This shadow looms large as Bernier once again seeks to serve his constituents in the province where he was formerly arrested. The root cause of Bernier's legal scuffle lies in his courageous decision to campaign in Manitoba during the pandemic.

"I just looked at the stats in the last election, the People's Party of Canada received 22% of the vote. That's got to be if not the highest, one of the highest numbers in the whole country. And every single one of those votes came off the conservative vote. Candice Bergen went from about 75% down to about 50%, and all the other votes went to the PPC," said Ezra.

Bernier responded by saying "our candidate did very well, actually, I must admit, did better than myself. The leader of the party, I had 21% in votes and he had 22%. And it is a rural riding, like my former riding involves."

Bernier continued:

The Conservative Party of Canada likes to say during general election, 'oh, if you like the policies of the people People's Party and if you like Maxime Bernier, that's okay.'

'But you know, we need to get rid of Justin Trudeau. I don't want you to split the vote, but there's no such thing as splitting the vote during a by election because we won't change the government. The Trudeau government will be there after the election and during a general election and saying, you know, I'm not splitting any vote and just a real conservative.'

Poilievre is splitting the liberal votes, that's his job. And that's what he wants to do to be in power. But that being said, I will speak about family values. I will have fun in the riding. We have a strong team also, so we will do pretty well. And and my team on the ground, they are very happy and saying, you know, 'Maxime, you're welcome here because you are speaking like us, maybe with the French accent.'

But I like the people here. We share the same values and I'm having fun running for them and I want to be their representative. I'll do everything. And we'll see what will happen.