CKNW Mike Smyth Show, June 5, Mike on vacation, Bruce Clagett interviewing Karin Litzcke
Bruce: Karen Litzcke. You (the listener) may not know the name, but she is the MLA candidate for the Conservative Party of BC running in the Vancouver Mount Pleasant byelection. She has also taken to Twitter with this, and here’s a direct quote, right off one of her tweets: “Women and girls deserve to have their own spaces. Women’s sports should be fair and safe and that can’t happen when women are forced to compete against men who have biological advantages.” Karen joins us now. Thanks so much for being with us.
Karin: Thanks for having me, Bruce. Happy to be here.
Bruce: Some might argue this is one of the least woke statements that you can find on Twitter in BC in the past week. Why is this a concern for you?
Karin: Mainly because it’s a concern for so many people. Sport really is an issue that that starts in schools. It affects even very young children, right up to the elite and international levels of competition and it’s something that people do recreationally. It’s also a big interest for a lot of people watching sports. It affects so many people when sport becomes inherently almost unfair by design. It really upsets the whole reason that people enjoy sport. Which is to test themselves and to watch people test themselves against a fairly selective group of competitors. When you throw a wrench into it by putting men into women’s competition it really upsets the whole premise of the thing. It’s a foundational upset to people. My concern is that there’s a lot of people who are very bothered by it and there’s this climate in which we can’t talk about it so I’m finding there’s a huge appetite to talk about it and and very little opportunity for people to do so.
Bruce: Well we are talking about it here, and now. One of the reasons why we’re talking about it is that you have said in that same tweet that this is a front burner issue. By that I would have to assume that it’s one of the biggest issues right now for you. Am I correct?
Karin: Yeah, I mean the issue of transgender ideology overall is one that I have taken an interest in. The more I hear about people’s experiences with it obviously the more concerned I become. Sport, as I say, reaches into so many people’s lives that I think it’s optimal to start talking about it now.
Bruce: One would assume that you want to win in the byelection coming up in Vancouver Mount Pleasant. Do you think that this is so far right that it’s going to hurt your chances?
Karin: You know, right and left just don’t apply. This is an issue that actually cuts all the way across the spectrum to the extent that the spectrum is still valid, which is a different topic. I think there is, and in fact there are, factions on the left. You know the women’s movement grows out of the left and girls and women’s sports is a particular interest. It’s always been a very big feminist issue and a huge way for women to participate in public life. We’re actually finding that some of the most intense interest in it and support for this kind of a policy comes from the left. I mean people are leaving the left in droves. This is one of the things that they’re leaving over.
Bruce: Now one of the quotes in your news release that was tweeted here is “As a former athlete – field hockey player in high school competitive swimmer and also someone have helped build women’s bicycle racing in this country – I understand that not only does sports extend off the field, into change rooms and to travel arrangements, but it’s also the performance differences between men and women.” What sort of reaction have you got to this release, positive and negative?
Karin: The response on Twitter has been overwhelmingly positive. The tweet has gone to the level of awareness and response that I haven’t had before in a tweet. Clearly there’s a big interest and it’s been overwhelmingly positive. There’s been very few negative comments and the ones that are, are the people who are in support of the policy or quickly coming back and discussing it. Twitter is not necessarily emblematic of real life because on Twitter so many people are anonymous or operating under pseudonyms so they’re able to say things there that they aren’t able to say in their PAC meetings at their schools or to the organizers of their pee wee hockey teams and stuff. I find it a really organic expression of the mood on this issue.
Bruce: Now your leader MLA John Rustad, you’ve also said, is fully standing behind you. What has he told you and what is the view of the Conservative Party of BC on this issue?
Karin: He has said that he’s prepared to bring forward either legislation, a private members bill, or a motion on this subject, based on the premise that it has to be done because government policy has created this situation so there has to be government policy change in order to relieve the tension that’s been created. The support throughout the Conservative Party of BC, of the members that I’ve met and the people who’ve written to me, is also overall so overwhelmingly positive.
Bruce: There are so many issues in BC right now from healthcare to thinking about the future of the economy in this province. Where does this one rank do you think? Top five, top three, number one?
Karin: Well the funny thing is that it’s kind of integrated with all of them if we talk about transgender ideology in general versus sport. If we’re talking about sports specifically I would also put it in the top five because you literally cannot have a functioning society if you are you’re creating unfairness. It’s like you’re conditioning society to quietly accept unfairness and endangerment within the context of the rules and it discombobulates everybody’s sense of sense of right and wrong. And if you if you don’t have a sense of right and wrong, or true or false, like that you know what a boy is and what a girl is, you’re literally lying into your kids about boys and girls. You can’t have rational conversations about anything because there is no connection with reality. There’s no moral framework or anything. It’s also connected to so many things, like healthcare. Healthcare has committed considerable resources and also come very much over in support of the concept of transitioning sex. So there’s a huge amount of resources I mean at a time when we’re starved for basic health care for a lot of people. We’re dealing with this sort of detour in a way into what is an anti-health movement. It’s integrated with almost everything and I do put it in the top five certainly of issues that I think government needs to deal with.
Bruce: Do you think the people of Vancouver Mount Pleasant that are voting in the by election are going to share your view or a majority of the people will share this view or do you think they might consider this kind of wacky?
Karin: No, I think it is a mainstream view and the question is simply whether people know about our position and also about whether they are able to change their vote over it. This is one of the strongest NDP ridings in the province, if not the strongest, and so people are very used to being NDP, to voting NDP and supporting NDP. And it’s hard, it’s very hard, I’ve done this, I’m a former NDPer myself. I sort of started the transition from out of the left probably in the 1990s over issues of literacy which I saw that the NDP did not support. It’s hard to leave because you think you’re a better person when you’re on the left and then it’s hard also to join the other side because you think the other side are bad people. So it’s really at least a two step process to leave the left. But a lot of people, as I say a lot of people, are doing it over this issue. Really this is almost an ideal time to do it because it’s only for a one year term and it’s not going to change who the government is. So it’s not a bad time to try voting something different. Then if in the general is people still want the NDP to form government obviously they can change their vote back. Certainly the byelection is an opportunity to send a message.
A printable version of the transcript is here.