As the Conservative Party chooses its second leader since Andrew Scheer stepped down, People's Party of Canada head Maxime Bernier says he has no regrets at leaving the party he might be leading if he had stayed..“I took the right decision when I left. I told them, ‘Why are you not taking some of my ideas? They were popular,” Bernier recalled in an interview with Western Standard..“Scheer had told me, ‘Maxime, they're popular, but with the membership of the Conservatives, not with the general population…We are living in a socialist era. And if we want to be in power, we need to have that kind of electoral platform.’ So that's why I said the party ‘is intellectually and morally corrupt,’ because they have the name ‘Conservative’ and they're promoting leftist ideas.”.Bernier said Scheer and O’Toole spoke like a Conservative to win the leadership, then moved left on their federal election platform. He says Poilievre is “a bit more intelligent than O’Toole” but will use polls and focus groups to deliver a message that pleases voters east of Manitoba..“We know that the Conservative Party of Canada is taking the vote out west for granted. And when you have a Conservative candidate that is winning by 60% of the vote, the leader can say okay, ‘I'll do that policy. I know that it's not popular out West, so my candidate instead will win by 45%.’.“They're doing that and they will do that. So I don't want to be part of that. I said no, no, let's, let's fight for what we believe. And that's what I'm doing.”.Asked what he would say to those who believe the People’s Party is splitting the right-wing vote, Bernier had an answer..“Don't vote against something, vote for something. Vote for what you believe. And we're not splitting the vote. Actually, that's the Conservatives who are splitting the vote. They are splitting the liberal votes to be in government..“You're taking for granted that all our voters are former Conservative voters, they're not. We have people that are coming from the Green Party, the NDP because we are a common sense political party with common sense policies, and they like it. So that argument about splitting the vote is the only argument that the Conservative party has, and it's a fake one.”.Bernier said the Conservatives match the Liberals but differ with his party on issues like immigration and using the Constitution to override the provinces to get pipelines built. He says Conservative leaders are more cautious than he is on condemning late-term abortions and a euthanasia agenda he says has gone “too far.”.“On climate change, they signed the Paris Accord. Yes, (Pierre) Poilievre said he is against the carbon tax, but the problem is not the carbon tax. The problem is the Paris Accord. We must not sign that. So Poilievre won't impose a carbon tax, but he will impose more regulation on businesses to achieve the goals of the Paris accord,” Bernier said..“I can go on. Wokeism and socialism, he is not speaking about that. He didn't tell anybody that there's two sexes only, not five genders or 25 genders. I know he's afraid of that because it's not popular.”.“We were the only political party the last election that said we must unite everybody under the freedom umbrella. Now, it's more popular. You have mainstream establishment politicians, Pierre Poilievre that is thinking about freedom, because of all the freedom fighters across the country, because of the truckers, because of us. And because of people who did rallies across the country, we were able to shift the majority of the population. .“Now there's more people that are saying, 'Enough is enough, we won't take the third or the fourth or the fifth shots.' If you do politics based on conviction, you will be able to gain support.".“Poilievre is speaking against inflation, but he created inflation with Justin Trudeau with these huge deficits - $450 billion the last two years. Poilievre and the Conservatives voted for that. So I just want to say to people here, 'Wake up and smell the coffee,' you know?’”
