EZRA LEVANT ｜ A special year-end interview with our friend Candice Malcolm, founder of True North
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Summary
Candace Malcolm is one of the few independent journalists in Canada who doesn t take any government money. In this special year-end interview, she talks about why it s so important to have an independent media company that doesn't take government cash.
Transcript
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Hello, my friends. Today, I have a special feature-length interview with Candace Malcolm, the founder of True North.
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She's one of the few independent journalists in this country. Doesn't take any government money.
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That's today's podcast, but I'd like to encourage you to get the video version.
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Just go to rebelnewsplus.com, and it's eight bucks a month.
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You get my daily show and weekly shows from David Menzies, Sheila Gunn-Reed, and Andrew Chapados.
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And you get the satisfaction in keeping us independent and strong.
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We're one of the few people in Canada that don't take government bailouts to new media.
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Tonight, a sit-down interview with Candace Malcolm, the founder of True North.
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It's December 27th, and this is the Ezra LeVant Show.
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Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?
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There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.
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The only thing I have to say to the government about why I publish it is because it's my bloody right to do so.
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Well, I was stunned a few months ago to see the list of Canadian media companies
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that took a special $61 million pre-election payout from Justin Trudeau's media bailout program.
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I did not know there were 1,500 media companies in this country.
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Now, to be fair, Post Media, which has dozens of titles, each one of them was on the list,
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And so when I say that 99% of the Canadian media is on the take, that is not an exaggeration.
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In fact, it's probably more like 99.44, as Dove used to say.
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But one of the very few media outlets that, like us, doesn't take any money from Trudeau,
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And joining us now for a special year-end interview is our friend Candace Malcolm,
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And if you're not, please go there and fix that.
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And congratulations on a banner year for TNC.news.
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You know, it's really interesting because you see, we have this media scenario
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where all of these media companies are beholden to the government, and yet they're shrinking.
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Meanwhile, you know, independent journalists and outlets like The Rebel and True North
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And it is because Canadians are choosing with their wallets.
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And I think that's so evident, so obvious at this point that, you know, it's a great
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time to be in independent media, but it's a sad state of affairs in our country when so
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many journalists go hat in hand to the federal government for money.
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I've noticed that now that Trudeau has broken that taboo of literally paying cash to the
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journalists that cover him, others are saying, oh, so that's how it is in Canada, this sort
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Everyone's in on it, so no one talks about him.
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And the suckers are the public, because there's no disclosure.
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You know, when a media party outlet talks about Justin Trudeau, interviews Trudeau, they
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They keep that conflict of interest, I'm not going to say a secret, although that $61 million
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So Facebook and Google, they give millions of dollars to media companies, too.
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And they say, oh, it's because we're so beneficent.
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But no, I think it's to color the media coverage of big tech and their censorship.
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And of course, China, the People's Republic of China, now buys huge infomercial-style
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advertorials in the Globe and Mail and other huge newspapers.
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So I think that everybody knows the media in Canada is for sale.
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And I just think it's terrible for our democracy.
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I don't know any other country that calls itself free, that lets its media be rented
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And I think that the China thing is really troubling.
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Once you know that the media is for sale and they're there for hire, you know, other less
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You may say, oh, the Canadian government, you know, they're a good guy.
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But when it comes to countries like China and other countries, Iran as well, you know,
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You're reading the Globe and Mail thinking that you're reading news stories.
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And actually, an entire page is sponsored by China and you don't even know about it.
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The way that I like to think about it, and I boil it down, is it's sort of the three Bs
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They've always been in the tank for the Liberals or maybe the NDP in the U.S.
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In Canada, they're beholden because how can you criticize a government, Ezra, that you're
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They don't have the advertising revenues, as you mentioned.
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That's all gone to Facebook and Google, and that's its own separate problem.
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But because of that, the media companies, they can't really truly criticize Trudeau in a
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meaningful way, in a way that you would expect journalists to do.
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The role of a journalist is to expose corruption, expose failed policies, expose the inner workings
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How could the media expose those things when they need Justin Trudeau?
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Their companies are going to go out of business.
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With regards to the CBC, they're going to collapse.
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We see every year the advertising revenue at the CBC falls.
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And the third B, which I think is the worst offense, is that they're boring, Ezra.
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There's so much just repeating the same narrative.
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They basically take their talking points from the Liberal Party every morning, and they push
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They push out their news reports on the pandemic and on the vaccines.
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There's no—we even see in the U.S. newspapers and magazines that are on the left.
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There was a long piece in The Atlantic, which is a left-wing magazine, similar to McLean's,
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all about how the numbers with COVID were massively inflated, right?
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We saw a long piece in Vanity Fair about how masking children was wrong.
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And just because, you know, some doctor out there says that it might be a good idea to
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put masks on little children, talking about five, six-year-olds, that's not a good idea.
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So you see a variety of opinions and perspectives in the U.S. media that you just wouldn't see
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They all have the same bland, boring approach to reporting the news, reporting the political
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And so those three Bs are why I think that the media is just completely—it's a dead
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Younger people and anyone under 30, say, doesn't even engage with the legacy media.
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They've already moved on to new forms of technology and new ways of gaining information.
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It's just this sort of old guard, Ezra, the Laurentian elite old guard that's clinging
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You know, sooner or later, these media companies will die.
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The fact that they're on the dole, they're reliant on Trudeau, it just shows that they're
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Well, you know, I think that to me the absolute classic moment was in the 2019 federal election
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when it fell to a U.S. magazine to break the photos of Trudeau in blackface.
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And there's two parts of that—three parts of that story that I think are interesting.
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Number one, that it was a Canadian who had these pictures, and he couldn't get a Canadian
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outlet to be interested, so he felt he had to go to Americans.
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Number two, as soon as—I think it was Time magazine—published those photos, all of
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a sudden, the other Canadian media had their own blackface photos that they were sitting
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on that they said, oh, I guess the story's out, so we should roll out the photo we've
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Like, within hours, the CBC and Global had their photos.
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They didn't just find them within the last hour.
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They were holding them back because they pretended they weren't newsworthy, as if, you know,
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if they found Jason Kenney in blackface, as if they wouldn't roll that out.
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And finally, after the dust settled, the interrogations and examinations of that B.C.
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man who leaked this—who gave the story to the Americans, they did more opposition accountability
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And to me, how can you get 1,500 journalists so trained like that?
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And it's—and I've been using the phrase media party for almost a decade because it
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Candace, it's not just that they think alike and they're boring and they move as a herd.
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I mean, some animals do that instinctively, like birds line up in a formation when they
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But if one bird broke away, the other birds don't discipline him.
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But they don't—like in Canada, there's a—you know, you are ousted and punished if you dare
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Look at how the National Post tried to fire their star writer, Rex Murphy.
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I mean, it's happened to so many of them, right?
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With the guy in Vancouver, they were camped out outside his house.
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Like, you know, they were giving him more scrutiny than the prime minister who was the
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one who was found in blackface thinking that, what, he was some shadowy operative or something
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It's like their fever dream about what's happening.
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I think Twitter has given us a little insight into the minds of how these journalists work
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And you can absolutely see it, the way that they go after other journalists.
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It's—you know, they've, for years, targeted the Toronto Sun.
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And, you know, there's so many articles out there of legacy media journalists just completely
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And to be completely honest, the Sun is pretty tame.
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The Sun is not a right-wing publication by any imagination.
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Maybe they push back ever so gently here and there.
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But the way that journalists from, you know, the Toronto Star, CBC, there is a pack of
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It really is completely accurate because, you know, most of them come from the same sort
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And so whether it's, you know, completely falling in line with any health edict that
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he gives and painting anyone who goes against, you know, these heavy-handed, top-down orders,
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treating them like they're some kind of an enemy to the state, it's really remarkable to
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And like I said, Twitter gives us a great little window as to how it operates because you
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can see they're, you know, they're mean-spirited, they're bullies, they get really angry at
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other journalists who don't report the same stuff, you know, the way they treat you, the
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Even, you know, people like Holly Doan, Holly Doan over at Black Logs is a lovely human being.
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She just doesn't fall in line with what they do.
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And she'll happily report, you know, misdeeds and misspending and corruption in the Trudeau
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And you can see, really, the PAC mentality, like you say, the media party as well.
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Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned Holly Doan of BlackLocks.ca.
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I swear, you can count them on one hand's fingers, the number of media companies that
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But before we do, you mentioned that True North has doubled in size, and I can see it.
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For some of our viewers who haven't yet signed up, and really, folks, you've got to sign up.
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I think it behooves all of us who complain about the media party to support the alternatives.
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I support a number of media, just, you know, $10 a month or whatever, like I'm not going
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Frankly, I support some media that I don't even read.
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Because I know that sounds odd, but, like, if I want there to be a viable competition
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for the media party, can I not put $10 a month in?
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And so, I mean, I think I'm a $10 a month guy to True North.
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Just give our viewers just a little sampler of what you're up to.
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Well, thank you for the opportunity, Ezra, and for the little plug there.
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I think that conservatives are really good at supporting conservative causes.
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And you look around at sort of the infrastructure.
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We have a lot of conservative free market think tanks, you know, university-adjacent programs
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We have the sort of economic think tank that looks through the numbers.
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But when it comes to the media, there's just, you know, the landscape was pretty wide open
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a couple of years ago, and a new rebel is right in there with a huge audience.
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But for True North, what we try to do is we step in with the written report.
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So we try to almost compete, Ezra, against, like, the wire service, the Canadian press,
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writing news stories, but not from the perspective of the leftist, you know, biased, beholden,
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We try to tell stories that are interesting to conservatives.
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We do quite a bit of investigative journalism with ATIPS, talking to sources, trying to uncover
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broader themes that are being ignored by the legacy media.
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So we do a lot of written work, and we put out news stories, you know, every hour, all day.
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And so for us, some of our core areas that we report on, things like civil liberties,
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things like, you know, obviously corruption within government.
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Myself, I've long been interested in things like immigration, terrorist networks operating
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in Canada, you know, nefarious actors and state-sponsored activities in Canada.
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And so those are the sort of areas we focus on.
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We've started getting really into this issue of critical race theory being taught in our
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schools, the sort of idea that everything in Canada boils down to racism, that Canada
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These are things that are being taught in our schools to our children.
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And then obviously COVID as well, and this huge government overreach.
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And so, you know, there's a variety of topics that we look at.
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My colleague Andrew Lawton put out a full-length documentary last year looking at the issue
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of gun rights and legal gun owners and how the Trader government's really heavy-handed,
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clunky, awkward ban of supposed so-called assault rifles, how that impacted day-to-day people
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and not just people who you would imagine that are gun owners, but other people as well,
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like Olympians and sports shooters and those kind of people, women who want to carry a weapon
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in terms of self-defense, you know, they looked at, he looked at and interviewed people from
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all over the country and told a really unique perspective.
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So, you know, we have a lot of really fun projects on the go that we're constantly working
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For me personally, one of the biggest issues and stories that I uncovered the past year
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was just looking at the issue of the supposed unmarked graves that were discovered near residential
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schools and how the media really manipulated that story and took the facts out of context.
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They didn't do the regular due diligence of the journalism in terms of verifying information
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Instead, they just ran away with this narrative that Canada is this evil, genocidal state and
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that the residential schools were like de facto death camps.
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That's not what we learned from the discoveries at T'Kemloops and other First Nations reserves.
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And so, you know, just trying to report the facts to viewers, but also uncover, pull apart
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the spin, you know, decode the media spin, call out the media, call out the legacy media.
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One of the other things that we do on the Candace Malcolm Show, I have a podcast called
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And every Friday we do an episode, as we're called, Fake News Friday, where we just go
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through some of the worst examples of the week of the media either lying to viewers, misrepresenting
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the facts, being completely biased and in the tank for the Trudeau liberals.
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If anything, it's hard to boil it down to the top three stories each week, but we do that
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And so, anyway, there's a lot of stuff going on at True North.
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We've got some great reporters, great podcast hosts.
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I think we've, we're up to 15 journalists and producers working for us now, which is,
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And, yeah, we've got a big year on the horizon as well.
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So, yeah, I really appreciate everyone watching who, you know, watches Rebel, also watches True
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And, again, it's so important that we, that we recognize the need to support independent
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media, because, you know, unlike all the guys that go hand in the Trudeau government, we
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actually, by principle, don't accept money from the government.
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And we actually think it's, it's wrong and a huge conflict of interest.
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And ethically, it undermines the practice of journalism when you're accepting money from
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the subject of which you are reporting on and investigating, Ezra.
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Well, you know, I just want to tell you, Candace, that's a great summary, but I want to tell
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you that I was talking to the lawyer for McLean's magazine, Howard Winkler, the other
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And he tells me that McLean's has a staff of 14.
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So you have a staff, I think you just said, of 15.
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I want to let you know that in just a few years, without a dime of government money, you
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and your viewers and your team have built a news organization larger than McLean's, one
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of the oldest and most prestigious brands in legacy media.
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And it's kind of sad what McLean's has become, because it used to be so fun and so interesting.
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I remember reading it in, I guess it was the 2000s.
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And they had, you know, they had some really, you know, they had Mark Stein in there, Andrew
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He's a, he's an interesting guy, but you know, the, the, the, the magazine was exciting
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And now I read it and it's just like, you know, woke left-wing hectoring, they hate Canada.
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Every story is either about how Canada's racist and full of racist people or how our history
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Like they've fully bought into the woke mindset and, and it's almost depressing that that's
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You read it and you just feel like these people hate Canada.
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I'll, I'll grant them their history, but I, I just have never heard anyone talk about
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You know, I was, I was looking, um, I remember many years ago when I ran the Western Standard
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And, um, of course we didn't take government money back then either, but back around the
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same time, a magazine called The Walrus started and it had charitable status.
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And so I studied, well, where are they getting their money from?
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And they, they got it in part from the Tides Foundation, which, um, is a left-wing Marxist
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group that hates, uh, oil and gas, for example.
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A lot of folks have heard of the Tides Foundation, uh, but they, they're still around.
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The Walrus is still around and because they're a registered charity, their financials are
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disclosed on the Canada Revenue Agency website.
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I think that's a $6 million a year company, which is an enormous budget.
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They're getting cash injections from foreign lobby groups.
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I honestly don't know what they're doing with all that money.
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I think I pay attention to Canadian media more than your average bear.
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And I, for the life of me, can't remember the last time anyone said, hey, did you see
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Or, whoa, The Walrus is, but it's just, I think you're right.
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It's just when you're, when you're basically hired by all these authorities to just pump
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out content, you're a content farm for Trudeau and the Tides Foundation.
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And the, and the managers, like the business people, you're not an entrepreneur.
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You're a grantrepreneur, which is a real thing.
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You're just an expert at filling out forms and, and putting together PowerPoints of why
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you should get grants instead of an expert of running a company.
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I find that deeply sad, actually, because I'd love it if there was a rollicking magazine
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It's like a, an empty cab pulls up and The Walrus steps out, as they say.
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You're the president of the Independent Press Gallery.
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So the purpose behind the Independent Press Gallery, Ezra, as you know, is that there,
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As we mentioned, there's a huge void on the, on the political right when it comes to journalism
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And so a lot of actors have, have jumped in and we sort of realized like, Hey, you know,
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we're, we're all being discriminated against when it comes to access to press conferences,
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being able to cover elections, you know, we're stronger if we're together.
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So the Independent Press Gallery is an organization that allows just, not just on the right, any
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independent outlet, any, any media company that doesn't take money from the government
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to, to, to come together to kind of use our collective strength to, to sort of borrow an
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But, but the idea is that, you know, if, if, if one of us is, is treated in an unfair way,
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we can all sort of come together and speak out.
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If, if, if we need access to something, again, we can, we can come together and, and speak
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It's, it's sort of a, a forum, a social club, a way for us to, you know, put our heads
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And we basically have two requirements for any journalist.
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One, you need to sign our declaration, avowing to follow journalism ethics, basic, basic
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And then second, which, which, which really is part of the first, you must pledge that
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It's so important to journalists all over the world.
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It's, it's wild that that would even be something that we would have to make a requirement for
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But as, as you mentioned, and as we all know, so many journalists take money from the government.
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And so, you know, most legacy media journalists wouldn't, wouldn't be able to join the independent
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press gallery simply because they're not truly independent.
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One of the things the independent press gallery did under your watch was rise to the occasion
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of the absolutely un-Canadian proposal to regulate the internet that the Trudeau liberals put
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And because parliament broke for the election, those bills died on the order paper.
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But the liberals after the election two months ago said they're going to do it.
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They intend to regulate the internet in a way that has never been seen in Canada or the United States
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I think that's a legacy of their Nazi era, but really it goes further than anything they
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It really feels like something that Turkey, like a, like a semi-free authoritarian country
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Can you give us a bit of a summary of what you're worried about is coming for internet censorship?
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Because I think that while we're all focused on the civil liberties bonfire of the pandemic
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And I think they're dead serious about it, by the way.
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But why don't you go ahead and tell us your thoughts on that?
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As for, we got, definitely got a sneak peek of it under Stefan Gilboa, the former heritage
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minister and some of the, just absolutely, like you said, undemocratic, illiberal bills
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that they want to put forth to censor the internet.
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And again, just from the perspective of, you know, your average Canadian who thinks,
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okay, I don't know, no one's in support of hate speech.
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No one wants, you know, bullying and these kind of things online.
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It's true to liberals who are taking advantage of that sentiment and going further than anything
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And I think this is going to be one of, if not the most important issues of the next
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five years that we need to, you know, the internet was created, Ezra, as sort of a bastion
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It's, you know, as much as we sort of bemoan big tech and the growth and the concentration
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of power, you know, the idea initially and up until recently was that libertarians sort
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of built the internet and this idea that you can be free, you can express yourself, you
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And people can choose what we know you can choose.
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You can turn off one app, you can open up another one.
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But the idea that true liberals would come in and try to sanitize that, try to create
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rules, I mean, it's completely the antithesis of free speech in a free society.
00:27:11.000
And I think one of the things that's equally troubling, Ezra, is a total lack of opposition
00:27:16.260
We barely heard a peep about this in the federal election, just like so many other important
00:27:21.480
issues of the day, because Aaron O'Toole doesn't actually oppose Justin Trudeau.
00:27:25.760
He agrees with Justin Trudeau on most of these issues.
00:27:28.960
And so he didn't want to come out opposing these bills.
00:27:35.280
But he doesn't want to come out and oppose them because he actually agrees with them and
00:27:38.540
And he doesn't want to be painted as someone who's enabling extremism online.
00:27:41.880
But we've seen so much of this, Ezra, even with, you know, to go back to the criticism
00:27:46.140
of the media, first of all, the media, the legacy media has been silent on this.
00:27:50.620
We've barely heard any kind of criticism, any kind of alarm bells being rung in the newspapers,
00:27:57.260
on TV stations, on radio stations about this massive breach into our freedoms online.
00:28:06.400
But also they've sort of been pre-spinning in support of Trudeau by creating this sort
00:28:14.120
of boogeyman idea that there's this sort of legion of extremists lurking online and that
00:28:18.840
it somehow poses a threat to Canadian society and that the sort of real terrorists are so-called
00:28:26.500
You see these kind of stories being pushed out on CBC and Toronto Star and other legacy
00:28:33.840
And what they're doing is they're building up fear and anticipation so that Trudeau can
00:28:39.000
sweep in with these really sweeping pieces of legislation.
00:28:44.720
So certainly that's one of the things that the Independent Press Gallery is going to be
00:28:49.720
That's something that True North will be reporting to keep an eye on.
00:28:52.900
And I know, you know, Rebel do a great job of keeping us up to date with what the latest
00:29:05.160
You know, I want to play a quick clip for you from Parliament.
00:29:12.100
And Alain Reyes is no longer Erin O'Toole's critic.
00:29:16.340
But here is the official conservative critic under Erin O'Toole at the time giving the
00:29:22.440
official party's response, the conservative party's response, to the proposed Internet censorship.
00:29:28.540
And the fact that he's no longer the critic right now and the fact that the bill has changed
00:29:36.960
I want you to hear what the conservative party under Erin O'Toole has said in Parliament about
00:29:52.920
There's nothing in this bill that allows for the regulation of social media or platforms
00:29:58.980
And it's clear we would have liked to have seen this in the bill.
00:30:03.360
The minister even says we have to find a way of preventing hate speech, conspiracy theories
00:30:13.380
But right now in the bill, unfortunately, we won't even be able to amend it in that aspect
00:30:23.360
I just don't believe that the party means it when they say they're opposed to it because
00:30:30.260
I mean, Erin O'Toole is sort of an expert of saying one thing to his party base when
00:30:38.080
And I mean, I tell you, I wish the guys who write the conservative party fundraising emails,
00:30:43.100
I wish they were the MPs because the conservative party fundraising machine actually knows what
00:30:51.120
And so they give them that red meat when they're asking for money.
00:30:54.600
Trouble is, the MPs in parliament and the leader himself don't believe any of that stuff.
00:31:00.000
I mean, a few of them might, but they've been absolutely subordinated.
00:31:06.860
Marilyn Gledew talked about a little freedom caucus.
00:31:13.180
Anyone who issues any sort of statement contrary to the leader, even by one inch, fired or threatened
00:31:20.000
or demoted, Leslyn Lewis, an interesting conservative MP.
00:31:25.860
I mean, maybe not everyone's first choice, but absolutely sentenced to the back benches in
00:31:31.340
Siberia because she's not an Erin O'Toole lookalike.
00:31:35.820
I am worried that the Conservative Party of Canada actually does not oppose this internet
00:31:44.200
Well, it doesn't sound like it from that clip that you played, but you're right, Ezra.
00:31:50.340
I don't understand why he's still the leader of this party.
00:31:52.920
He had a dismal performance in the last election.
00:31:55.220
He took a bet, he took a chance by swinging the party to the left saying, okay, all of the
00:32:00.640
criticisms that the media has had about my party over the past five years, I will either
00:32:04.940
apologize for those, or I will purge the elements of those parties, whether it's Derek Sloan,
00:32:09.900
like you said, Marilyn Gladue, you know, push those elements as far away.
00:32:14.600
The thing that he was most passionate about, Ezra, on the campaign trail was declaring
00:32:20.680
His eyes would light up when he would talk about how he was pro-choice, pro-abortion.
00:32:26.600
He doesn't want anything to do with the sort of base of the Conservative Party.
00:32:30.740
He threw them under the bus, and the bet was that that was going to get him elected, and
00:32:35.780
then perhaps maybe he would come back and elect a little—govern a little bit more from the
00:32:46.960
And, you know, in the meantime, he not only duped Conservatives, but he completely insulted
00:32:52.740
And he has no business leading the party anymore.
00:32:55.980
But instead, you know, everyone's giving him a pass.
00:32:58.600
The MPs don't really want to, I guess, go into another leadership debate.
00:33:03.360
And now we see this sort of angry man that's just completely lashing out over anyone who
00:33:08.740
has a dissenting opinion, like you mentioned with Marilyn Gladue.
00:33:11.580
But also, you know, Denise Batters, who's a really popular senator from Saskatchewan, she
00:33:16.220
put forth a petition just simply saying, you know, let's have a leadership review.
00:33:20.600
It's common after an election that we lost to have a leadership review.
00:33:25.600
And, you know, if Aaron O'Toole really feels that he has the support of the party, then
00:33:29.980
he'll have a stronger mandate going into the next election, and we're not going to be stuck
00:33:33.240
in a situation where we have a leadership review in 2023, and then Trudeau could spark
00:33:37.800
an election immediately after that with the Conservative Party in shambles.
00:33:48.580
Shannon Stubbs, another one of popular MP out in the prairies, out in sort of northeast
00:33:55.140
Alberta, she made a couple of comments about Aaron O'Toole criticizing some things that
00:34:02.380
And, you know, suddenly his office is investigating her, and there's this really awful story about
00:34:08.900
her, a hit piece in the Globe and Mail, filled with anonymous accusations from anonymous staffers
00:34:13.620
saying that she was mean and that she worked them too hard or whatever.
00:34:16.680
It's like, you know, we know where this is coming from.
00:34:19.280
It's coming from Aaron O'Toole and his inner circle, and, you know, they're bullying people.
00:34:23.160
They're pushing out strong female voices from the party, strong Western Canadian voices from
00:34:31.120
They're trying to create a party that's more media-friendly, that's more palatable to
00:34:35.120
left-wing voters, and more similar to Justin Trudeau.
00:34:38.400
Basically, the proposition that he had in the last election is, we're just exactly the
00:34:42.820
same as the Liberal Party, but we're less, what, we're less damaged by, you know, five
00:34:48.860
And so they're saying that they'll basically just step in and be better managers of the
00:34:54.720
They want an opposition party that opposes the Liberals.
00:34:57.760
They want a conservative party that promotes and stands up for conservative values.
00:35:01.260
And, you know, the freedom of speech issue, the regulating of the internet is just one
00:35:05.360
of about a dozen issues that Aaron O'Toole's abandoned, that Aaron O'Toole said, I'm going
00:35:10.580
to just, you know, go wherever Trudeau goes, hoping that, you know, that that will make him
00:35:15.900
more palatable, again, to left-wing voters and legacy media, that they'll finally, you
00:35:20.640
know, change their mind and go with O'Toole as opposed to Trudeau, which, as we both know,
00:35:25.920
So I have a lot of criticism for the Conservative Party.
00:35:30.000
And again, I just don't understand why Aaron O'Toole is still the leader of that party.
00:35:34.240
Yeah, you know, and I should say to our viewers, I know for a fact that you and your team at
00:35:39.300
True North have given him every benefit of the doubt.
00:35:41.600
I recall Andrew Lawton, your great colleague who we admire and have on the show from time
00:35:46.680
He had a great sit-down interview with Aaron O'Toole, you know, during the leadership
00:36:00.940
So it's not, I mean, we have a bit of a, I mean, they poke at us and we poke back so
00:36:06.120
people could say, oh, you guys are in a quarrel.
00:36:08.580
You guys don't have a quarrel with him on a personal or relationship level.
00:36:13.580
Your objection to him, at least it looks to me, is purely on the fact that he, of policy
00:36:20.140
So I, I mean, I think the fact that you guys who, who traveled on his campaign plane, if
00:36:26.920
Yeah, we had Andrew embedded on the conservative campaign for a week during the 2021 election.
00:36:32.840
So you guys, I mean, it's not like you guys went in there thinking we're going to give
00:36:36.060
this, I mean, I think you went in there with an open mind and he just disappointed you
00:36:41.320
I, what, what gets me is that I look at 10 Canadian provinces, three territories, the
00:36:48.160
federal government and every single governing party and every single, single official opposition
00:36:54.060
has the identical policies on the core issues of our day, the lockdowns, civil liberties,
00:37:05.780
Like really, is there even a millimeter of difference between any of them?
00:37:10.580
And I, and I think to myself, other than a few stragglers, like in Ontario, there's a
00:37:15.560
few MPPs like Randy Hillier and Belinda Carahelios and Roman Baber who are chucked out of the
00:37:23.000
And you've got Maxime Bernier who doesn't have a seat.
00:37:25.180
Other than these, you know, little atoms, these free atoms flying around in our entire
00:37:32.580
political system, you don't have any diversity of thought on those key issues.
00:37:37.320
And I keep thinking, what if someone were to try?
00:37:43.520
I remember when he first decided to buck the sameness and he had about two terrible weeks
00:37:50.780
where the media just tried to destroy him, but he didn't blink.
00:37:55.300
He didn't, you know, adjust his thinking to theirs.
00:37:58.800
And not only did it work as a policy, but he's a real leader.
00:38:06.760
He's a role model for other American conservatives who are catching up to him.
00:38:13.860
And I look at this and I think, why couldn't we even, we don't even have to be that quote
00:38:18.920
I just wish that Aaron O'Toole and frankly, Doug Ford and Jason Kenney would just try breaking
00:38:31.420
They're all lockdownists and you're not allowed to deviate.
00:38:34.420
I mean, your comments about Aaron O'Toole make me wish if he just tried being conservative,
00:38:39.780
he couldn't do any worse than he's doing as a copycat liberal.
00:38:45.180
And thanks for clarifying that because we did take Aaron O'Toole with an open mind.
00:38:49.460
I tried to hold my criticism of him during the election because, like I said, you know,
00:38:54.140
he had a strategy and I wanted to see whether it was going to work.
00:38:58.360
And now I think that there needs to be a reckoning.
00:39:00.340
But, you know, True North is open to fair coverage of the conservatives in a way that
00:39:06.480
I don't think many other media companies in the country are.
00:39:09.140
We don't instinctively demonize and go after the conservatives.
00:39:13.940
I have many of the MPs as guests on my podcast.
00:39:19.540
And definitely overall, we have a good relationship with the conservative party.
00:39:26.540
And you're absolutely right about Ron DeSantos.
00:39:29.080
I mean, the media tried to get Ron DeSantos to stick.
00:39:32.440
They started calling him Ron DeSantos and it didn't stick because the numbers didn't
00:39:36.920
They tried to paint it as if, oh, look, this, you know, this crazy governor, they're having
00:39:44.600
They opened Disney World when Disneyland was still completely shut.
00:39:53.380
And I think he is a role model to all North American conservatives.
00:39:56.600
It's too bad that we don't have our own Canadian iteration of that.
00:39:59.780
And I think that a major reason for that, Ezra, is because of our health care system.
00:40:06.140
Our health care system is state-run, centrally planned, and we don't have the same capacity
00:40:12.200
as the, you know, free and competitive system in the U.S. where there are multiple hospitals
00:40:18.400
in the same region where there's, you know, three or four times as many beds in ICU capacity.
00:40:24.220
And so, you know, when Canada gets into a situation where there is a wave or a spike, our hospitals
00:40:32.160
And now would have been a great opportunity for a conservative leader to step up and really
00:40:36.280
articulate the reason why we need more choice, more competition, more private money going
00:40:42.480
And instead, you know, we didn't see Erin O'Toole able to articulate that and sell that
00:40:50.620
We don't see Doug Ford or Jason Kenney here and there.
00:40:53.080
They make a comment, you know, they both initially opposed vaccine mandates, saying
00:40:56.660
that we don't want to split society, saying that they go against our charter and our health
00:41:02.360
And then, you know, a few weeks later, I guess they got convinced by the health bureaucrats
00:41:10.740
We don't see them standing up to the lies in the legacy media.
00:41:13.880
We don't see them pushing back against the heavy-handedness.
00:41:17.880
In fact, the examples that you gave with Doug Ford, Ontario and Jason Kenney in Alberta,
00:41:22.040
some of the worst civil liberties offenses in the country.
00:41:25.460
I think that probably the worst thing that happened during the pandemic was the announcement
00:41:29.280
by Doug Ford's auditor general, sorry, attorney general, saying that they were going to have
00:41:35.800
police stop people on the street, stop cars on the road, saying that they were going to
00:41:41.940
One of the best moments of the pandemic was when those police forces stood up and said,
00:41:48.480
And defying that order until the Ford government retreated and came back and said that they
00:41:55.320
That was one of the worst and one of the best moments of the pandemic.
00:41:58.220
And in Alberta, your coverage of the pastors being arrested, I mean, it's absolutely
00:42:02.020
uncomprehensible that that would be happening in a province run by Conservative Premier Jason
00:42:08.680
And I think that, you know, those instances, those absolutely despicable trampling of human
00:42:15.680
rights in Canada is something that conservatives won't soon forget, Ezra.
00:42:22.580
Well, listen, I'm really enjoying our conversation.
00:42:28.060
I have my thoughts on this, but I'd love to hear, what do you think the big battle or the
00:42:39.800
Is it something to do with lockdowns and the fifth booster?
00:42:43.660
Is it, what do you think the big, is it going to be a Chinese invasion of Taiwan or Russia
00:42:48.800
What's the big thing you're worried about or waiting for in 2022?
00:42:53.900
Well, you know, I'm worried about a lot of things.
00:42:57.800
That's where I'm worried about inflation and the risk of hyperinflation with the way that
00:43:02.940
I think that we're coming towards a fiscal cliff.
00:43:05.520
That's something that we haven't experienced in a very long time.
00:43:08.040
So I'm very worried about the fiscal shape, not just in Canada.
00:43:11.980
The Canadian government is in a scary enough situation, but globally as well, the way that
00:43:15.740
the countries, Western countries have been printing money.
00:43:20.000
I think that pretty much everything you mentioned, but, you know, the idea that at some point
00:43:26.900
we have to get back to normal, we have to live our lives, we have to live with COVID.
00:43:30.960
I think that what we've seen throughout history is that when a government expands, when a government
00:43:35.920
takes on a new role, it's very reluctant to remove that, remove itself from that aspect
00:43:42.720
So I think that when it comes to, you know, with the Omicron variant, Ezra, what we've seen
00:43:48.140
so far is that it's very viral, it spreads very fast, but the impact is very insignificant
00:43:55.800
So what it seems like with the mutations of COVID is that it's getting more viral and
00:44:03.920
And so eventually, we're going to have to learn to live with it.
00:44:07.140
And I think that that's going to be a huge battle for Canadians to say, no, we don't want
00:44:12.100
to be mandated by our government to get a vaccine that may or may not be effective.
00:44:17.920
No, we don't want to have to take a COVID test every time we want to travel, including
00:44:22.420
I think that Canadians need to say enough is enough at some point and get on with our
00:44:28.240
And, you know, seeing how Canadians have been pretty subservient and pretty complacent
00:44:33.760
during the pandemic was a little unsettling for me.
00:44:36.280
I want Canadians to stand up for themselves and stand up for their way of life and their
00:44:43.960
I mean, we've seen glimpses of it with the anti-lockdown protests, but we also see how
00:44:48.340
those people get demonized and scapegoated by the legacy media.
00:44:51.840
So I think for me personally, the fight for civil liberties and getting back to normal
00:44:57.440
will be the biggest story that impacts our lives in Canada, I think.
00:45:03.080
Yeah, well, it's going to be an interesting year, Candace Malcolm.
00:45:11.540
I find, I have to tell you, if Rebel News did not exist, I would apply to work for tnc.news.
00:45:17.060
I don't know if I would make the cut, but I would certainly want to be part of your great
00:45:21.160
team of happy warriors, telling the truth, not taking a dime from the government.
00:45:26.740
And I think you guys tell the other side of the story, too, which is our motto.
00:45:30.800
But it should be every journalist's motto, and I think you guys do it.
00:45:34.440
Thanks for all the work you do at the Independent Press Gallery.
00:45:37.040
I think it's going to be a big year ahead for that organization because of what's coming.
00:45:44.800
Same to you, and I hope your viewers have a great new year as well.
00:45:49.440
Until next time, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home,