BC Conservative leader John Rustad joined Dr. Jordan Peterson on his self-titled podcast to discuss his plan to stop the “socialist trainwreck in British Columbia,” ahead of the looming provincial election.
Peterson and Rustad talked about how a BC Conservative government could reform British Columbia’s education, exploit its natural resources, and upgrade the province’s energy grid.
In a podcast episode recorded in mid-August in the small town of Fairview, AB, Peterson talked with Rustad about the left-wing’s environmental agenda and how it hurts the interests of everyday Canadians.
The two talked about the plan by governments around the world, including the Trudeau government, to limit the use of nitrogen-based fertilizer and how moving away from such farming practices would cut food production and increase costs.
“There seems to be this bent by populations around the world, by governments around the world that they want to stop the use of nitrogen-based fertilizer,” said Rustad, as Peterson an exasperated Peterson grumbles in the background.
“40% of the world’s food supply comes from nitrogen-based fertilizer. So if you’re gonna stop using that…you’re talking about a significant amount of shortage of food. People starving. And sorry, I’m not up for that.”
Peterson and Rustad also talked about energy generation and British Columbia’s need to expand its energy generation capacity without raising the cost of energy.
Rustad explained that uranium is a far denser and efficient source of energy than coal, oil, or natural gas, and that uranium’s density makes nuclear an efficient and environmentally friendly source of energy.
“Whether it’s small modular reactors or other types of nuclear energy, we’re going to need that power in British Columbia,” said Rustad.
“It’s something that I think as a government we need to go out and have an honest conversation with people about. Like let’s talk about what it means and what the cost is for people and what that means for your quality of life and what the options are and lets just be straight up with people and let them decide where they’d like to go.”
Rustad emphasized the need to drive energy costs down, promising to scrap the province’s carbon tax that has been in place since 2008.
Rustad also complained about British Columbia’s struggle to trade energy and other products with fellow Canadian provinces. He says that as premier, he would work with other premiers to develop a free trade framework across the provinces.
“Should we have that opportunity to form government, I actually want to try to create a Canada-wide free trade agreement,” said Rustad.
“It makes no sense to me that I can trade easier with the United States and Mexico than I can with other provinces. We have no sense of who we are as a country. We need to be able to create that sense as a country. So let’s start talking about how we actually build trade across this country and have a sense of who we are.”
Rustad promised greater transparency from the government if the BC Conservatives form government in October by reforming the province’s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act to automatically make public all information that cannot be made private.
“I’m gonna make all the information that can be made public, public,” said Rustad.
“The job of the freedom of information officer should be what can’t be made public. Give the people the facts. Give them the information. And then it’s no longer politicians that are giving spin, but politicians that are responding to the facts.”
On the education file, Rustad said that he would transition the education system away from teaching students what to think, and instead teach them how to think in a politically neutral manner.
“What is needed to start with is we need to do a full review of all material that’s being made available for teachers and look at it from a perspective of being neutral,” said Rustad.
Peterson challenged Rustad on this point, contending that the education system should not merely be neutral, but should promote anti-communism, Western civilization, and free markets.
“It seems to me that one of the errors that conservatives and classic liberals have made consistently across time is a kind of apologetic neutrality,” said Peterson.
Rustad responded by saying the province would not shy away from teaching about communism or the holocaust but would do so from a fact-based perspective, allowing students to draw their own conclusions.
“It’s not that we won’t teach about communism, that we won’t teach about the holocaust because we will. We need to show that from a perspective of this is the facts that happened, this is the evil that happened, this is the damage that was done with it, not from an ideological perspective but from a facts-based [perspective].”