Conservative MP Matt Strauss Believes ‘There’s No Such Thing as Bad Press’

An exclusive interview with the outspoken Ontario doctor turned Conservative MP.

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It’s been five years since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, but for many Canadians, the haunting memories remain.

Appointed acting chief medical officer of health for the rural Ontario area of Haldimand–Norfolk in 2021, Strauss made a name for himself by opposing lockdowns, mask and vaccine mandates, and other pandemic restrictions with facts, logic, philosophical reflections and a lot of common sense.

His stance drew sharp backlash from the Ontario Liberals and activist TV doctors like notorious mask mandate advocate Nili Kaplan-Myrth, whom Strauss famously debated on TVO.

But through it all, Strauss held the line. Why? In part because he believes there is no such thing as bad press.

Interesting, that view runs counter to the approach of several partisan strategists, who seek to shield their candidates from any and all controversy.

Yet it is a view Strauss has been willing to test, and so far, it has worked for him.

Strauss has now entered a new phase of his life: Big-C Conservative politics.

In 2024, he won the Conservative Party of Canada candidate nomination in the Ontario riding of Kitchener South–Hespeler. And in the 2025 federal election, he flipped the seat blue.

I caught up with Strauss in his new Parliament Hill office during the short post-election spring session.

We discussed his transition from medicine to politics, Canada’s broken public health care system, the lack of accountability for politicians who imposed lockdowns, what it is like to be outspoken in politics, and how he balances family life with the demands of being an MP.

ELIE CANTIN-NANTEL: Why did you transition from medicine to politics?

MATT STRAUSS: I couldn't be a cog in a broken machine for the rest of my career. Our health system is so broken, and nothing can ever get better if you can’t be honest and clear and constructive about how to fix it. I have stories about having to keep the patient in the hospital for an extra four days because we lost a fax. It's a banana system and my attempts to improve it from the inside weren't working. It was time to go to Ottawa to see what I can fix.

ELIE CANTIN-NANTEL: Canada’s public health care system is often called 'the best in the world' by politicians. But in reality, it's far from it. Canadians are travelling to the U.S. for better care, and some have even gone to Communist China. You’re a doctor. How did it get this bad? And how do we fix it?

MATT STRAUSS: I would say institutional sclerosis is overall the cause. There are lots of vested interests [and] they're very powerful. They are not interested in improving the system. There are kind of these micro cartels throughout our health care system. There's a lack of transparency and there's a lack of accountability. 

If you go to the emergency room and you get treated like cattle, like my wife was, and as I said in my maiden speech, [she] almost died, your only recourse is a lawsuit, which we don't want to pursue, or leave a bad Google review. Most hospital boards appoint themselves. They're accountable only to themselves, with the exception of things like if there was an embezzlement issue, then the Minister of Health can dismiss the board. Why is it we elect school boards but not hospital boards?

Many Canadians are very attached to the idea of public health care. I think that we will always have public insurance for health care in our country, and that's fine. But if you don't build in very particular parameters to get transparency and accountability back in the system, you end up with Soviet-style health care, which is what we have. As I said in my maiden speech: if you socialise grain production, you get bread lines. And the same thing has happened here. I'm glad that we don't ration health care by money, but now we're rationing it by time. You wait in the line until you perhaps die, or get to see the specialist you need to see.

ELIE CANTIN-NANTEL: Is the solution private health care?

MATT STRAUSS: I think the solution is building transparency and accountability into the system. It doesn't have to be the case that hospital boards appoint hospital boards. It doesn't have to be the case that they're only responsible to the Minister of Health.

I'm not in a position to make specific policy proposals. But I can say, in the abstract: if you take transparency and accountability out of a system, you have to build it back in. The free market comes with transparency and accountability.

ELIE CANTIN-NANTEL: You said in your maiden speech that during the pandemic, the Liberals 'went full communism.' You got a lot of heat for these comments. Do you still stand by them? And what exactly do you mean?

MATT STRAUSS: 100%.

If you look up the definition of communism or communist right now, it can mean two things. You can have a communist society based on Marx's definitions, which is a utopia that never existed. The second definition is somebody who wants to pursue the aims of communism. 

If you lock everyone in their home and tell them they can only leave by special government permission, but also you pay people $2,000 a month to do nothing, it is very close to 'from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs.' That is a pursuit of a non-market economy. 

The most influential, most famous Marxist philosopher alive today is Slavoj Žižek. He wrote a book called Pandemic, in which he describes what happened in Western societies during the pandemic as 'war communism.' He saw that response of 'let's send everybody checks, money for nothing,' as a great hope, that when the chips are on the table, people do choose communism. Slavoj Žižek, a communist, was celebrating the communism that occurred during the pandemic. It's actually very non-controversial.

ELIE CANTIN-NANTEL:  Many feel that accountability has not gone far enough, and in many cases, has not happened at all for officials who enacted lockdowns, vaccine mandates and other harmful policies. We never had a formal national inquiry, and lockdown politicians have been re-elected. Doug Ford was re-elected twice. Francois Legault was re-elected. Justin Trudeau was re-elected in 2021 on a promise to discriminate against the unvaccinated. The BC NDP, which also heavily discriminated against the unvaccinated, was also re-elected. What do you make of this?

MATT STRAUSS: I had a conversation four years ago with a friend who now also sits in this Parliament, where he was despairing about whether there would be what we call accountability. And I said, historically, no.

I think there’s a tacit acknowledgement in society that we went too far. If you get any one of your neighbours who supported these mandates, get two beers in them at a backyard barbecue, they’ll say, 'yeah, it went too far. It was dumb. But it wasn’t me. I was lied to. It seemed reasonable at the time.'

I think the answer to your question is: injustice persists for longer than a few years, for decades and decades. We can only control our actions and how we behave in the face of injustice.

ELIE CANTIN-NANTEL: You have been outspoken throughout your career: as a doctor, as a medical health officer, and now as an MP. You did face backlash, including professional consequences and personal attacks. But there have also been rewards. You've built a strong social media following, and now you have a seat here in Parliament. Looking back, how do you reflect on this journey, especially since the start of the pandemic, when you became quite outspoken? Was this all worth the cost? And what advice would you give to those who want to speak up but are afraid of it costing them their livelihoods?

MATT STRAUSS: I never meant to be as controversial as I was. Back in 2020, every time I was going to send a tweet, I wouldn’t have even believed how much response I would get for any particular thing. I like philosophy, politics, and argument. I don’t feel like I’ve really thought something through unless I’ve also had a good argument about it. So that’s just what I was using Twitter (X) for.

When Doug Ford did the second lockdown in Dec. 2020, it was so ridiculous. Because they leaked that they were going to lock us down on the 24th, but then said, 'No, we’re going to lock you down on the 26th, you can still have Christmas.' It was dishonest and petty and also obviously ineffective. That’s when I became really, really alarmed. And then the question became: okay, how do I change this?

I was part of the extreme frugality movement for 10 years before the pandemic happened. I saved [a lot of money]. So I was fine if my career got taken. But it never was. I never lost my license. I was deeply harassed by people who should have known better, and I hope that there is some accountability that way. But I’m still able to practice medicine in the province of Ontario, and if that ever changed, I’d be able to practice medicine in other countries. But I don’t want to practice medicine if I can’t practice in truth and freedom. 

[For other people, I’d say] pick your battles and the hills you want to die on. 

ELIE CANTIN-NANTEL: In politics, you’re often expected to toe the party line and voice grievances internally. How do you balance being outspoken, which you have a mandate to do because your electors sent you here to represent them and defend them, with being a good caucus member?

MATT STRAUSS: There’s no such thing as bad press. I think that is a major lesson of the last 20 years throughout the West: notoriety and fame are two sides of the same coin, and both are useful in prosecuting political goals.

The easiest way to manage outspokenness with the constraints inherent to being on a team, is to pick the team that is generally on the same page as you. Pierre Poilievre was outspoken about all the things that I was outspoken about. And in some ways, Pierre Poilievre really changed the game in Canadian politics on people being outspoken.

For a long time, before I was part of this caucus, I think there was a diversity of opinions about the carbon tax in the Conservative caucus. And by diversity, I mean most people were against it, but the party leadership (Erin O’Toole) was for it, or felt it was politically necessary to appear for it. And that leadership is gone now. Pierre Poilievre proved you could be an outspoken critic of the carbon tax and bring huge swaths of Canadian society with you. People do want to follow the leader. He changed the game such that it became so politically toxic that the Liberals had to get rid of Justin Trudeau, and the new prime minister had to get rid of the carbon tax to even consider going into the next election. In some ways, some people joked that Poilievre was too successful.

I'm comfortable being outspoken, because I'm on a team where we all agree on core principles, and the leader has been exemplary in terms of outspokenness.

ELIE CANTIN-NANTEL: You recently welcomed your second child. How do you balance the family life with being an MP?

MATT STRAUSS: We’re trying different things. 

If I’m in Ottawa, I would like my family to be in Ottawa with me as much as possible, maybe half the time.

The week I was sworn in, I brought my wife and children down. I unfortunately booked a hotel near the Rideau Centre, and Ottawa has become a lawless, violent, threatening place. So my wife had a terrible time. So if I bring her up again in the next sitting in September, I'll try to find something maybe more suburban.

I respect this institution. I respect its traditions. I respect that there’s some pageantry. But I respect my family a lot more. So if it’s between scotch tasting with the Speaker to help the Speaker select a scotch, or seeing my family, I will do the latter. Our 'class of 2025' new Conservative MPs, had a pub night last night. And my daughter FaceTimed me twice, and my wife called me once over that period. And that is fine.

This interview is a continuation of a series I began when I was at The Hub highlighting new outspoken movement Conservative MPs. The other interviews, including with Aaron Gunn, Andrew Lawton and Jamil Jivani, can be found here.

This interview took place in June 2025, and was edited for length and clarity.