Interview with Kerry Colborne

Kerry Colborne talks about her recent campaign to represent Oakville in Ottawa, as a member of the Conservative Party of Canada. We talk about what went right and what went wrong.

Watch: https://youtu.be/ZpXWeT7Wzzw

Unedited transcript.

Jim Allan: Kerry Colborne was the Conservative Party of Canada candidate for Oakville in the 2021 federal election. It's now after the election and spoiler alert Kerry is not the member apartment for Oakville but she's graciously come to my basement studio to talk about it so welcome Kerry.

Kerry Colborne: Thank you. Great to be here.

Jim Allan: I'm all about decisions like big decisions life decisions and you had a life going on you had a small business you're involved in the Oakville Chamber of Commerce and the Heritage Committee what made you run in the first place? Were you bored?

Kerry Colborne: No I was not bored as you pointed out I actually had a very nice life I have a thriving small business you know financially I do very well so it certainly wasn't those kind of motivations by any means really my motivation was I said before the last provincial election that if Kathleen got back in I was gonna have to move I didn't know I was gonna move to but I was horrified with the direction that she was taking the province I didn't like any of her policies you know I met her I was chair of the chamber at that point I met her she was you know nice enough woman

Jim Allan: you're on a first-name basis with her

Kerry Colborne: yeah so but I as I said I didn't like any of her policies I thought she was taking the province in the wrong direction and it is 100% the same thing with federally I believe Trudeau is I'm not gonna say destroying because Canada is a strong country but I don't like the policies and you know so I decided to do something about it I you know I opted to work to become the candidate for the Conservative Party one of the things I said at the door and I knocked on over 2,600 doors during the campaign we knocked on over 20,000 doors during the campaign is that the only financial plan that the Liberals have is low interest rates and those are at the time we didn't know they were well I knew because my business is mortgages but we knew they were going to increase and I think they're going to increase more and quicker than people anticipated and we will be in big trouble

Jim Allan: But just getting nominated is is tough right is that a tougher fight

Kerry Colborne: It is actually probably in a lot of ways the tougher part it's actually yeah it's even though it's all in the family if you will it it can be quite divisive and yeah it it I actually think the party personally I believe the party needs to find a different way to nominate candidates I also personally believe that the party needs to find a new way to do leadership races as well because I find it's divisive as well Erin O'Toole called me after the election and that's that was one of the messages that I conveyed to him is that and it's it's in our Constitution on how we do it but I do think that we could do it better ways that are they're not so divisive among the members of the party.

Jim Allan: I used to follow politics Canadian politics really closely and then you I kind of went down the U.S. rabbit hole like five six years ago and I think I'm just burnt out and and to the point where Canadian politics almost seems kind of like boring too but you know not in a bad way it's a it's in a good way because I think there's trouble I had in the States but I can't at a certain point I just had to turn it off I think I'm in some even when I turn it on from by accident everyone's just yelling and screaming all the time and I that's the part of politics I don't like we're did you encounter that at the door at all not so people are just.. Canadians are just a little more polite

Kerry Colborne: but I think you know a lot of things that like many many things stuff slides across the border and some of those things are good and some of those things are not good and I think you know that is sliding across the border if you will so what I mean by that of course is US style politics

Jim Allan: Well the extreme right stuff

Kerry Colborne: Extreme partisanship and you know I told many people and including you know someone people who are you know very environmentally directed and interested in and I said you know one of the things I want to do and despite whatever is I intend if I was successful you know one of my intents would to be to go to meet three the other 337 other MPs and talk to them and make relationships with them and you know the Conservatives obviously have a platform that I strongly believe in other people have ideas to one of the things that drove me crazy during the pandemic is there wasn't there was some nonpartisan stuff but you know if that is a time during time of crisis that's when you completely should be a hundred percent nonpartisan and getting the ideas and the best information the best ideas from everybody not just one half of the others

Jim Allan: I think having a an active vocal opposition there's there's a role for an to keep people accountable certainly if you were a sitting member you had to do your job and where are the vaccines where the so I get that but I was sympathetic to the people that were in charge too it's and yet as a candidate of course you need to find your lane right you need to find the message that work was that difficult for you to net navigating that kind of stuff

Kerry Colborne: No, we just actually I organized the five candidates myself included so the four surrounding ridings I organized meeting that we had on Tuesday night because with conservatives you mean yes with conservatives that and just you know but it did a campaign debrief and one of the things we all agreed on was having our platform basically being announced or presented basically the you know soon after the election was called was one of the the best things that the the party did we had a very comprehensive I used to very comprehensive policy and platform I used actually take it with me to the door it's 87 pages long seven font you know so the great thing about that we had very much a vision for Canada I'm not sure that we did as good a job as we I would like and I'm sure all the candidates would like getting our vision out for Canada and defining the issues and defining the agenda but we had we had a great platform

Jim Allan: And you only had four weeks really and yeah but that was planned I mean you kind of knew it was coming and I was following you I mean the nomination you got the nomination done and they called the election it's all

Kerry Colborne: A week later

Jim Allan: Pretty quick yeah so they almost the liberals were trying to catch everyone flat-footed and then guess what two of those four weeks are in the summer which are traditionally slower because people in theory are away on fabulous vacations I suppose but anyway it's difficult

Kerry Colborne: We just got out of lockdown right?

Jim Allan: Yes

Kerry Colborne: July 16th I think was the end of lockdown in Ontario

Jim Allan: Well did people want to see you at the door face to face

Kerry Colborne: People were fine fine with it I didn't really have any issues I mean we were always very respectful always wearing a mask always he'd ring the door and then you step back right good six or seven feet yeah people were very you know never ran into issues with that I would say you know calling an election in the summertime and after just getting out of the lockdown still dealing with a pandemic people were not engaged you know they're like I I haven't thought about the issues I'm not I want to enjoy my life

Jim Allan: I'm just trying to pay the rent

Kerry Colborne: Yeah I want to pay the rent I want to enjoy my life I don't really want to talk about an election you know this was an election that nobody wanted except for mr. Trudeau himself I mean not even his own MPs didn't want an election and so yeah so people were not engaged certainly the latter first two weeks of the election for the most part they got more engaged

Jim Allan: And then you're right you run out of time I guess to a certain degree I mean I remember being on sports teams as a as a kid and even as an adult and when I when my team didn't win I'd call it you know we just went through a character-building defeat so why do you think you didn't win I'm sure you've thought about it.

Kerry Colborne: So, you know those are obviously we've we've thought about it I've had a lot of people say you know you must be you know gutted and if I didn't think we'd ran a great campaign I would probably agree with them but using your sports analogy I really feel that I personally left everything on the pitch and I still play soccer so I can say that that I left everything on the pitch and that the team left everything on the pitch we worked our tails off so I'm proud of the campaign we ran you know obviously I'm not pleased with the results there were a couple of things that happened. we have a very strong Chinese community in Oakville I worked super hard with them during the nomination race they were probably one of the biggest reasons why I ended up winning the nomination was with their support and the the conservative platform probably didn't do a good enough job of defining so I mean Erin O'Toole has been very clear we need to deal with China but didn't specifically say that it's the concert it's the Communist Party of China that is the challenge and the issue that we need to deal with.

Oh so they were the country of China and not of course the people of China and he did say that but they didn't necessarily hear that and their concern was that well if we elect Erin O'Toole it's gonna make our relationship with China even worse than it is and they didn't want that and a person who was very key on my nomination race herself had a difficult time voting conservative I only lost by about 3,500 votes and I believe a large portion of that was that the Chinese community either stayed home or voted for somebody else there there's lots of you know that's not the only reason by any means but that certainly is one that I believe was key in the Oakville riding

Jim Allan: I mean you had a tough opponent in the sense that of all people it's the cabinet minister Anita Anand who's in charge of the I mean it's the marquee charge of the vaccines with the marquee issue so it's tough in any election to beat the incumbent.  She had the I mean the first time she ran she was a relative unknown right this time she had the advantage of being a cabinet minister and I'm sure she'd be first to admit she was surprised to be on the front page of the paper a lot herself so I mean did were you hearing that a lot at the door as well?

Kerry Colborne: Not so much you know when you can you talk about the election I actually am really pleased that I was able to increase our popular vote percentage here in the Oakville riding versus and of course in the last time as you pointed out she was an unknown so I was able to increase the popular vote over somebody who was on our TV for an hour and a half every day for the last year and a half so again I think we have a lot to be proud of what we accomplished here and of course it was a challenge I probably in retrospect you know there's a lot of people in Canada who think she did a job at procuring vaccines but I don't know if you saw the the w5 expose that came out in the whole we talked about that sorry so that you know they first approached Cancino which is a Chinese vaccine manufacturer as their avenue to get vaccines and it didn't work out and at the end of the day we were way delayed in getting vaccines in Canada so for example I had friends that wintered in Florida they were both doubly vaccinated by early February I have a friend that vaccinates in that g7 island country of Turks and Caicos they were both doubly vaccinated in February my 89 year old dad and myself and my husband we couldn't get doubly vaccinated till June and the reason for that is because of mismanagement on procurement so you know I probably should have brought that out more at the door but at that point Canadians didn't really want to talk about vaccines but it was a key thing you know people's lives were lost about that and it hasn't been brought out again till recently CBC and the w5 did their did their you know shows on that but it's you know we did not have a good procurement in Canada

Jim Allan: It's a sensitive topic because by the time I don't know August September rolls around I was fully vaccinated so you're feeling some amount of relief and you want to look forward too so that's it's tough to complain about I mean I was watching you know I was refreshing the internet in February when there was nothing happening and you know it was more a Pfizer issue I think at the time but you know it was like 1.5 percent of Canadians were vaccinated for that whole month it was a straight line

Kerry Colborne: I'd go on the Bloomberg news and you know I'm so I'm gonna go with the number that I do remember I think at some point we were as low as the 80th in the world and getting vaccine vaccinated we were certainly 55th in the world and you know I'm sure there's plenty of Canadians that wouldn't easily be able to throw out 55 other countries right off the top of their head so we we did not have a great procurement the rollout I think when it came into Canada it was great but actually getting them procured and into Canadians hands was was not a success so yes now we're in the top and you know we have one of the highest vaccination rates in the world but when it was really key when it was when the vaccine was ravaging Canadians and particularly elderly Canadians we did not have vaccines

Jim Allan: Yeah it's a it's a tough it's hard you know it's hard it's like Monday morning quarterbacking it's I don't know what the soccer equivalent would be to that but it's it's a tough you know I think everyone was probably trying as hard as they could it's it's it's tough one so you know I'm realistic I don't expect you to hold exactly the same views as the party leader but publicly you kind of have to be in lockstep I get it but how do you rationalize any differences you may have to what the leader of the party has at any given time

Kerry Colborne: One of the things I love about the Conservative Party so as a candidate you know you attend training I guess if you will and one of the best sessions I attended was actually just for women and Michelle Rempel Garner was on that call with us and I don't know if you know her she's a front bench or she's one of the one of the rock stars of the party and one of the women asked a question saying you know we do when if you don't like or don't agree with a policy that the party is putting forth and Michelle's and Michelle is always very succinct and direct and she basically said you know what if you were a liberal you have no option it comes from top down there's no discussion about it it is what it is but in the Conservative Party and you're at caucus and if you don't like a policy then propose a change either propose a different policy or propose changes to the policy that makes it more acceptable to you and I found that actually very liberating the fact that we actually can do things like that I had questions before saying you know what if a policy is not good for Oakville what would your response be and the response would be is I would go to Erin O'Toole and look this is an issue in Oakville obviously I'm a true blue conservative but I cannot vote in this on this particular issue

Jim Allan: I mean I I'm glad you're vaxxed I'm glad you're pro-vaxx and your husband's vaccinated and your father's vaccinated right but back to February where that there's that flat line I mean I'm even saying the biggest issue here is vaccinations let's get but I think on that federal level there's some when you're aware that some conservatives are kind of what's going on with this anti-vaxx talk it's confusing and you can it's easy just to walk away from the party because that's happening in the states as well how do you rationalize all of that kind of talk

Kerry Colborne: I think one of the things that was disappointing in the election is that you know Trudeau elected to use vaccination and vaccines as a wedge issue I actually think that the conservative approach was actually it was a great approach and that you conservatives are the party of choices making choices you make your choices for you and your family not the government so what the position was is we want everybody to be vaccinated Erin O'Toole was very clear you know did the public vaccination like many was very clear that he wants all Canadians to be vaccinated but also recognize that there is some Canadians that can't be that they wanted to take a compassionate approach to people who were hesitant to get community leaders into some of those communities are hesitant to work with them to overcome their hesitancy and get them vaccinated and something that was highly underutilized in Canada because we didn't have it to be honest is the rapid testing so if you are not vaccinated let's use rapid testing it's effective again I had as you can imagine I had this discussion umpteen times at the door and I would say to everybody you know I'm very clear in my personal position I'm vaccinated I believe in vaccines and I believe in these vaccines I don't believe they're experimental mRNA is technology that is used widely not just in in pharmaceuticals but in agriculture as well we should be embracing it you know it doesn't take 12 years to develop a vaccine anymore because we have new technology just like we have new technology in a lot of other parts of our life assume again I will say here 100% I'm vaccinated I believe in vaccination I believe in these vaccines I believe all Canadians should be vaccinated but there are Canadians that can't so for example people who have multiple sclerosis my dear friend who had ALS those are people that clearly should not be introducing that and there are people that should have that choice it's not black and white I'm not comfortable with being a two-tier Canadians so those who are not treated the same that are but we have options and we should be utilizing those options

Jim Allan: So as a person with MS is that's a classic example is that everyone around that person should be vaccinated and that's the part of the message I'm just sort of hearing now it's like okay I get that person can't be vaccinated for whatever reason there's a lot of reasons but everyone around them should be so I don't know I think I saw a tweet or a message from you like right after the election you said you you love the campaign experience and you look forward to doing it again it's a few weeks later than that would you do it all again

Kerry Colborne: 100% so we stayed up to quarter to four the morning of the election we're sitting in my backyard my poor neighbors because we were laughing and having fun and just you know recounting a lot of the campaign and we were already planning our next campaign as we know I really only had six days to prepare which is nothing as you can imagine and we won't be caught in that situation again as I say we're already planning I had in a volunteer event last night and you know communicated to people that yes I will be running it was it was a great experience I think we can do better and we're planting the seeds I guess if you will to to win next time and next.

Jim Allan: I mean even within the party next time you'd be the incumbent but you would still have to run the for a nomination battle again

Kerry Colborne: It's part of the Constitution again is that they will hold the nomination race hopefully hopefully sooner rather than later

Jim Allan: Right

Kerry Colborne: Because I don't think the next election is gonna be four years away I suspect is probably gonna be more like you know a year and a half to two years as a minority government again and so yeah I'll promise you now I'll come back as your new MP of Oak Hill

Jim Allan: Do you want my prediction?

Kerry Colborne: Sure.

Jim Allan: Well I don't think Trudeau will run again

Kerry Colborne: No I don't think he will either

Jim Allan: Because he's however you want to define it he's won three elections and you don't you it's very very rare to to run four times and win so he probably knows that I have a feeling he'll stretch this I don't think he'll be he'll be calling an election in two years so it'll have to be the NDP voting against him to force another election and I don't see that happening I have a feeling he's gonna hang around for three or four years so that's what that's my that's so that's my worthless opinion…

Kerry Colborne: I think it's gonna depend on what the economy does

Jim Allan: True

Kerry Colborne: You know we're not the only country obviously dealing with inflation but it is it's at a 20-year high 4.1% we shrunk in the second quarter so we have the worst of both worlds in Canada shrinking economy within like huge inflation we have a massive debt and again when interest rates increase which you know and we don't control our our excuse me we don't control our interest rates here in Canada you know we might like to think we do because we have the Bank of Canada but we're influenced by you know global events and interest rates will rise and I think the finances of the country are gonna start to look pretty ugly and I think Canadians will be concerned you know it was a liberal government that did the hard yards back in Chretien and Paul Martin's days and this liberal government doesn't appear to have any interest whatsoever in fact you know Trudeau made it clear he was on camera saying he doesn't care about monetary policy well we need to care about monetary policy and it does directly affect families

Jim Allan: Kerry thanks for coming I very gracious of you to come and it was a nice chat.

Kerry Colborne: I enjoyed the opportunity Jim and I would be more than happy after the next election to come back and be your host as the MP of Oakville.