Leslyn Lewis interviewed by Bridge City News' Hal Roberts

The Federal Conservatives are choosing their new leader.
On September 10, around 5000 CPC Party
memberships were sold by the six candidates
vying to become the new conservative leader.
Pierre Polyvskamp said they led the the
way with around 312,000 membership sold.
Leslin Lewis group also sold a
number of memberships and Dr.
Leslie Lewis joins us now
Welcome to Bridge City News, Doctor Lewis. Thank you.
I'm happy to be here with you today.
So where did you receive the biggest response when
it came to membership sold by your team?
Was it here in Western Canada?
Where you are in Central Canada?
Well, I think it was more based on issues and
so it was more focused on issues that related to
freedom and sovereignty and our economy and prolife issues.
So we found that people were gravitating around these
issues that they felt that governments were dealing with
effectively and so they gravitated to our camp.
Were those a lot of the potential voters?
More so in Western Canada. Where did you sell more of
the memberships or in Central Canada?
I would say that they were spread out all over the country
and as you know, I did very well in Western Canada.
But we found that this election cycle that people were
more focused not really on regional issues per se, but
more on issues that pertain to the unity of the
country and the prosperity of the nation.
Now, a number of political experts say this
race is really Pierre Poilievre's to lose.
How do you respond to that?
Well, I think it's the members' race.
It's who the members are going to rally behind.
And I know that a number of camps have put
out their numbers, but really and truly, if everybody who
put out their number was accurate, our membership would have
to be around 900,000 because we also sold very strong
numbers and our numbers are even stronger than in 2020.
I just don't want to weigh into that number's
game because I don't think it's productive because it
really rests on who the members think will bring
this party forward, will unite this party, unite this
country, and bring in new conservatives into the fold.
And I believe I'm the best person to do that.
Now, you were born in Jamaica, immigrated to
Canada at the tender age of five, and
you grew up in East York, in Ontario.
You have a law degree, a PhD in international
law, and you're a Bible-believing Christian, correct?
I think isn't that the only
type of Christian that there is?
I don't know that a Christian could not believe
in the Bible and then consider themselves a Christian,
so I would agree with you on that.
So how has your faith really played
a role in defining who Dr. Leslyn Lewis really is？
I think that my faith has enabled me to
be more compassionate and to recognize that we were
all part of the same family, the human family,
and that no matter who we are, we deserve
to be treated with dignity and respect and love.
And so I look at even government policies as making
sure that we are there for the most vulnerable, being
there for the people who are in need, and making
sure that our policies not only uplift our nation and
prosper our nation, but that the social fabric of our
society is also held together.
Now, how would you really stick up
for social Conservatives should you become leader?
Well, I think it's important to stick
up for all Conservatives, for all Canadians.
And as I said, I think the social
fabric of our nation is very important.
It's one thing to have a vibrant economic nation.
But if we see that parents are losing their rights
to raise their children in accordance with their values.
If we see that families are being strained.
If we see that young people have no desire to.
Or just losing hope in being able to even
move out of their parents' home and own a home.
If we see that families are breaking up.
If we see that drug addiction
is just rampant within our society，
and if we look at the brokenness in our society and
we don't find ways to work together to fixing that，
then I don't think that we have a really vibrant.
productive society.
We need to ensure that the most vulnerable those are
in need, whether it's a pregnant woman who may decide
that she wants to keep her child, she may not
want to keep her child, she may want to give
it up for adoption, and she needs help getting through
that pregnancy to support pregnancy care centers.
So I think that we have to ensure
that all aspects of our society are strong.
So if you were to become leader of the Conservative
Party of Canada, would you reopen the abortion debate?
I don't believe that debate has ever been closed.
I believe in a democracy where
we can debate any issues.
And I believe in a democracy where not everybody
has to agree with me, but I should be
free to be able to discuss my perspective without
being demonized and without being labeled, without being ostracized.
So I think it's very important that we
move away from this woke cancel culture narrative
where we say we're closing off discussions on
any topics, because what happens then is you
create fringe movements that are outside of society.
And we want to be able to bring people
into the fold and have conversations about how we
progress as a society and as a nation.
So, Doctor Lewis, where do you stand on euthanasia?
I'm very concerned, and years ago we
spoke about the slippery slope and many
people said that we were exaggerating.
And now I'm very concerned.
A few weeks ago, there was a woman, relatively
young woman, who was unable to get housing because
she had a disability and she felt that because
she couldn't get subsidized housing that she was going
to seek to end her life.
And our government helped her to do that.
And I think that is wrong that we could provide for
a person to end their life, but we can't provide housing.
And so this is where we have taken Euthanasia
and are made legislation to the point where even
our most vulnerable are at risk because now it's
potentially going to be extended to individuals such as
teenagers who have mental health issues.
And those are people that are
in need of love and protection.
And yet we're saying that what we are willing
to do for them is to take their life
rather than give them the help and the resources
that they need to have a vibrant life.
A number of government restrictions are
finally coming to an end.
Why do you think it took the Trudeau Liberals
so long to act when so many other countries
around the world loosened their restrictions months ago?
I think that they got used to being able
to rule by decree and mandate and that somehow
they forgot that we have a constitution and a
Charter of Rights and that some of the things
that they were doing were abridging that charter.
We're infringing upon Canadians right, the right to peaceful
assembly, the right of the freedom of expression and
freedom of mobility when a government when we can
see that a government can invoke an act like
the Emergency Act to freeze people's property during a
protest and to confiscate people's property.
We know that this is a government that has gone
too far, that believes that they have the power to
control Canadians and that they are not answerable to Canadians.
They forgot that they work for the people.
And I think that that was the problem, that they were
so entrenched and that they just kept holding on to that
power and finally they realized that they were on the fringe
and that people would no longer tolerate that.
And all the other countries had moved along.
And I think that they were ashamed into making that
decision and I'm glad that they eventually did so.
Dr. Lewis, as we slowly make our way out of the
pandemic, what would you like to see the government do
to help our economy get back on track?
Well, I think that we have realized that
some of our policies were very short sighted.
Right now we are importing 555,000 barrels of
oil a day, largely from dictatorship regimes.
Yet we have the third largest
accessible oil reserves on the planet.
If we had built pipelines to transport
our products through, the most environmentally efficient
way of doing so is through pipelines
rather than through trucks and on trains.
We would have been able to get our products to
tide water, even sell some of our products abroad.
In Europe right now, 40% of the oil comes
from Russia and we would have been able to
offset that through our liquefied natural gas.
We would have been able to sell our products abroad to
offset even some of the countries that rely on coal.
And we have been very short sighted because those revenues
could have been repatriated back to our country to invest
in our infrastructure and to pay down our debt.
Right now we have a $1.3 trillion debt which we
are spending millions a day just to service that debt.
Each Canadian owes $40,000.
Even before they start school, they owe
a $40,000 share of that debt.
We need to pay down our debt and we need
to bring our fiscal balance in order to the point
where we are no longer relying on deficit spending.
And that means investing in
our natural resource sector.
It means bringing our supply chains home, producing
more within our country than we're consuming.
So the traditional liberals will have made life very
difficult for many here in our energy sector.
If you were to become CPC leader and the
potentially Prime Minister, what would you do to help
more of Alberta's oil and gas get to market?
May be cancel
Bill C-69.
Yes, absolutely.
That would need to be canceled along with the
recent C-48, because we cannot have a nation,
the nation with the third largest accessible oil reserves
on the planet that has legislation that favors foreign
oil production over local oil production.
We need to ensure that we
can develop our natural resources.
It not only benefits Canada as a whole, we
have First Nations communities that are engaged in resource
sharing agreements with our government that will enrich those
reserves, that will take those reserves out of poverty
and create wealth within those reserves.
Many of those First Nations communities have said
that they don't want to hand out.
They want to be able to enrich their own
communities and to develop infrastructure on their communities.
And Canadians also want that too.
We want to be able to uplift
ourselves and rebound out of COVID.
And one way of doing that is
to start developing our natural resources.
Because for every resource job that's created, there are
several splinter jobs created all around the country.
Whether they're in the steel industry, whether
they're in the banking industry, the transportation
industry, in the resource development industry.
These industries all benefit from
our oil and gas sector.
Now, here in southwestern Alberta, we
rely heavily on the agriculture sector.
What help would you like to see for
our farmers and ranchers who many would argue
are their bread and butter to our economy?
I think it's very important that we
recognize that our policies do directly affect
the food that gets on our table.
And when we have farmers who ordered fertilizer
from last year and had their fixed budget
for this year based upon those fertilizer costs.
And our government imposed a 35% tariffs on
the fertilizer that was ordered from last year.
It really offsets the balance and the budget
that they have set to produce the crops
for this year is completely off and they're
going to pass those costs on to consumers.
So we need to recognize that our policies do have an
impact on the cost of food that gets on our table.
We also need to invest in those industries
and make sure that even our environmental policies,
that they're not negatively impacting on those industries.
For example, in the agricultural sector, they have
to pay carbon tax to dry their crops,
but yet they don't get credit for carbon
sequestration that they produce while producing their crops.
So we need to ensure that our policies,
especially in the area of the environment, also
recognize the contributions of our agricultural sector.
Many Albertans are simply frustrated with
Ottawa and the federal liberals.
And there's more and more talk of separation
has been growing here in the west.
How would you approach the Alberta separatists?
A number of Albertans feel quite isolated from Ottawa.
Well, I would let them know that we want to
work with them and that we have a mutual goal
of keeping this country together, uniting this country and making
sure that every region's voice is heard.
We understand that the west has unique
issues that are pertinent to them.
And I recognize, I recognize that our centralized
government has taken the west for granted.
I recognize in issues and in regulations like
bill C 48 and Bill C 69 that
those regulations penalize the west and actually put
handcuffs on them to develop their natural resources.
And so I would work together with the
separatist and make sure that we have policies
that will ensure that the west thrives.
Because when the west thrives, so
does the rest of of Canada.
Amen to that.
Dr. Leslyn Lewis, CPC leadership Candidate, thanks so
much for joining us today from Ontario.
Thank you. It was a pleasure.