By Elliott Meijer
Making the fourth stop of their “Restore the North” campus tour, Conservative Members of Parliament (MP) Jamil Jivani and Ned Kuruc—alongside special guest MP Aaron Gunn—sat down to discuss the future of Canadian politics with students at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) on Oct. 17.
With support from the TMU Conservative Campus Club, the event took place in a library lecture hall which was sparsely populated and male-dominated. Next to Conservative Party of Canada flyers, “Restore the North” baseball caps were available upon entry to all attendees—many of whom, including Kuruc, sported them throughout the night.
The discussion began with acknowledgements to two notable right-wing figures: Jordan Peterson and the late Charlie Kirk. Kirk was famous for his controversial opinions. He was fatally shot at a college in Utah during his own campus tour on Sept. 10.
“A lot of the universities who reached out to us and asked us to come and engage with them did so in part as they’re processing the assassination of Charlie Kirk…he obviously left a legacy,” said Jivani, a long-time acquaintance of U.S. vice president JD Vance.
Each host then described what “Restore the North” means to them, with Hamilton East-Stoney Creek MP Kuruc saying, “from a conservative perspective, restoring the north—restoring Canada—means getting back to basics that work.” The MPs requested that each person who went up to speak do the same.
One attendee* described restoring the north as “quite simple,” adding it means removing the “parasitic class” within the “once beautiful” Canadian government.
Many speakers emphasized issues concerning affordability, Canadian identity, the economy and immigration reform. Almost all of those who spoke were in agreement with the hosting MPs. A number of them expressed interest in seeing Canada follow in the footsteps of the Trump administration in the U.S., with one speaker saying, “I think we need to stop backing away from good ideas because someone else down south once said it.”
Throughout the night’s discussions and exchanges, it became clear there wouldn’t be much disagreement.
Edmund Elbert, third-year business management student and vice president of the TMU Campus Conservative Club said they’re hopeful in seeing a rise of conservative values among youth.
“It’s one thing to simply hold these values, it’s an entirely different thing to have a collective of it with different individuals in a social setting,” Elbert added.
Fourth-year business management student and president of the Toronto Metropolitan Debate Union, Robin Sehdev, wasn’t in attendance but feels this form of public discourse can be beneficial if done cautiously. “It comes down to, you know, who is on the microphone and [whether] they come in good faith…if these MPs are listening and providing their feedback and students are providing theirs in a respectful manner [it] can be beneficial,” he said.
Sehdev warned these debates could be—and often are—used as “clickbait” and to “spark controversy.” He urged for stricter mediation, proper formatting and fact-checking to ensure constructive debates.
With no official future dates released for “Restore the North” events, only time will tell if these are to be a broader phenomenon within Canadian politics.
“It’s one thing to have free speech, but having views that are unsubstantiated, talking over people and shutting them down and being condescending and rude—that is more of a spectacle than actual discourse,” Sehdev said about debates more broadly.
*While attendee’s names were shared at the public event, they were not interviewed by The Eyeopener directly
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