit and do a government form for three and a half hours. Well, I had my deputy minister with me at the time and we went back and had that form change so it takes 25 minutes, right? That's a simple example. I mean, I know it might be a little bit trivia and trivial in the grand scheme of things, but it speaks

to your point about getting people's engagement. And I think town halls are a very good way. Social media is not bad, although it can be a wee bit echo chambery, as you well know. But referendums are rare in our form of democracy. We work on a participative democracy, like we're a representative democracy, where we elect people to make decisions for us. And if we don't like what they do, we chuck them out in four years. And if we do like what they do in, we reelect them. You know, the U.S. takes this to a bit of an extreme that I don't think works really well

in a Canadian context where, you know, your ballot could be 17 or 18 pages long every four years voting on whether you want a pothole fixed at the end of your street. So, you know, I think that we've got a pretty good balance in our model, but it needs the care and attention that you've described. I spoke with Peter Milobar and one of his pieces of differentiation, he was very mindful, not to be disrespectful to other candidates, but is that he's a sitting MLA and the rest of the candidates are not sitting MLA's, which gives him a really deep line of sight into what's going on. He's able to hold government accountable on a daily basis. He speaks with caucus on a daily basis. And that is, a significant point of differentiation. How would you respond to that? First of all, Peter's a good guy. I got nothing bad to say about Peter. I think there's, well, there's a couple of things. I think that most leadership contests

provincially, federally, whatever, most, if not many, end up with somebody chosen who's not from inside the tent, inside caucus, right? So I don't really see it as a big differentiator for a couple of reasons. Number one, I'm a former sitting member of the legislature. So one of the unique traditions we have is that until my dying breath, I can actually go and sit in that house. Anytime I want, I could go there this afternoon if I want. So that, you know, I already have full access to the place and including going out and meeting with the media after question period and frankly assessing the performance of my colleagues once I'm the leader because it's a very good place to sit and watch and make sure the folks are doing that they could be. Coach them along,

tell them what you think they can be doing better. And that is your job as a leader. But it also, you have to remember that when time this competition's over, the house is basically done. And it may not sit until next February, right? So there are the opportunity to get a by-election done, which typically happens after these things. You got three or four people who put up their hand and say, you know, I may not run again. Anyway, I'm willing to give up my seat for the new leader. That's very, very common within our tradition. I mean, you saw that in the last federal election when, as you point out, Pierre

Polyeffro didn't win in his own riding. And it was a matter of days until somebody said, yeah, no, I'm. willing to give up my seat for you. It's a very common thing in our form of democracy, and it's a little bit of a red herring. There's really, there's really nobody talking about that, that except Mr. Milibar, because he sees it as a bit of a point of differentiation, but the rest of us aren't really paying too much attention to that because we think it's, it's not much of an issue at all. And candidly, eight, nine months until it might become an issue. And during that time, you're traveling the province and doing what you should be as a leader of the party.

As you know, the caucus was quite fractured under John Rustad's leadership, and I don't exactly know where that stands today, but I imagine that they all didn't start agreeing on everything. How do you start to unite people from so many different perspectives? As you well know, there's a lot of pushes right now of you need to be a true blue conservative. Right now, you're under a bit of attack at times over being a former BC liberal. There's a lot of people who don't like that. And how are you going to bring everybody back together? Yeah. Well, again, you got two questions into the mix there. So I'll take them in reverse if you don't mind. Sure. First of all, I don't believe in purity tests. Like, I've been a conservative since I was a wee boy.

I was knocking on doors and federal campaigns. I think I was like, I don't even think I was a teenager yet. So I've been doing this a long time and, you know, that somebody posted online, I didn't even know if you get access to the information, to be honest. Somebody posted online that I've been a financial contributor to the federal conservative since 2005. You know, I've chaired conservative campaigns here in British Columbia. Iran is an acclaimed Pierre Polly ever candidate last April. And, you know, and I still sit on the National Council for the Conservative Party of Canada on their economic national council with 30 other CEOs that are

trying to come up with solutions to fix our economic woes in this country. So my lineage there is pretty clear. And it's not really, you know, anyone who wants to point to that and challenge you to is just not reading the full resume, to be honest. The other thing to remember, Aaron, is that the BC Liberal Party had two distinct phases to it. All right. I was part of the Gordon Campbell era. Now, let's pause for a minute and ask yourself the question.

Why did the BC liberals change their name? Because two out of three of us were card carrying conservatives, right? So this, you'd a brand there, a political brand dynasty of what, 17 odd years. And it survived well because it was a. the proud tradition of Canadian government, Canadian politics, which is like the Manitoba Conservatives, which is a coalition of blue guys and red guys, and they bash each other's heads in federally.

And then once it's over, they get back together, hold hands and sing kumbaya, and then try to keep the NDP out of power in the province of Manitoba. Likewise, the Saskatchewan Party, same thing. So this is not a new phenomenon. I think people who are going down this path of purity tests, that is a recipe to lose the next election. It is not the recipe followed by the benefit,

family, W.A.C. Bennett and Bill Bennett, who basically for 50 years successfully governed British Columbia. And that is not how you win because it's it's about making sure that as many people as possible are included in your tent and that they feel welcome to participate and are attracted to vote for you. And you don't get there by shrinking the size of your audits. You get there by growing it and convincing as many people as possible that you've got a vision for the future that is bold, that is optimistic, that has got hope associated. for the next generation, never mind the current one. And that's how you win an election.

So your second question was the caucus. And the caucus, you know, I did a little work with them last summer. I think the divisions within caucus in the group of 39 that are there at the moment, I think they're overstated a little bit. There's definitely different perspectives for sure. But that's also not new. When I was in government, there were two or three, maybe four people at any given pointed time who had their toes on that door.

and saying, I don't want to be part of this team anymore. The difference is you never heard about it. Because they understood as a caucus, confidentiality, number one. And you didn't talk about what happened in caucus. But you also recognize that you owed each other something as teammates. And that learning curve you're seeing evidence of right now. I love what I'm seeing at the moment. Over the last six to eight weeks under Trevor Halford's leadership as the interim leader,

you see a rhythm in the opposition now. They've got the government down the ropes. they're holding to them account, the government has become the story, not the opposition's internal strife. That is an incredible step forward for that team to make. It takes two years to learn the job of an MLA,

which is important in the context of our leadership competition as well, for those who've never been in MLA, it's a learning curve, right? No matter how clever you are, it's a learning curve. And these guys are now a year into it, and the learning curve is evident.

And so I'm pretty optimistic about what they're doing. But the secret to this, Aaron, is it taps into my CEO experience, it's having run six organizations as president, CEO. Every time I step into these organizations, remember, they're not working well when I show up, is you spend a lot of time getting that management team on the right page, engaging people, doing a lot of listening,

looking for the patterns, and getting people to rally around four or five things that are common, to commit to those things, to hold each other accountable, to measure performance. That's what you do in a caucus as well. And if you can do that honestly and in good faith, you'll find the vast majority will rally around those common feings and agree to a, if you will, a code of conduct as to what we can expect for each other. Then I owe you something as a member of our caucus and you owe me something too. That exercise is immediately in front of us.

And I'm quite optimistic that it'll be done successfully. One question that I reflect a lot on is who influences the party from the outside beyond just the constituents. And as you might imagine for the conservatives, that's often big business, that they prefer conservative leadership in many cases because they are deregulating. They're in favor of lower taxes. They're in favor of supporting the private sector. And so they have a vested interest. And I guess one concern that most people have is that you don't end up being beholden to those interests, that those interests don't supersede that of constituents in every single. British Columbians. How would you navigate that? Well, I'd love to say that we're beholden

to big business if we had any. The NDP has chased them all away. It's one of the reasons we have the economic crisis that we do. I mean, Canfor has closed eight mills in this province in the last five or six years. So I don't think there's much of a risk of us being holding to big businesses because they've all left. But I think a important thing to remember is that when you're beholden to business, to use your term, if you've got an interest in economic policy, that favors employment. The winners are the employees, right? We have a unique phenomena in British Columbia where six out of ten jobs come from the small business sector. Highest in Canada. In every other province, it's a little under five. I think it's 4.8. So we have a special

relationship with our small business community. It's the small business community that's desperately looking for us to deregulate. As I've traveled the province over the last three months, I've done over 70 now town hall, meet and greets, kind of going back to your last question about town halls. I love them. I find them in a, invigorating. The number one thing I used to hear about when I was a minister of the government was tax. We're overtaxed, for this, for this. You know, taxes here, taxes there. Before they get to tax, every single conversation I have with small business people and especially the natural resources sector as well, it's regulation. It's like the weight on our shoulders of trying to do

business in this province. All of it imposed by government is suffocating. And so, So I would suggest it's not big business that benefits from what you described. It's anybody who employs people because if you are setting the table nicely that people want to invest here and grow businesses here, they're employing people. And I think ultimately that benefits all the families in British Columbia. We're not in that space now. Not at all. I guess my retort to that would be I heard rumors and they're not verified.

So I'll be upfront about that that when the BC United Party was folding in the last election, it was one of British Columbians billionaires. that was reaching out saying, we don't want to split the vote, you've got to shut this down. And that was a huge influence. And that's the type of fear I personally have of the influence

that big businesses can have because when they say to you, hey, we're looking at investing this amount of money, but you've got to do this, that, and the other thing. That's a lot of influence and power to have over our politicians when they're bringing in something that would be very good to you.

It would make for a great press conference. It would make you look really strong. That's the type of influence that I get nervous about because it's not always written down. It's not always documented. But the donors that can come up, those types of things, I think make many middle grounded people nervous on how they can have undue influence

that we're not aware of as citizens. I think the laws changed 15 years ago that make a lot of that a moot point now, Aaron, I'll tell you why. Because that billionaire, I've not heard that, so that's news to me. For every billionaire who might have said that, I'll show you 10,000 small business people who are saying the same thing, that we cannot have a divided vote in the free enterprise side of the political spectrum or the NDP is going to win forever. And those small business people desperately want change. They want this government gone.

So the reason I say that is those 10,000 people are 10,000 votes. The billionaire is one, right? Also, we changed election financing laws, I don't know, 15 years ago, 10 years ago, where that billionaire, can also give the same amount of money as the guy who's running a local convenience store or family grocery store. They're all limited to, I believe it's $1,13.28, if I'm ever correctly. And they're all limited to the same amount of money. So the ability to financially influence anybody from the business community just isn't there at the moment. I'm far more worried about the unions, candidly, because they're better at organizing people and, you know, putting quote-unquote volunteers to work on behalf of the NDP. If there's any kind of backroom, indirect support that can be offered in a political

context now, and I can promise you, it's not on my side of the political spectrum. That's actually one thing that I did see, and this is a bit of a tangent, that like BCGEU was making recommendations in a previous election on who would be pro certain things, and I thought that was very strange and a little bit concerning. Well, it's never been said. it's almost like a little bit of a dirty secret that, you know, the unions are very good, public sector unions in particular, private sector not so much. Private sector unions by and large, by the way, vote for guys like me because they know who keeps them working. They know the policies

that actually mean that there'll be an investment made into more people and more projects around the province. But the public sector unions are a bit of a different animal because they're reliant on our conversation from 25 minutes ago. They're reliant on the taxpayer to keep them unemployed. And the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, hypothetical, I promise you. I don't want to get sued. But that scenario is a political contribution, and it does not get track to report it. So there's all kinds of things there for conversations for another day, perhaps once on premium. One of the other challenges I think all of you have is differentiation because I think you agree broadly on the issue set and agree a lot on policy prescriptions.

Can you help differentiate yourself from some of the other candidates running? How do we understand you in comparison to? Right. Well, I'm of the view that the criteria for the leadership contest should involve three very important elements and that the members of this party should not compromise in, these three. Number one is evidence that your candidate has actually led something, who's actually been in charge of a group of people to get them motivated and focused on some critical issues and they measure performance and achieve something together that they never thought they could do as individuals. That leadership piece and proof that you've repeatedly answered the call of leadership

and you've shown you're good at it, right? Criterion number one. Criterion number two is an understanding and a working understanding of economic public policy. Because if we don't get these books straightened out, the rest of it doesn't matter. I mean, you, you now have interest payments as the third largest expense of government. Healthcare education and the credit card interest, not the principal, just the interest, right? This is unsustainable and it's got to get fixed. So you need somebody who understands how to do that. And third, you need somebody who sat at that cabinet table and sat at the Treasury Board table. I've done both because you don't have, we don't have the luxury, We can't afford to take the risk as a party, never mind as a province, to put somebody into

the premier's office who doesn't have the working knowledge of how everything operates from day one. We don't know the luxury of time to take the two years it takes to train somebody to learn the job. It's too urgent at the moment. So those are the differentiators that I add to the mix because I'm the only one in this competition who's got all three of those criteria. And beyond that, I encourage people to fast forward the date when we are making the big changes that need to be made in this province. Who do you want answering that phone? When you've got

industry leaders who are concerned, when you've got labor leaders concerned, when you've got policy decisions, trade activity, more noise out of the U.S., never mind what's happening in Iran, who do you want taking those calls and making those decisions to impact the lives and that or protect the interests, is it maybe of 5.7 million people. You better make sure you got somebody in there knows what they're doing. And I'm the only one who's in that position in this competition. Why do you want to repeal DRIPA? Because British Columbia has become uninvestable. It is no longer an academic or legislative debate. It is a pragmatic political economic reality that because of the gross mishandling of this file by David Eby on the NDP,

we probably set reconciliation back 15 years. And I think you've got a situation now where people are looking at be seeing them, yeah, no, two guys are sorted out. We're, We're not playing this game. The fact that we were in a situation where you've got lawyers on television debating with each other whether we actually have private property rights in this province. Where private property rights are the underpinning of any Western democracy, not democracy, economy. If you don't have private property rights, you have no economy. So this is a huge, I mean, I don't like words like existential. They're very dramatic and they can get weaponized. But in this case, I actually think it applies. It's crazy that we're having this conversation.

Aaron, but we are where we are. And you're, you're seeing now in my own travels, as I've been on the road, I've had, I think it's $450 to $470 million of projects that have been brought to my attention from people I know in the legal community who are dealing with their clients who were saying, yeah, you know that little $50 million expansion I was going to do in Abbotsford? By the way, you don't get a lot for $50 million bucks these days, basically tilt construction and a couple pieces of equipment. We're going to let this thing play out. We're not wanting to do that right now. Now, what about the phone calls that Ian Black is not getting? What about the forestry, mining, oil, gas, the big dollars, all those zeros looking at trying to actually create sub-economies in this

province to drive tax revenues and employment. Those calls aren't coming to me, but I guarantee to you, they're going to somewhat. And those dollars aren't coming here at the moment. We've yanked away that welcome Mac for anybody who wants to invest in BC, not just foreign direct investment, which is critical to us as a tiny little province and an open trading country. We need money from outside to drive our economy here. Let's be very clear. But we've also got domestic money who, like people who are wealthy, if you will, who within British Columbia are going, you know, Florida is looking pretty good. South America is not bad. Oh, I know a guy in Europe. They're not investing here. Not a chance. So it's, it's become an economic reality beyond it's, it's so far past the debate about whether this is good

or bad for our indigenous communities and whether we should be the only subnational government on the planet that's adopted this experimental regime called undrip by the United Nations. That's an academic conversation you can have at the pub. We're past that now. Can you lay out to me what the, how is this having ramifications? I guess like my understanding is there was the Gatsala mineral case that had come up. And then the proposal to make modifications to it came from David Eby in order to bring a bit more certainty to the pieces. But repealing it doesn't create certainty in response. It doesn't ensure that businesses know what the plan is.

And I think we'll talk about the Cowichin decision and others. But DRIPA also doesn't have control over private property rights. That's not one of its pieces. It didn't cause the Cowichin decision. It didn't cause the Musqueam Agreement. It's not a factor in those pieces. So the private property piece is somewhat a separate and distinct discussion, I think we should have. So for DRIPA specifically, could you lay out your argument?

Sure. It's, they've all, that's the legal argument. And I've heard that debated on TV, right? For every lawyer who says what you've just said, greatest of respect, very lawyer that says that there's one on the opposite side that says, no, you cannot take DRIPA out of the conversation. And they go back to Justice Barbara Young's decision on the couch indecision, right? And first of all, I mean, it's two very interesting. paragraphs that she included.

And by, you'd like this as an attorney, by complete coincidence where the day, it was the day after, I think, it was in August when the Cowerton decision came down. And there was a Vancouver Canadiens baseball game, right? And I've only been a free or four game. I love baseball. I just don't have occasion to go to Vancouver Canadians very often. High quality family entertainment. There's a plug.

But I was invited to the game, had a grand old time, hot day. And sitting next to me was a recently retired Supreme Court judge. this by wonderful coincidence. So then the media story was circulating that this thing, this decision had come down. It was, I mean, and so I got to ask the judge, a couple of questions. I said, so tell me about this. What do I need to know? Now, bear in mind, this is August.

Ian had, it was not on my radar that you and I would be having this conversation because John Rustad was in the middle of completing his leadership review process at this point, right? So, or it just finished. I can't remember the exact time. It was somewhere within a week or two anyway. So Ian, Ian was sitting enjoying a hot dog. It was not interested in talking politics per se, but I was curious. And the judge said a couple of things.

He said, look, at that point, he says, I've only read half of it. It's 800 pages. It's the day before it came out. So he's 400 pages into it. And he said, here's what I know for sure. But that judge has done two things, but I, that you don't see this very common. Number one, just as young included a paragraph in there where she kind of wagged her finger at the provincial government and said, you instructed your lawyers to pull the punches.

Right. You did not argue extinguishment. You didn't argue the kind of six or seven things that we would expect a provincial government should argue on behalf of the 5.7 million people that you represent. And that only happens with a directive out of the Attorney General's office. And so the judge kind of said, I expected these arguments. You didn't make them. And I'm not sure why. So there was that kind of waggling of the finger.

And there's another paragraph in there where she then went on to say that combined with the minding decision that you just referenced. And there was one other well, another one that's a well, forgive me. I can't remember the actual case. She says, in combination, you're kind of leaving me in the position where maybe, sort of, you meant me to interpret your legislation on DRIPA the way that it's actually written, which then opens this door for maybe kind of, is there a subservience involved with respect to private property rights and rights a title. So that phenomena has created all this noise at the moment.

So you asked me a second ago why Dripa needs to go. And in the economic imperative, it was my, lead argument. There is, in my view, getting rid of DRIPA does not solve our problems. So I agree with you in that. In fact, bringing it back to our leadership competition, that's why the experience matters in this conversation. Because if you do repeal DRIPA, which all of us have committed to doing, if you do repeal

Section 8.1 of the Interpretations Act, which I know you know this, but for the benefit of your viewers, basically binds all of government to follow DRIPA. a task which my lawyer friends tell me will take 45 years to actually get all the legislation in line. So it's good for billing, I suppose. And then third, I think I'm the only one who has said that we should be entertaining conversations with the other premiers in this province around opening up section 35 of our constitution on indigenous rights and titles to put in the legalese necessary to basically say, except private property rights, to make it very, very clear that this conversation, which never should have happened in. the first place, right or wrong, it's happening, that it provides the clarity and the certainty so that we'll never be having this conversation again. We are, as I understand it, Aaron, we are the only Western democracy in the world that does not have private property rights

enshrined in its constitution. For whatever reason, back in 1982, there's a historical piece there that I'm not fully fluent on. So to your question, I'm under no illusion that repealing Drippa and the Section 8.1 and wandering across the country talking to other premiers on the Constitution, I'm under no illusion that's going to solve the problem. That is the starting point of solving the problem. The big question for everybody who's looking at who will lead our party forward is, what are you going to do next? What are you going to do next? Because repealing Dripa in Section 8.1 does not absolve anybody of constitutional obligations. And you were going to have a reaction, which you saw in what I,

a highly dysfunctional situation of 48 hours ago where the premier of the province wasn't able to introduce legislation to amend or in some way suspend or both parts of DRIPA because the First Nations leadership wouldn't let him. And that is, that's unconscionable to me that we're in a position there that we are. So you're going to have, and in doing so, they made it very clear that any attempts to change, never mind repeal DRIPA, would result in massive protests. So that's going to be the reality for the conservative premier of this province after the next election. And when the phone starts ringing the next day from forestry executives who've had a functioning relationship in good faith with their local First Nations for 14 years and are suddenly facing blockades into the woods or mining sites where there's phone calls coming in that put safety in. question for some of the people working on that mine site or disruption in the oiling gas fields,

all right? Those executives will be phoning the Premier's office and saying, what are you going to do? And the labor leaders, whose guys and women can't get into the work sites and they're not making money because of it, they're going to be phoning too. They'll be phoning the Ministry of Labor, and they'll be phoning the Preachers office. And the indigenous leaders too, those that are really, really upset because they had in their mind, right or wrong, they had in their mind a deal. And that something has been taken away and so they're upset. And you're going to, like most communities, because there's not, as you well know, there's, there's no homogenous community within our First Nations community,

but you're going to have some that are really interested in economic reconciliation. They're deal guys. They want to get out there due deals. Not right now because they feel trust has been broken. That's going to be the chessboard for the new premier British Columbia. That is the risk that you take as a voter in this conservative leadership contest when it comes to putting somebody in place who will be able to navigate those conversations

respectfully and with the experience necessary to probably just figure it out for the short term until you can actually get some rhythm and start rebuilding those trusted relationships that are likely going to be broken thanks to David Eby. Let's be very clear. This is not at the feet of anybody except the current NEP government.

So you've been very patient listening to me on all that. I know you can have some feedback. I guess, and this might not surprise, you to hear that I don't have any vested interest in DRIPA. I never saw it as the solution. I've been on record saying I view there as being two distinct camps of reconciliation. One is title and rights and I understand their arguments. I'm just in, I just happen to be in party two, which is I care about the education rates, the employment rates, the addiction rates, the, um, the abject poverty, First Nations live in. Like, that's what.

I care about addressing. And I understand why many First Nations focus on the rights and title piece because it was unresolved. And I've had opportunities to speak with people like Thomas Isaac and others who do blame the government for their failure to make a deal and to close this chapter over the history of British Columbia. And the fact that that's not resolved creates a lot of challenges. I guess I would just ask, what is your position on the path forward for reconciliation?

exactly what does that look like because of course you're going this is I think the biggest challenge that and you kind of alluded to it that I think we face on the indigenous file is that indigenous people just assume that you're either pro their rights or anti their rights via DRIPA and I think that that's a very low level analysis on what this law is and all of it gets like like anything it gets more convoluted the more you understand it but that's the challenge I think anybody is up against it's what the Premier just ran into. And I do, like, I think it's worth addressing. I do think that he, he did some, Premier Eby did something by allowing that to happen that I think really harmed our sense of democracy. That unelected people by, by British Columbians just had a major impact on a decision. Now, I'll say businesses have had that same unelected role in influencing decisions in the past as well. but that always erodes trust in people's sense that their vote is in fact what's shaping policy. And I think that's important that we address and make sure that we're not doing that

because it makes it seem like all First Nations are on that page. And we do get mistaken for being homogenous group. And I don't think we are. And I do my best to try and lay that out as much as possible. But I guess I don't understand what the path forward is on reconciliation. Yeah. From the provincial side right now, but I also like your understanding, what does this look like day one when you're sitting as premier? You articulated that really, really well. And I'm the same bucket you are. I mean, it's, you know, we, I remember when we were in government, we celebrated because the first station's graduation rate from high school, it hit 50% 5.0. All right. And I remember hearing that as a young MLA and cabinet minister, I kind of went, why, why are we celebrating this?

50% doesn't sound that eye. For non-Indonists, by the way, it's 80%, right? And I kind of went, so why are we selling? Because it had been something like 42 or 45%. And it was considered a major step forward. And that was a sobering moment for me because it made me, okay, there's work to be done here. Because our first nations are also British Colombians, right? So it was kind of a sobering wake-up call for young MLA, as I was at the time.

So I see the two buckets. I like the way you frame that. You're in bucket number two. And I think, I know I am as well. Because it speaks to kind of standards of living and the ability to help people do what everyone else wants to do, which is try to build a better life for their kids, right? And get to get them step forward from where they are at the moment. So what do I see reconciliation is going forward? I got to lean into the economic side first and foremost.

I think there's now some really good evidence that when you can cut a deal of some kind, it works to the benefit of the First Nations. You look at the 22,000 jobs that were involved in the C expansion, the TMX expansion, coastal gas link, and LNG Canada, right? Those deals were all cut with First Nations before they started. looking at it from a business standpoint, did they take longer to cut those deals than they otherwise would have? Yeah. Did they cost more than the otherwise would have? Yeah. But they got the deal done. The deals got done. So you're not dealing with 1950s, First Nations. You're dealing

with nations now that have every day increasing sophistication, understanding there's a role for them to play. They've got the backdrop of a federal government that has set the table in terms of what's expected by project proponents and other levels of government. And I think my starting point on this Aaron would be to lean back on that to find out how do we take a step forward. And step forward for me, I'm always a believer that if you lead with economic reconciliation, it's amazing how well people get along when there's money changing hands and everybody's getting along okay financially.

It's amazing how many problems you can solve that way. Where it gets tricky is where there's an equity and whether there's, exploitation. And if you can address those two in a meaningful fashion in good faith, I believe a lot of the other elements will fall into place. Awesomeating. I guess my follow up to that would be there's a lot of mistrust. So how do we address that with British Columbians? Because I see that as the other group, as you might see online, particularly on Twitter. There's just a felt sense that all of this needs to come to an end. The reconciliation should have an end date. That I get called a grifter a fair bit that I'm supporting this process. And so this is

shined a light on this relationship between First Nations and government in a way that it hasn't really had that light shined before. And I see us as a pendulum for a lot of our history, we did not focus on First Nations. And then we swung the other direction. And over the past 10 years, I'd say we've had record investments and a provincial government and a federal government that have been very eyes wide open and investing in First Nation communities. And I'll be the first to admit, a lot of investment, a lot of the measurements that we're talking about in terms of crime rate, addiction rate, poverty rates, employment rates, all of these different things, have not drastically improved with 10 years of investment. So what we're doing, I would define as

not working to address my bucket of concerns to the extent that I think possible. I'll say the one area that I point to fairly regularly on this program is BC housing as an investment on reserves. It's the first time that happened. It started under John Horgan and has my communities benefiting other communities because then we can bring our members home back onto reserve to their communities, bring them off the streets and start to address those pieces. I'll say the province has paused that program.

right now under this government. And those are some of the pieces I see as obvious wins as to addressing this. But you do have this vocal, I will say they're a minority, but this very vocal group of people who have compelling arguments as to when does this end? What is the plan over the long term to bring the reconciliation file to a close? So I'll pull on the thread because you threw it out there. You're not alone. It's cold comfort perhaps, but you're not alone with respect.

to the current government pulling its funding on BC Housing on Reserve. I mean, they also canceled seven long-term care facilities for seniors that are desperately needed throughout the province. And all of them in non-NDP writings, which is shameful on their part. And all but one of them outside Metro Vancouver. So these are in communities that don't have a lot of other options. They've also pulled funding on hospitals, too. The Burnaby Hospital just got yanked as well.

So, yeah, you're cold comfort, perhaps, but you're in good company throughout the rest of province with respect to money that's shut off because of the inability of these guys to manage a budget. I think the word is finality. That should be the goal of reconciliation. Any reconciliation, whether it's personal business, in this case, indigenous, should have as its end point, finality that you are now reconciled, that we have agreed. Like, think of a divorce, if you will, is a good example, that when a couple gets divorced, they reach a point where it's kind of kind of, okay, we've, we figured this thing out to best we can, and now we're going to go forward and get on with our lives. And there's no further relationship between the partners as they go

forward because they figured out how they're going to, you know, basically bring these conversations to an end. So I am not a fan of the notion that reconciliation is a journey, not a destination. I believe that there should be a destination in it. I think that, you know, treaties are the obvious example, right? We, one of the reasons you're seeing, you, you talk about, you, you're about the pendulum and I think that metaphor is I've used a similar metaphor I think you're right. I'm hearing impatience and resentment and language as I do my travels from non-political people, by the way, as I've done my travels from people who are looking at the indigenous file and in large part I keep putting this at the feet of David Eby and the NDP. This is where it is because these guys

totally mismanaged the file, right? We've gone from, I mean, it's such a, a short period of time they've gone from celebrating some of these really creative deals on the natural resources side that I mentioned a few minutes ago to people not at all wind to any more about this at the moment. And you've lost you meaning David Emi and the NDP. They have lost the public's appetite to creatively engage on the indigenous reconciliation file. And that is shameful that they have done that. Right. But my view is that is that. that reconciliation should have an endpoint. It should.

I mean, in my view, this should not be an ongoing situation forever and ever. Oh, man. I think that there's got to be any reconciliation should have an endpoint. And I do believe this one should as well. And that's, I think the impetus is on everybody on the other side of this drip of fiasco is to start carving out, what does this look like? So that we're not having these conversations and there's not this weight that people feel. throughout the province, indigenous and otherwise,

as we try to figure out what a province looks like in 25 years. And, and, and, you know, what are the, what resources are there and who's getting a piece of them? And what, what are they given for those resources or, et cetera, et cetera? So that's what I see is the endpoint. Do you believe that Kamloops needs to excavate in order to come to a conclusion on the 215 anomalies? I'll be honest with you. Not one person has asked me that question as I've traveled around the province. like it normally comes at me.

I look at the principle behind some of the points that have been brought up, which is transparency of the use of government money. And I have no problem, zero problem, with the concept that any time a government gives anybody, no matter who it is, some money to be used in a particular purpose, that they have an obligation as government, on behalf of the taxpayers who gave them that money to distribute to make sure the money's been spent in the way that it was supposed to. So I have no problem with that concept.

The problem I have around the Canlips conversation is that I think it's been weaponized in a manner where you're exploiting dead children. And I don't think that's helpful. I don't think it's necessary. And I think it's awfully close to mean, if not racist. And I think it's okay. Both of those two things can be true. And I think a lot of time in this day and age of polarized conversation, people are very comfortable looking for one thing to be true.

I mean, you talked about this a minute ago around the buckets associated with the approach to reconciliation, what the rights and title versus improving the lot in life of people. And I'm a Star Wars kid. So, you know, you think about the Sith. in Star Wars, if you're Star Wars kid at all, right? And the Sith are the only ones who believe in these, you know, very, very harsh and distinct choices. And very few things in life are like that. Things can, two things can be true at the same time. And on that file, I think that one is. The only piece that I would like clarity on from you as well is my concerns around

freedom of expression on this issue. Because as you, as you may or may not be aware, it was very controversial from the outset for people to question whether or not there were unmarked graves there, because the only thing they had was GPR trying to figure out whether or not it was just anomalies. And so people who did come out, there were, I think there was the mayor's wife who was distributing the book, grave error, and they got in a lot of heat among their council and their community, even for discussing the book and having it. People have paid political consequences for holding that book, for discussing that. I've interviewed Francis Whittowson, who you may be aware of.

And we've had conversations about what it means. Her perspective is that there are not unmarked graves there. And we debated that, as I hope civil adults would. I've spoken to Candace Malcolm. People I don't necessarily fall in agreement with, but we've had healthy debate. The problem I see is no university campus will host them. And as Premier, you would have a lot of influence over how they operate. And I find free speech to be really lacking on campuses right now.

And they will host me, a First Nations chief, to discuss this topic. But they will not have on a Francis Widowson or a Dallas Brody, as you may be aware of. And that concerns me as somebody who believes in free speech. How would you go about addressing free speech on campus? Well, first of all, I want to congratulate you for how you just framed that. I'm not pandering. I think you are very, by comment about two things can be true at the same time, right? You just illustrated that point, and good on you for doing so.

I am a big, I think there's great irony. I'm a big, big believer in the free speech thing. I mean, there's the, I don't know who originally said it that I want to say Abraham Lincoln, but I'm not sure that I may not agree with everything you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it, right? That's hardcore with me. And I have no problem agreeing to disagree with people. You know, I chatted about this offline before we started.

I have no problem with that. I find it ironic that universities, especially publicly funded universities, have found themselves on this pious and self-righteous position of deciding what conversations should or should not happen on publicly funded university campuses. And I'll tell you, the reason I find that ironic is because universities have always been the bastion of free speech, always. And back, you know, going back hundreds of years, the whole concept of having tenure, like you talk about tenure track professors and fully tenured professor. Tenured means you can't be fired for something you say at the front of the classroom, okay,

and or any research that you do. The whole concept around tenure is the protection of freedom of speech so that university professors who back in their day would have been mavericks of some kind if they're studying social science or even economic science. Galileo, for goodness sake, go to, you know, dodged the death penalty for suggesting some of the theories around the universe and the stars, right? But you've got university professors who've, you know, had this concept of tenure bestowed upon them historically to ensure they were allowed free speech, to say what they wanted at the front of a classroom in pursuit of new knowledge,

which is what university, that's how universities are different than trade colleges, right? Or you're a technical colleges. One teaches you stuff that already exists. And a university is about the creation of new knowledge and doing research, whether it's scientific or sociological, it doesn't matter. So I'm 100% with you on this one. I really struggled with the notion that a university would say no. Now, we have got, quick caveat, we have got very important hate speech laws in this country.

the bar is set very, very high for calling something hate speech. And it should be because you've got to cross a line that is so dramatic to be called to have something to classify it as hate speech. Good. That's the way it should be. And everything that leads up to that line should not be persecuted or prohibited, right? Comedy is your best example. Like, you know, there's no such thing as a joke that's offensive.

There's a joke that you find offensive. That's different, right? So I use comedy as my reference point there. But last thing I'll say is this. The reason I agree with this so firmly is I actually want to know where people are who are saying hurtful and ugly things. Even if they don't reach the level of hate speech, I want a nice, bright light shining on people like that. So we know where they are.

And we know that we don't associate with them. And that's okay. I can associate with people who've got a, I can choose to not associate with people who have got a different value system than what I've got who I think are unkind or dishonest or unethical. That's okay. But I don't want anything to suppress my ability to figure out who those people are. So I kind of back into it a different way as well.

So I think we're in agreement on that point. A few more quick questions. Thank you for sharing this time. Vaccine passports came up during the debate. and then there were some videos posted online about your position. What is your position on vaccine passports? Oh, as I said at the time, I mean, the post that came, I thought the whole thing was kind of silly, to be honest. When the, when the question was asked at the debate, it was kind of, it was a yes, no format of questions, which is an unusual way to do debates because in politics, there's very few answers that are yes, no.

There's always a nuance to them, right? and I was asked if I promoted vaccine passports. And I was confused by the question, which I think my face showed at the time. And I said not to my knowledge, because I wasn't a public figure at the time. I didn't post much of anything. And I remembered that I had commented in July,

August of, I think it was 2021, that passports or immunization records, if you will, weren't a new thing. I mean, I did traveling in my 20s and I wanted to go to some Asian countries, and you couldn't go without a documents, I think it was a malaria vaccination that you needed. So people were getting quite exercised about it,

and I reposted an image from, I think twice, from people who said it had the government of Canada, it was a dated government of Canada thing. And that was two months before the government imposed the rules of whatever they were on vaccination passports. I'm kind of ambivalent on it, to be honest. I mean, to me, it didn't really, get my hackles up because it's like I, it was used to it as a traveler around the world.

I do think that I think it's important to note that I think that the government overplayed his hand on quite a few areas with respect to COVID. And it's why I'm the only candidate who said that I want to do a full review on what happened during COVID. Let's find out the decisions government made, what their motivations were, what their intent was, how did it work? What worked well? What didn't work well?

Where was that line and how did they make that judgment between personal rights and freedoms and the public health mandate of keeping people safe. And did it work well? Was it an overreach? And was the timing appropriate in terms of what steps were put in place? And when those were relinquished or relaxed, right? So I think we have a lot to learn that, and I'm quite comfortable making that very, very public and saying this is what the conclusion is so that, God forbid, we can counter something like that again in our lifetime. We'll have some sort of guidance as to as to how to go on it. What is your message to British Columbians?

Don't give up. Don't give up hope. Don't give up hope. We're living in some very uncomfortable times right now. There's a lot of noise in the system. I mean, even the way you're not contributing to the noise, you're pretty good at tampering the noise, actually. But even the nature of all these different questions we've just gone through it,

they're all over the place, right? And that's the plate that has served to you every morning as a guy who interviews people like me. but don't let that burden slow you down. I do believe that the best days of this province are still in front of us. They're going to be different than the good old days. They're not going to look like the good old days of people harken back to when we had jobs chasing people and we could all afford a house. And there was an optimism and things were going well and we had swagger. We can get that swagger back, right?

It's going to take some heavy decisions. It's a big decision. It's going to need leadership that understands. that understands the implications of the cliches and don't speak in just, you know, three-word slogans that thoughtful work needs to be done to achieve all of this by people who know what they're doing and who've experienced leading. But don't give up hope because these days we'll come again if we elect the right people to lead us through some of the challenges that we're experiencing today.

How can people follow your work? www.e.nblack.ca. Our website Lakes takes you all that. That's all of our policy positions, et cetera. They're all there at the moment. And I'm on all the socials as well. Thank you, Ian, for being willing to do this today. It's reassuring to have individuals like yourself and Mr. Milobar on.

I've reached out to all of the candidates. You two so far are the only ones to confirm, respond, and follow through. So I'm grateful for that. I'm also just very grateful for the nuance so far, both, the view have taken and eager to speak to the other candidates. I do think that these are complicated issues and that no policy prescription can be done without the voice of British Columbians. And I think that's how, as a First Nations chief, the way I make the best decision is by

giving it to the people and getting them to give me direction on how to make informed decisions because I don't have all the answers. I rely on the community to give me that direction. And I hope that's the direction we continue to go in because we are facing a lot of challenges. There are challenges we've created ourselves. There are challenges that have been put before us globally, nationally, that we need to contend with. And I'll be honest, I just, I feel like right now we need leaders who are willing to sit in front of a camera and have long conversations, willing to sit down and do an address to the province and walk people through how they're arriving at

their decisions. And I feel like at times we miss that. And I'm, eager to see that come back to our democracy for leaders to be accountable, to be humble, to be kind, and to be trying to create a space for everybody, where all voices feel recognized and hurt. And so eager to see how this all plays out, but thank you so much for sharing the time today. Likewise, thanks to you for taking an interest in what we're up to, right?