Pierre Poilievre on the Role of Government, Freedom, and Affordability

This is a special episode of the Knowledge Project featuring our guest, Pierre Polayev, leader of the Conservative Party in Canada. After my last interview with Pierre, I heard from thousands of you thanking me for allowing political leaders to skip the slogans and loaded questions and speak with nuance and depth. I reached out to both mister Poliyev and prime minister Carney directly with the same invite. No questions were provided in advance, and no editorial control was given. It's time to listen and learn. What do you think the role of government in society should be? You have to start by asking, what is government? This is generation screwed. I'm not surprised that they feel detached and frustrated with the system and the government that screwed them over. Let's walk through the rap sheet. My purpose is to provide people with hope. And that's not just a touchy feely word. It's actually a political strategy for me because if people can be convinced that there's hope, then they'll vote for it in election. It's a very exciting things we can do, like get rid of capital gains tax. The media is dependent on the government. Can something that is dependent be independent? If you think that the average reader, the viewer, or listener is incapable of determining what is true and what is not. Well, then how will a government official be able to make that same determination? Pierre, welcome back. Great to be back. What do you think the role of government in society should be? Well, you have to start by asking, what is government? And the only thing that's unique about government is that it has the legal power to apply force. That's it. There are plenty of other decision making bodies, associations, governance structures around society, but they're not governments because they cannot apply force legally. So you start with the first principle that government is the legal use of force. So the only thing that government should do is the thing that people can't do for themselves, that that we as people need to be forced to contribute to or be part of without which it would not exist. So for example, a military, border control policing, some basic infrastructure, and supplying, the necessities to those who would otherwise not be able to provide for themselves. Those are all things that would not happen if the government was not requiring it. And therefore, those are the things the government should do. It should not do things that people can do for themselves. So I think of the world of business. We don't need government subsidies to prop up businesses, because there are sources of funding for businesses. It's called credit and capital. We have very developed capital markets and credit markets where you can raise money. So there's no need for government to do that. There's no need for government to be the provider of, of media, when people can you have a …