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Mike Johnson, the U.S. Republican House leader spoke by video link to ARC. He described the problem as 'soft despotism'.
'This kind of despotism doesn't arrive through violence or open tyranny. Instead, it comes quietly, insidiously, through comfort and convenience,' Johnson said.
And that comfort and convenience, according to Johnson captures people.
'Soft despots ensure your compliance through normal democratic channels regulations. Oh, they keep you safe. Censorship. That's to protect you from misinformation. Surveillance that's necessary for your security.'
The Canada Strong and Free Network brought together 500 people in the middle of an election campaign with the theme, 'Turn Ideas into Action'. But with most of the power brokers busy with the election it is was left to provincial conservatives like Premier Scott Moe, John Rustad, Jason Kenney and Premier Danielle Smith to generate the ideas to turn into action.
As soon as Mark Carney became Prime Minister, Danielle Smith gave him a list of demands for Alberta in the trade war with the U.S. At the conference she had another list – a list of regulations to get rid of.
'From the no more pipelines bill, to the tanker ban off the west coast, we've got net-zero power regs, net-zero building codes, net-zero vehicles, emissions caps on oil and gas and everything in-between; a plastics ban, don't we all want to have single-use plastics back again,' Smith said.
A panel on government waste suggested Elon Musk's DOGE approach to cutting government could be a guide for a new Conservative government.
'None of the great legal tactics against Doge can be used here. There's no reason why we can't move more quickly, 'said Ian Brodie, a professor from the University of Calgary who was chief of staff to former Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
Tim Sargent of the right-wing MacDonald Laurier Institute had a suggestion for managing the politics of cutting.
'Well, you go in hard and fast, and you cut groups at the same time as you're doing all kinds of other policy changes that they're going to dislike, so they won't know which way to where to look,' he said.
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