MNC 2014: MARK STEYN "Conservatism and the Facts of Life"

so now we're very excited of course to have our last guest with us you've all stayed to the end to hear him we've been trying for six years to get him into this room and I'd like to invite Kirk Eckstine to the stage Ric Ric Ric Eckstine pardon me Ric Eckstein is the president and chief executive officer of Western Forest Products come on up and make the introduction please I've been called a lot of things but never Kirk good afternoon I'm a businessman and I'm a lumbermen and over the past 35 years I've bought and sold lumber on just about every continent and that's earned me a great deal of experience isn't a few adventures but the single most important thing I've learned is that opportunities come and go and the only certainty in global business is that nothing remains the same forever and all of my experiences have led me to develop my own personal mantra of change or die and I've learned that whether it's in my own business and my relationships with my family my children my power in politics that mantra applies everywhere every time every day a few weeks ago I was elected chair of one of the North America's largest lumber associations and one of my responsibilities is to write a monthly column to members and I get to name the column whatever I want and I asked a good friend of mine who was once a journalist and who many of you actually know to help me come up with a name that would best reflect Who I am and Peter Kent one of our great conservative members of parliament thought for a moment and said for you Rick against the grain I'm not sure if it's a compliment or not but against the grain is an appropriate segue for our next speaker mark Stein is an international best-selling author a top forty one recording artist I have to actually Google that to make sure if it was correct top forty one recording artist and a human rights activist he has a history of criticizing the institutional media when he believes they have bent over too far backwards in the name of political correctness he wrote articles and maintained a blog from MacLaine's covering the business fraud trial of his friend Conrad black and he was never convinced that mr. black had committed a crime and he believes that Europe is almost totally dominated by Islam and that this is a reality that cannot be reversed in 2007 a complaint was filed with the Ontario Human Rights Commission related to an article he wrote from MacLaine's titled the future belongs to Islam mark Stein is an individual who knows what he believes and he's certainly not afraid to go against the grain I read a lot of Marc's articles and because of his vast knowledge of the Muslim world and the and the conservative world I asked him last night if I could set him up with two maybe a little bit uncomfortable topics this afternoon and he agreed so here's topic number one a few weeks ago I traveled with the Prime Minister as part of his delegation to the State of Israel in the Kingdom of Jordan and in Jordan I took one of our cabinet ministers and a couple of our MPs out to dine with a couple of my old customers who both happen to be Christians and in that part of the world it takes about two minutes for the conversation to turn to politics and one of our MPs asked my friend so what do you see this region looking like in 30 years and he expected a diatribe on Palestinian and Jews and instead my friend simply said there will be no Christians here anymore he told a story after story of persecution of Christians in the Arab countries and said there are horror stories coming out of Syria of rebels Muslim extremists going into Christian villages rounding up the inhabitants into the central squares and shooting them and burning them alive I said where's the world press on this and they didn't know so the next day I recounted this story to some of our most senior elected officials and they told me to believe the stories so I talked to mark about this last night and I'd love to hear his comments about why the world isn't screaming topic number two because I heard a lot of facts that I didn't like this weekend from Andre I heard that people don't seem to call themselves as conservative as they once did and that people think the Liberals can deal with the economy better than we can and Andre noted that Canadians don't want to talk about marijuana and yet every time I turn on my radio I hear another paid ad by the Conservative Party suggesting that mr. Trudeau is going to turn all our kids into marijuana addicts and I heard that real conservative policies and real results are alert are losing out too good hair so as much as I enjoyed being at this conference I didn't like a lot of what I heard about the state of the conservative movement so mr. Stein you're our last speaker please give all of us conservatives the facts of life are we in trouble is this the time to put up the big neon lights flashing change or die ladies and gentlemen a strong conservative a strong conservative a man who's not afraid to go against the grain mr. mark Stein thank thank you very much thank you very much Rick I will get to those topics I've been scribbling furiously the last couple of days hearing things and various breakout sessions that I that made me think and made me annoyed and made me want to push back a little on so I'll do a bit of that too but I'm glad to be back in Ottawa I was I was born in the Wellesley Hospital in Toronto they've torn it down now they didn't want to take any chance of that happening again so and so people ask me what it's like being back home and and back in Ottawa and it's and it's and it's emotional for me I feel like like Michael Ignatieff in in the book he wrote to promote his Liberal leadership campaign when he wrote those heartwarming words that I think meant so much to all of us when he said that Canada is quote the place on earth that if I needed one I would call home unquote Thanks I believe Michaels first draft said Canada is the place on earth that if I ever needed a home would certainly be on the final shortlist of five or six but you know what these liberals are like they focus-grouped it to within an inch of its life and that's and so was the other version he came up with I've had a great time these last couple of days I was I was in an elevator late last night with two former ministers of the crown singing sometimes when we touch the honesty's too much to each other I won't say who they are well our night in the Q&A I mean it's not like we're on CPAC or anything and and it reminds me I think that there are some things that Canada does better than America and I think post political life is is one of them I love that Senator brazeau is now the day manager of the bear facts Club you know one minute you're in the Senate getting formed on by the gentleman usher of the black rod and and the next you're the gentleman washer of the sparkly pole it's like is brilliant in in in Washington on the rare occasions that senators cease being senators they become big-time lobbyists and and more often they just stay there for five six seven decades Robert C bird was a senator I think until he was a hundred and twelve or something like that everything if you ever go to West Virginia everything in West Virginia is named after him you land at Robert seabird International Airport and you ask for directions and they say oh just head straight down Robert see bird Airport Parkway turn left by the Robert see bird enterprise park take Robert see bird Boulevard down past the Robert see bird mall to the Robert see bird gallery of West Virginia route and and a few years ago he turned sour on the war in Afghanistan and I suggested to President Bush he might be able to retain senator Byrd support if he changed the name of Afghanistan to Robert C bird is Stan I would have I would give anything to have seen Robert see bird forced to take a job as the day manager of the Robert see bird bear facts pussycat lap-dancing lounge it was a great moment so when people talk about Senate reform we've had a lot of discussion about Senate reform the last couple of days I can't be the only guy who thinks the least constitutionally problematic solution would just be to move all the senators into the bare facts Club and there you go we're halfway there and and you can have this matter and CY you could you put the you you put the throne in front of the poll I don't see why you can't have the throne speech there you know we've had a lot of attractive governor's general over the years McHale Shaw if you recall said in what I think was the most memorable soundbite of her term at one point she said let's face it I'm totally hot and by the way if you think is that the she the first Governor General to say let's face it I'm totally hot no the Marquess of Lansdowne did in the throne speech of 1887 so you know not a lot of people know that but it comes up in Trivial Pursuit so you might want to be it's and it's a pleasure to be here with it's a pleasure to be here with Preston he was the indispensable man during the 1990s some some times you you don't get to the top of what Disraeli called the greasy pole that's a political expression by the way nothing to do with the senator Brazos present employment sometimes you don't make the the top of the greasy pole but you're you're important and you keep certain issues in play and because you keep them in play you you you persuade the guy in the governing parties that they have to move part of the way towards you to stop people nibbling off votes from the right and Preston kept a lot of important issues in play all during the time of the divided right of the 1990s and he was the indispensable man in Canada I I want to I want to talk today about an expression that came from mrs. Thatcher and that it n is a very simple one the facts of life are conservative the facts of life are conservative and you can try and buck those facts of life but reality will have a way of asserting itself the the first fact I think deals with what's going on in our neighbor to the to the South Ross now that many of you heard today and he was asked why Republicans don't get together and connect more with Canadian conservatives and Australian conservatives and conservative parties around the rest english-speaking well there's very few very few connections very few connections there and he based on paraphrasing his answer but he basically said well we go we don't we don't think you guys are the real deal we think you're like wussy conservative light and the Republican Party is the real thing and and I've heard that a lot in the United States I had a disagreement with Professor Paul Ray of Hillsdale College at the time Obama was was ramming through Obamacare and the stimulus and all the rest of it and I said that as a Canadian this looked very familiar to me a lot of what he was doing and professor ray said to me where you don't you don't get it you don't get it Americans and not Canadians we are not going to go willingly into that dark status night the way Canadians have been willing to do now at that point at that point total government spending just to go back to that video we were looking at total government spending in the United States was 42 percent of GDP and in Canada at that time it was 43 percent of GDP so that's in tiny little sliver of 1% is the difference between Ross now that's sturdy self-reliant republic of manly small government types and an effete pantywaist deadbeat pansy fide semi French monarch Eagle basket-case that little 1% a year ago when when Professor Paul ray and I had that argument the percentages were actually this Canada 42 something percent we've gone down and the United States 45 something percent so sometimes sometimes a country's mythology outlives the reality and I would humbly suggest to Ross and friends in the Republican Party that their mythology has outlived the reality of what has actually happened in the United States if you take America's if you take America's total indebtedness federal-state a lot it averages out to three-quarters of a million dollars per family the United States is on course to become the first nation of negative millionaires but if you just stick with the official federal debt the figure for which Washington is officially responsible in Australia each citizens share of the debt is $12,000 in New Zealand it's $15,000 per person in Canada $18,000 in the United Kingdom $28,000 and in the United States it's fifty-four thousand dollars per person twice as much as Britain thrice as much as Canada closing in on five times as much as Australia and on that trajectory America is exiting the first world we've just had the federal budget in Ottawa last year the deficit I believe I'm right in saying with six billion dollars and this year there will supposedly be a surplus of 18 billion those are rounding errors in a Washington budget the US government spends six billion dollars it doesn't have every 32 hours what would what would that eighteen billion dollar surplus the Canada has this year what would that buy you in Washington it would buy you one half of one nothing little federal program the Obama administration's thirty eight point six billion dollar clean technology program was supposed to create or save 65,000 jobs half the money has been spent that's seventeen point two billion and they have three thousand five hundred and forty five jobs to show for it which works out to an impressive four million eight hundred and fifty-one thousand nine hundred and four dollars and nine cents per green job they've they've created that's that's the difference in scale between what is happening down south and what is happening up here by the way I love what people complain about here it's open National Post this morning and saw that Alison Redford is in trouble for spending nine thousand two hundred dollars to fly herself her daughter and two staffers back from Palm Springs for Ralph Klein's funeral that's nine thousand two hundred that's four thousand eight that's two thousand four hundred per person for nine thousand two hundred dollars you can't take Obama to the men's room at the Starbucks across from the white hat you can't take in there for ninety two thousand it costs it costs seven million dollars to fly the Obamas to Hawaii for weeks Christmas vacation and I love the way and people should never stop I love it a world where people complain about nine thousand dollars of political expenditures when Prince Prince William and his lovely bride were here a year or two ago and they flew him to Los Angeles in that rcaf Boneshaker that they call the VIP transport and at her Royal Highness emerged looking radiant as she always does but it was probably because the RCAF had decided to splash out on new bedding for the royal tour master corporal Amanda Herron was dispatched to the local mall in Trenton and returned with a pale blue and white comforter and matching pillows is there no end to thee like grotesque indulgence of these pampered royal deadbeats I found a beautiful set said master corporal Herod it was such a great price I bought one for myself don't donate don't ever look don't ever lose that because in Washington in Washington both parties are part of the problem you know in 2011 Obama's now entirely forgotten deficit Commission produced a bipartisan report melodramatically emblazoned the moment of truth in which it proposed such convulsive course correction as raising the age of Social Security eligibility to 69 by the Year 2075 you know if that if that's the best America can do there isn't going to be a 2075 not for anything recognizable as the United States and this gets this gets to our first fact of life when money drains power drains when a nation loses control of its finances it loses control of its destiny and when the global superpower loses control of its finances then you're in a situation where what we think of as the free world protected by the United States since 1950 will also is also in danger of losing control of its destiny Chuck Hagel has just made an announcement that the United States is going to downsize its military to pre-1940 levels if you taken a train across North America in 1938 and you just looked at the men in uniform at the station's you stopped at you would have thought Canada was the military superpower on the North American continent in 1938 so the idea of the United States military shrinking back to pre 1940 standards is quite a good significant move the u.s. accounts for over 40 percent of the world's military expenditures and the Congressional Budget Office has predicted that by the end of this decade America will be spending more on debt intra than on its military in other words not paying off your MasterCard at the end of the month but just paying or making the minimum interest payment necessary to roll over the debt till next month the cost of that will be more than the entire budget for the US military which means it's more they will be spending more on debt interest than China Britain France Russia Japan Germany Saudi Arabia India Italy South Korea Brazil Australia Spain Turkey Israel and Canada spend on their militaries combined so within a few years US debt interest payments will be covering the entire cost of the Chinese armed forces if they're if they ever have a military showdown over Taiwan Washington will be funding both sides of it that's how that's how crazy it is when money drains power drains and for Canada the biggest geopolitical challenge will be to figure out a way not to get sucked down that same drain if America proves incapable of serious course correction and by the way just just to pick up the point that Rick was making that is why the we are seeing the ongoing religious cleansing of the Middle East why Christian churches are being burned down and why why Christians are fleeing the Middle East the the Christian community in in Iraq disappeared on America's watch the last Christian Church was raised in Afghanistan I think in 2011 on America's watch because those guys have figured out that that in the end you can be the biggest spender on the planet but if you don't have the will to enforce your way you can be provoked within impunity if you're in Singapore Australia or Poland or Israel they'll tell you that the the American moment the post Second World War order is coming to an end and they're making plans for the post American world as best you can if you if you're in Paris they think that the two century anglo-saxon Imperium from the British Empire to the American Republic they see it like the Roman Empire and the Roman Republic as one continuous stream of history they think that is now coming to an end and in China they think that a a half millennium perverse anglo-european blip is coming to an end as the world returns to its natural Asian and more specifically Chinese domination a year ago I took my daughter to to see Westminster Abbey and we looked at the coronation chair which which features in like a big scene in The King's Speech that she'd she'd just seen and it was commissioned by King Edward the Confessor in the year 1300 and has been used for every coronation since and a chair that lasts seven centuries is is quite something my daughter reminded me that when I treated myself to a self-assembly deluxe office chair from Office Depot and I self assembled it it D self-assembled 72 hours later so a seven chair the last seven centuries is kind of impressive you know when that chair was built the biggest cities in the world were Hankow as we used to call it in China and Nanking and Cairo in Egypt and London was a muddy dump on a rain sodden island off the edge of the map and in in 1215 when Magna Carta was signed in some nothing little meadow near Windsor Castle the biggest cities were again Hangchow and Constantinople and Merv in Turkmenistan anyone here from Merv today come on give him a big hand folks anyone had nobody here former I can't believe her I can't believe it the Turk the Turkmenistan Merve was the most famous Merv in the world until Merv Griffin I think they're the only two famous Merv's now I come to think about it but once upon a time Merv mattered and then it didn't and and as the Turkmenistan tourist board would be the first to tell you when you cease to be a part of the future you also cease to be a part of the past because nobody cares anymore Jason Jason Kenny was talking yesterday about how our elites have a contempt for skilled labor and so the presumption of how we raise our children is to divert more and more of them away from genuine primary wealth creation and say well why don't why don't you just go to the University of Western Western Ontario and and study transgender and colonialism studies for six years if you if you swing by Carleton University and talk to a seventh year Human Rights tudi next that's okay we have we have some in the house I wish that were a joke but it comes for that it comes from a story of the Ottawa Citizen from last year students put up a so-called free speech wall to promote free speech and it was destroyed a few hours later in quote an act of forceful resistance by seventh year human rights student Erin Smith I don't know where our and Smith is maybe he's an eighth year Human Rights student now but you know if you go to Carleton and you and you go up to a ninth year 13th year Human Rights student sitting on a grass on the grass on a summer's day listening to the latest little dinky advice from Apple about the size of a business card let's not mock Aaron Smith too much see I'm sure it's very grueling trying to finish your thesis after a decade and a half let's just call him chip chip chip chip doesn't work as hard or create as much wealth as rajeev in bangalore who gets up early every morning and heads off to put in a full shift making the little latest electronic gizmo from apple that chip loves but chip assumes he will always live better than rajeev simply because he's Canadian he's North American and Rajeev in Bangalore isn't and and chip would revile the comparison but his assumptions are no different from Cecil Rhodes who said in the 19th century in the late 19th century that to be born an Englishman was to win first prize in the lottery of life and it was true once and because it was once true people assume it will always be true but chip is wrong in his complacency an advanced developed society is a rare and precious thing and has to be earned and if all the Rajiv's in Bangalore at the Apple Factory work harder than all the chips in Ottawa entering their second decade of human rights studies then eventually economic reality will it assert itself and that is the the second fact of life that permanence is the illusion of every age everybody has thought everybody from the Roman Empire to the British Empire has thought that what they had was permanent and they had put themselves beyond the winds of history and they have not another fact of life you don't need a president for life if you've got a bureaucracy for life the the dictatorships the dictatorships in Africa and Latin America specialized in presidents for life and they would seize the presidential palace and they were there for at least a week and a half until they were carried out by the handles and the new president for life took over the Western world has found a different way which is the bureaucracy for life and I think that's I think that is a threat to Liberty and a threat to representative government you see it you see it in Europe you said in the United States California is broke California's economy is a California has a population about the size of Canada's it has a state government that like many others in North America is essentially a malign self-dealing alliance between the political elite the unionized bureaucracy in a permanent dependency class the California occupational safety and health standards board has been trying to decide whether the pornographic movie industry should be subject to the same regulatory regime and hygiene procedures as hospitals you know with the surgical masks and the latex gloves which would I think I'm not a connoisseur of pornography but I think would look kind of odd in most of the admittedly while the underdeveloped plots that are those movies all them together but anyway they they want the porn movie industry to be brought subject to the same health and hygiene regime as hospitals actually fairly Quebecers here if you've ever been in one of those Quebec hospitals with the the distinctive a strain of c.difficile that Lebel province has managed to develop you'll note would make a lot more sense to require Quebec hospitals to bring themselves up to the same hygiene standards as a San Fernando Valley pornographic movies there is not the regulator with the regulatory state also in California they're there they're considering maked making it illegal to have non fitted sheets in motels and hotel bed so it would be illegal they're setting up a sheet regulatory authority to ensure that there are no non fitted sheets bureaucrat unionized bureaucrats with gold-plated benefits and pensions would make a living from checking they've got elasticated sheets at the Western next door and so you will have a sheet regulatory regime with sheet regulatory enforces kicking down the door of room 73 of the Econo Lodge to check you're in compliance you can try to resist but they'll kick the sheet out of you you know when when this country decriminalized homosexuality and this is the fascinating thing about progressive government when this country decriminalized homosexuality Pierre Trudeau famously said the state has no place in the bedrooms of the nation but but in fact big government like the California sheet police says oh yes we do if you're consummating your same sex marriage on a non fitted sheet so it's it's not it's not good for business you know I was talking to a Ku Klux Klan guy and they were going to hold the big national convention in San Diego but then they said every grand Kleagle would have to have an elasticated sheet in it you know make it makes your redneck to read it's so you know it's not it's not just about redistributing wealth or even redistributing Liberty it's it's something more basic than that basically it's redistributing societal energy from the productive sector to the obstructive sector and that is another fact of life that big government makes small citizens to be told you are not free to put an on elasticated sheet on your bed is not a small loss its immense and profound in what it says about state power and that is true for the people who regulate our lives - I was on the receiving end not as Rick said of just the Ontario Human Rights Commission but of three separate Human Rights Commission's in in this country where do you go to vote out the HRC which polling station do you go to to vote out whichever faceless bureaucrat at the RCMP banned that gun the other day the left loves this stuff because it makes elections less and less important you have in a sense a permanent one-party bureaucratic state in which occasionally a left-wing party will get knocked out of power but the right-wing party that comes in is basically sitting in the in the pilot seat of a plane locked on the bureaucracies automatic pilot in in English boys boarding schools the the prefix you used to give the the boys in the first year tuppence hatin II in those chilly wintery unheated schools to go and sit on the toilets and keep the seat warm until the prefect was ready to Swan in and assume his rightful position and and the Liberal Party of Canada and other left-of-center parties around the world understand that that is the basic function of right-of-center parties when when when the Liberals are knocked out of office you give the Conservatives tuppence ha'penny to go in and keep the seat of the one-party bureaucratic toilet warm until the left-of-centre party is ready to resume its its place again and it requires tremendous tremendous determination to do what Jason Kenney and other cabinet ministers have done over the last few years to take meaningful democratic accountable control of even a tiny part of the permanent Hydra headed bureaucracy and as difficult to do as it is I don't I don't know how many I don't know how many of his civil servants genuinely like Jason Kenney but they understand that it's not business as usual and - and it takes tremendous forcefulness to actually take one of those departments and persuade it to rethink it's because they think yeah Jason Kenney yeah he'll be here two three four years then he's gone and some other guy we will carry on regardless and it takes tremendous determination to ensure that they don't carry on regardless and the left is thinking about that permanent bureaucracy the whole time not just at City Hall County Hall provincial Hall Dominion Hall but United Nations Hall they're thinking of it at a global level anyone here know who Herman Van Rompuy is oh wow yes you sir yeah that's right that's right you were you in the Honda Civic have a have a word with Preston it's fully loaded and it be waiting for you outside yeah he's some Belgian bloke who managed to get himself appointed quote president of Europe whatever that means he's hardly a household name even in the Van Rompuy household he's a and I don't think Belgian TV has a Belgian Idol or Dancing with the Belgians but but he'd be knocked out in round one I think even if he either but in his acceptance speech he you know say he's like he got he basically got lucky one one minute he was an obscure Belgian next minute he was an obscure Belgian with president of Europe printing it on his business card you know it could happen to anyone but he declared in his acceptance speech she declared 2009 is the first year of global governance did you get that memo you know if you don't like your local school you can move to the next town if you're sick of Quebec taxes you can move to Saskatchewan where do you move to if you don't like global governance what polling station do you go to to vote that out so so the rise of the hyper regulatory bureaucratic state is an assault on representative government and free peoples have to figure out a way to reclaim the right to change their government so that that faceless bureaucrat in the RCMP and all the other regulatory agencies is implementing the will of the people's representatives and not in effect passing new micro laws without the tedious business of having to bring them to Parliament I would I would I would say another fact of life the most consequential act of state ownership in the late 20th century Western world was not the nationalization of Airlines or the nationalization of Railways or the nationalization of health care but the nationalization of the family I owe that phrase to Professor VAD yonathan at the Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore which I turn I mentioned a few minutes ago and he's a bit of a chippy post imperialist and he's nobody's idea of a right winger but he's absolutely right about this it's the defining idea of our times once upon a time ambitious leftists wanted to take control of the controlling heights of the economy steel coal cars planes banks but it was such a disaster that it's been more or less abandoned and instead they they did something which i think is far subtler which is to embark on the nationalization of the family the the the West has nationalized families over the last 60 years writes professor of idea Nathan old-age ill health single motherhood everything is the responsibility of the state and like any other nationalized industry the nationalized family prioritizes more and more perks for its beneficiaries its unresponsive to market pressure and it revels in declining productivity literally I mean the biggest structural defect which again has been tangentially touched on here the biggest structural defect in the Western world is its death demography the upside-down family tree in Greece for grandparents of two children have one grandchild so the problem in Greece isn't fiscal not an accounting issue it's not a budget issue it's way beyond that is it likely that 42 grandchildren are going to pay off the debts run up by 100 grandparents everybody knows the answer to that the nationalized family doesn't save Canada for example I said it had significantly lower levels of government debt than many other countries but it has unhealthy levels of personal debt why should the nationalize family say when the state pays for your retirement and your kids and your aged parents and your health care what's to save for you know Edmund Burke talked about the little platoons I've heard it quoted a couple of times at panels around here the last couple of days and Alexis de Tocqueville put it slightly differently that what matters are the mediating institutions between the citizen and the sovereign local government churches charities civic institutions - many of which have been hacked away over the last two or three generations but the most basic societal building block of all is the family and another fact of life - that is that the great evil of welfare is not that it's a waste of money but that it's a waste of people when you have transgenerational multi-generational welfare when your families when where people don't work where nobody as many memories of people working and that goes on two to three four generations that's the most appalling waste of people's lives and that that waste of lives is is far more critical and and a far worse evil than simply the waste of money involved and I would say as a as a final thought that this is the most important factor of all culture Trump's politics once every once every few years you can persuade the electorate to go out and vote for a conservative part but if you want them to vote for conservative government you have to do the hard work of shifting the culture every day seven days a week in all the years between elections because if the cultures liberal if the schools are liberal if the church is a liberal if the hip fashionable business elite is liberal if the guys who make the movies and the pop songs are liberal then electing a conservative ministry isn't going to make a lot of difference and not a nor should it because in a free society politics is the art of the possible and if you want to make more things possible you need to lay all the groundwork in the period between elections soon Susan Delacorte said just before I came on about an hour ago that the thing about the the Conservative Party is that by the time the election campaign is launched they've already fought the election campaign in other words they've done it before the campaign officially begins and that's another line of mrs. Thatcher's first first you win the argument then you win the election but you don't you don't think about it just in terms of what you need to move the meter this way in this or that swing riding you you need in terms of what you're able to do in government in terms of making sure that you're not merely in office but in power and able to affect change you have to be able to do that work in a more profound sense winning the election is one day winning the argument is every day you know when I ran into trouble with the Human Rights Commission's five years ago I had lunch with an old friend in Montreal who said just stay quiet keep your head down it'll all blow over and if I'd taken his advice I would have lost MacLaine's would have lost Canada's left-wing media though though they wouldn't thank me for it would have lost basic Free Press rights and Canadian citizens all of you would have lost basic free speech rights and then I ran into that well-known nutter Ezra Levant who said who said no no you need to go nuclear and and by the way that's Ezra's advice for everything if you ever get a parking ticket or the line at Tim Hortons is moving slowly that's always a just go nuclear so we did go nuclear now because the Human Rights Commission had erected a speech regulation regime at odds with Canada's entire eight centuries of legal inheritance so Ezra and I decided to go magna carta on the Human Rights Commission's medieval ass and you know and it was and it was exert and it was exhausting but we gave him the worst two years publicity in their history and by the end of it the Toronto Star and pen Canada that's Margaret Atwood and all the gang were all on board with restoring free speech and finally the political class got on board and after a somewhat tortured path through the Senate last summer a private member's bill received Royal Assent and section 13 Canada's disgusting censorship law was finally abolished no no no no no no no don't don't don't do that because because the the great the great lesson of that is it was just for me for me as someone who has never fought a political campaign never tried to get a bill through Parliament the great lesson of that was that it took Azra and me and a few others going bananas just to drag that the great squishy centre of conventional wisdom 1/2 inch in the direction of sanity and the lesson you should learn from that is is the great the great thing about being conservative as opposed to being a left winger who just wants to be in power and just wants the party to be and all we're always dissatisfied and we're and we're right to be dissatisfied with our party because it's never going to be enough because because the because the lesson of that is the effort involved just in moving the meter one little tick on one tiny little issue but that is how you have to do it in free societies and you can't do it unless you're out there making the case in all the places where real people real lead real lives you know the left say they want to save the planet and the planet is fine the planet will do ok the planet will shrug us all off when area thought you know why not try saving your province try saving your county saving your town saving your school board it's not as glamorous but you might actually have a sporting chance of pulling it off nobody needs you to save the planet and that is and that is where the battle is fought you know conservativism is not a pinched negative cramped philosophy we don't believe in big government we don't believe in big bureaucracy big regulatory enforcement but we do believe in big freedoms in big possibilities in the biggest richest civilizational inheritance in this planet's history one that's delivered longer better healthier more prosperous lives to more people around the world than any other system one that enables people to live their lives to their fullest potential to live in Liberty to live in dignity and to live without fear and that's not a negative message and it doesn't need to be pinched to the citizenry in a cramped negative way don't let the don't let the liberals now they've got the guy with great hair now they've got rid of Michael Ignatieff the postmodern guy who if he ever needed a home this would suddenly be high up on his list just because they found just because they found a guy with terrific hair don't let them resurrect that tired old line that somehow Canadian values or liberal values you know I I love this country I am grateful to be heir to those eight centuries of individual liberty I am proud that Canada was one of the few countries that was on the right side of all three of the great global conflicts of the 20th century I am proud that we have had almost half a century of continuous constitutional evolution without without revolutions and presidents for life and dictatorships and all the rest that you go back to the 70s people think of the 70s in Canada they think of disco and wide trousers and the Partridge Family in the 70s in Spain Portugal Greece Poland East Germany the Czech Republic Bulgaria the 1970s doesn't mean disco it doesn't mean sometimes when we touch that the ministers of the crown were singing to each other in the it means dictatorship that's how rare it is on this planet and I am I am proud that this country is one of the handful that has never had to undergo that and I have utter contempt for those who modify Cromwell's injunction to paint him warts and all by teaching our children only the warts of pre Trudeau Qian Canada culture Trump's politics and conservatives need to get back in the game in the culture from the schoolhouse to the movie theater to all the places where people who aren't interested in politics live and form their impressions of how they vote and if you get that right then the politics will follow thank you very much indeed um I I'm told I'm told we've got time for a couple of questions or a rendition of sometimes when we touch so if you'd like if you'd like to ask a question that would be that would be I'd be honored to take it oh my lord yeah I'm being I'm being sued I'm being sued by Michael Mann the climate change guy for mocking his hockey stick this is the one that shows the last thousand years completely flat temperature and then just like the hockey blade on going straight up through the through the 20th century and I don't really get a you know the scale of lawsuits in the United States this is in DC Superior Court it's so different esra rang me up the other day he said things had gone badly for him in an Ontario court and it had cost him $7,500 and I said yeah cry me a river the the first year and a half of pointless litigation with this guy in Washington it cost half a million dollars so I'm the the the lesson there I think is again you know don't let people set the parameters of the debates don't let people co-op the language and make it easy to portray you as as deniers on that any any other questions yes either so I'm a conservative so I believe you know Western civilization was a good thing but you know every now and again in kind of Western history we've done things that haven't been great and how do we talk about those as conservatives while saying that you know our underlying values we believe in Western civilization is good but you know some things that we've done in our history haven't always been great well you I think you I think you acknowledge them honestly but you but you don't you don't distort the record and then the record is that that principles of Liberty derive from a relatively narrow tradition around a the world and and and I'm not being Eurocentric in this particular instance because continental countries have proved absolutely hopeless for the most part and reliably transferring them on from one generation to another you know what I figure with it what is the friend what Republic of the of the French up to by now I they you know they've had their second empires and third republic fifth republic I think they're it's the old punch joke about the guy walks into the library and says where can I find a copy of the French Constitution and the librarian said it's filed under periodicals you know that that but we have our tradition our tradition our tree I'm um you know I mocked michaëlle jean delivering the throne speech from Senator Brazos new new place of employment but that all the things when we criticize the Senate and we don't when people say well and see why do we need a left tenant governor in every pot when they're actually mocking a system that has been around so long it has developed bits we find quaint and obsolescent and funny and like to laugh at and mock and sneering do you know what a luxury that is in the world that your system of government sticks around long enough for it to seem quaint and obsolete and cobwebbed that is actually a great one of the great quality and the other and the other thing I work the other thing I would say on that which are absolutely reject is the urge to somehow there are millions of people around the world who know what it's like to fear the free am knock on the door who know what it's like to have the door kicked in who know what it's like many people came to Canada because they know what it's like when to be walking on a carpet with no floorboards underneath that that somehow civilization is conditional which is what it was in Eastern Europe and many other place why people came here and so when I hear people like Bernie Farber who is a member of great ran as a Liberal candidate somewhere in Toronto Africa which which writing a book yeah Thornhill when I hear him try to get Canada Canada made guilty of genocide for the way it it treated its First Nations of people there are millions of people including Bernie Farber who's apparently forgotten who know what real genocide is and it's at and it's absolutely disgusting that the in the Indian that the people have so little sense of proportion that they would that effect in an inner tent in effect attempt to move Canada into the same camp as some of the most evil regimes in history and by the way you know Bernie Farber on his Twitter feed has the picture of him getting the Queen's Diamond Jubilee medal you know which Ezra and I are not in any danger of being nominated for anytime soon but I tell you something if I if I ever was offered a Diamond Jubilee medal I wouldn't I wouldn't take it from a regime that supposedly guilty of genocide I don't I don't I don't get that and we have to learn we have to be honest and we have to maintain a sense of proportion about these things s you say you mentioned the the eight-year human rights student and at the University of Ottawa we currently have a student union president who I think is in her 10th year for Women's sir Women's Studies degree and I'm just wondering what your advice would be to conservatives on University campuses across the country that have to deal with the left-wing extremism in our student unions I I think you should always listen carefully when someone is telling you to shut up and you should divert a degree of tolerance for all kinds of all kinds of you my my my friend and colleague Paul wells was speaking earlier Paul Paul abashed me and mocked me and sneered at me and jeered at me on in some MacLaine's in some big MacLean Scott I think that's I think that's fine I disagree with Paul I don't want to ban Paul and the minute I was to say well I think Paul well should be banned I would hope that Paul Wells would like punch me in the kisser because if you're not allowed to if you're not allowed to discuss these things than the only thing that's left is physical violence you know the pen is only mightier than the sword if you're allowed to use the pen and at your university and at Kingston and at too many seats of institutions that are supposed to be open to honest inquiry too many people say no you can't use the pen and and the minute somebody free speech is about not about drawing a line I mean that's what I had at the start of this thing so oh it's about where you draw the line it's about balancing but it all sounds very Canadian of course I'm in favor of free speech but it's not where you draw the line no it's not it's very easy free speech is for all the stuff you think should be on the other side of the line it's for the stuff you find offensive it's all the stuff you find grotesque and and that guy who's the who who's the guy at Carleton who was basically the next prime minister in waiting for 20 minutes back in the 1990s in when when Kretsch on had his crown prince of the week thing going on was that guy which guy was it Allan rock when he said when he when he writes a letter to Ann Coulter before she comes his University and says you you're not in America now you've got to be careful about what you say this is all very it's very different he ought to be ashamed of himself as a so-called liberal so when a Prime Minister in Waiting circa 1997 like Alain Locke tells you that you say to him do you want to step outside because because when you when he tells you you can't say anything then saying you want to step outside is the only is the only alternative thank you very much I'll tell you I'll take one more question to give to lift it they go yeah you lose just then how are you doing today I'm doing good that that was my question thank you that's it so you emphasize that there has to be a greater focus on like the local community right which I actually greatly agree cuz everyone's always focusing on what's going around and they forget about what's like directly beside them so in our globalized economy and just like in the world and how it's going how can you focus on like what's your strategy for like focusing on like the community that's close and trying to you know deal with the globalized world as well well I don't think you abandon one or the other but the thing is you can do it at the local level you can you can you can get it done you know it actually it in my town in in New Hampshire couple of towns over a guy wanted to put a bridge was washed down they wanted to put up a new bridge and somebody came through and said well you know there's a new state bridge grant program where it's I think was the 70/30 plan you'd have to pay 30 percent of it the state would pay 70 percent and so they went in for that plan and for five years the bridge wasn't built and at that point Obama introduced his stimulus which meant that there was now an 8020 federal state bridge building program so the town would be paying thirty percent of the state's twenty percent and the feds would pay the less the rest of the bridge so another four years went by and the bridge still wasn't built and the temporary bridge wore out and just before you know ban ki-moon came in and said well wait until the UN 6040 bridge spit another bridge war out and instead of going in for the 70/30 state local 8020 federal state 6040 UN federal they just put up a bridge themselves for $16,000 and believe it or not you know the first people who came to this continent did that all over the map it wasn't regarded as a great achievement they hacked their way into the wilderness and they built towns and they cleared land and they built farms and they built gristmills next to streams and they built communities and that's how you do it nobody gives you that little village or that little town those people hacked their way into the woods and they build it themselves and that's still the best advice thank you very much to me

Channel: Canada Strong and Free Network

Views: 145,644

Keywords: Mark Steyn (Author), Conservative Party Of Canada (Organization)

Id: zMjm1zDBY-k

Length: 62min 18sec (3738 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 09 2014