00:00:00.000We now have the receipts that Justin Trudeau's government used lies and misinformation to help
00:00:05.680justify the use of the Emergencies Act during the trucker convoy. The explosive expose Hategate
00:00:12.060was released last week. One of the investigative journalists who authored this expose, Karima Saad,
00:00:18.660joins me tonight. Karima has also covered other protest movements in Canada, so we will be
00:00:23.720definitely covering the One Million March for Children protest against gender ideology in
00:00:28.500schools and how the Canadian anti-hate network may be connected to that as well. The conversation
00:00:34.620starts now. I promise you, I will not let you down. The trucks parked outside illegally should
00:00:41.620move. Canada's conservatives will meet our Paris climate commitment. Enough with the wrong
00:00:48.100form, Mr. Speaker. I take that back. To champion our conservative principles. We are the party of
00:00:53.920law and order. To call in the auditors. We haven't yet decided whether we're going to call for the
00:00:58.160government to impose a mandatory test or vaccination. And we will win the next election.
00:01:17.880Canada must not ignore the reality of climate change.
00:01:21.560why weren't canadians vaccinated in january and february like everyone else
00:01:31.420welcome everybody to controlled opposition episode number 28
00:01:44.960Tonight is a very special episode. We have a lawyer from Toronto, someone who has frequented many protests in Canada, and she is now an investigative journalist and author of Hashtag Hategate, the one and only Karima Saad. How are you this evening?
00:02:04.740Yes, of course. We're obviously going to talk about the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, how that connects to HateGate, how that connects to the 1 million March for Children that we've seen this week, a lot going on in the country.
00:02:18.380But to start, let's start on some common ground because we are both a little bit provocateurs. We're people who criticize our own side. If I'm not mistaken, you are more left-leaning, correct? Is that how you'd characterize yourself if we had to use that paradigm?
00:02:34.740It's how people, well, actually, it's a fair characterization, I suppose.
00:02:40.580I think it's kind of a fake binary, but for the purposes of this conversation, sure.
00:02:49.180I mean, it is sort of a fake binary, but what we're about to talk about are kind of make it real, in a sense.
00:02:57.220Because, you know, starting controlled opposition and criticizing the Conservative Party and Pierre Palliev, a lot of people are upset at me.
00:03:05.200They're like, Greg, you know, we got to get Trudeau out.
00:03:11.460But I imagine it might be worse for you because you're someone who has criticized people on your side or you've kind of given sympathy to Jeremy McKenzie.
00:03:22.420What has that experience been like for you?
00:03:24.380And please be very, you know, be very upfront about it because I can imagine it's been like abuse might be a term that might potentially come up.
00:03:39.560And in fact, it kind of started not with me sympathizing or anything along those lines, but I simply tried to have a comedy show featuring Chris Skye.
00:03:54.640And that was like a turning point. Because up to then, I had been covering rallies. I think that, you know, I was there as an observer, I had some of my own commentary to share. And it was widely supported by people on the left, and the far left as well.
00:04:20.240And when I tried to interview Chris Guy, suddenly that was a bridge too far.
00:04:29.120And it's been very challenging ever since because I get portrayed falsely as a white supremacist, as a Nazi, as, you know, all manner of smears that just don't apply.
00:04:46.460And it's difficult confronting groupthink on either end of the spectrum, but particularly on the left, there is almost a need to be in perfect lockstep with one another at every given moment.
00:05:04.340And the second that you are pushing back against or questioning or challenging a narrative, you know, that can result in being at the center of like a total shitstorm.
00:05:24.920And yeah, abuse, it's not an unfair term to use.
00:05:32.260At one point, I had to move because of harassment. It's been online, it's been in person, it's been through frivolous complaints to the law society against me, to a former employer, to the city, to Elections Ontario, any sort of entity perceived to have authority over me has received complaints, as far as I can tell.
00:06:00.960um and they're baseless so yeah it it is a journey um and kind of you know
00:06:09.460there's value in being able to critique and for people to receive critique if it's delivered in
00:06:18.600good faith and that's what i try to do and i haven't had that same courtesy in return
00:06:24.140yeah yeah you touched on a lot of things that are kind of a theme uh tonight i think first
00:06:30.660of all ding chris sky he was featured on anti-hate and the characterization that anti-hate makes of
00:06:38.080people um is very reflective i would argue of a lot of how the the left-wing operates which is
00:06:45.600it's not like a um you got that a little bit wrong or i kind of disagree with you a bit it's
00:06:51.960you are hitler like you are literally the worst you are you are dancing with the devil like you
00:06:57.960know and then you get you actually get tattled on and reported to you know basically institutions
00:07:04.260as you were listing like people you know they try to in a way like you know this might sound
00:07:09.520like rhetoric but they kind of try to ruin your life like they kind of try to like isolate you
00:07:14.240and cut you off and just give you like such horrible consequences for you didn't really
00:07:19.000even have the wrong opinion unless your opinion was hey i want to have a conversation with this
00:07:24.820individual about covid going on which really sucks by the way that that event got canceled
00:07:29.920with chris sky because that would have been really great content i would have roasted the
00:07:33.540shit out of him so yeah everyone missed out big time really for sure i mean chris sky is pretty
00:07:40.700good on his feet i don't know he's not but that's okay we're not here to talk about chris guy i know
00:07:45.680that you supported his mayoral candidacy i that is you know in a democracy absolutely you're right
00:07:53.440to be wrong i'm okay with that but um no are you happy with olivia chow right now we don't have to
00:08:00.720get into that but no uh to your point though hyperbole in political discourse um it
00:08:11.360among other things it degrades the meaning of words and i think that that is such a problem
00:08:20.240As a lawyer, we communicate with words. And in fact, words have serious meanings and implication. A comma in the wrong place can entirely change the significance of a sentence, right?
00:08:34.580So when words like Nazi or comparisons to Hitler or what have you are thrown around so easily, it makes it so we are less able to communicate with one another.
00:08:52.660yeah less able to communicate one another less less incentivized to actually share what's on our
00:09:00.380mind uh at risk of being vilified or being ostracized and and i think another big one
00:09:07.280especially in the right wing is um associate even associating even even asking the wrong
00:09:12.960question or even being seen with the wrong people or liking the wrong tweet for for pete's sake it's
00:09:18.820quite intense. But I think you're right. Where is the discourse these days? Where's the debate
00:09:26.580these days? Something that I bring up a lot is, or I haven't brought up in a while, in the 2021
00:09:31.620election, there was not even a debate on vaccine mandates, which at the time, Aaron O'Toole ran
00:09:41.200the conservative party. But to me, that seems like a real sort of failure of what everyone was
00:09:48.760going through at the time i'm unvaccinated so maybe i'm biased but as we saw the trucker convoy
00:09:54.280you know that kind of showed a sort of um uh well that was that was hey there wasn't a debate about
00:10:02.720this topic and now there's a whole bunch of trucks from across the country uh in ottawa i feel like
00:10:07.320those kind of those two things are kind of connected uh in my opinion anyway i'm not sure
00:10:11.840if you agree but it yeah just i i would echo that it's harder to talk to one another you mentioned
00:10:20.280the consequences of feeling that you know you're less incentivized to speak your mind that stifles
00:10:28.000progressive thought because the way that we evolve as a society is by exchanging ideas improving upon
00:10:35.400each other's ideas kind of learning from each other and where that can't happen because we're
00:10:43.080afraid of wrong think essentially that it uh it's regressive it's the opposite of what the left
00:10:53.960should stand for and it's not beneficial to anyone so whoever is engaging in that behavior
00:11:00.360like it cut it out yeah um so we're gonna get into hate gate and a lot of my audience probably
00:11:09.420knows the the gist of hate gate but um i kind of want to hear your experience of kind of slowly
00:11:15.780uh seeing how deep this uh this rabbit hole goes and you know i summarize hate gate as something as
00:11:23.380um kind of well what i thought i knew already which was i feel like you know diagonal is a
00:11:29.920meme country and this regime uh used these memes and veterans who own guns um they whipped up a
00:11:38.580bunch of misinformation and they used that to justify the use of the emergencies act that was
00:11:42.620that was kind of my perception of it um but you're but you know i know that you need to be very
00:11:48.200diplomatic in that explanation but um like you also include like how jeremy works into this as
00:11:54.140well because like did you think that jeremy was this legit boogeyman at the time he has all these
00:11:58.800firearms charges and uh you know you're kind of learning about what what actually has happened to
00:12:04.840him but tell me what your experience was like of kind of i don't know if you've lost faith in these
00:12:09.800institutions i i sure have but uh you know how has your perspective changed on this journey
00:12:15.780so it uh i'll start kind of with hate gate um elisa hadigan and i
00:12:23.660were given access to freedom of information documents over a thousand pages primarily
00:12:31.260emails and reports involving the RCMP and from that we were able to discern some patterns and
00:12:42.040some concerns about the ways that they investigated and information shared about
00:12:51.600Diagalon and Jeremy McKenzie. And the conclusion that we drew from it, you know, the Emergencies
00:13:00.780Act, the invocation of that, there were a lot of variables, a lot of moving parts. But if we think
00:13:07.080back to the frenzy of February 2022, I think Diagalon was a significant part of that. We had
00:13:17.520MPs and senators speaking about this existential threat to Canada, this militia that wants to
00:13:28.660establish a white ethnostate, you know, this weapons cache where there's connections to this
00:13:37.120group. And so it was all very alarming. And I think that people consuming that information
00:13:45.120were right to be concerned if they took it at face value um but the problem was and this is
00:13:52.620what elisa and i kind of concluded in reviewing these freedom of information documents there was
00:13:59.280a feedback loop between law enforcement media and government officials where they were all
00:14:08.500repeating back to one another the same information copy pasted almost as though they expected each
00:14:15.860other to do the heavy lifting of investigation and you know they were just reporting back
00:14:23.900and a lot of this misinformation or misleading information came from one source that being the
00:14:32.880canadian anti-hate network so we have anti-hate at kind of the nexus of this
00:14:40.660broken telephone game between rcmp cabinet ministers and media and you know to answer
00:14:52.300your question how how did i initially or what was my connection to jeremy um we didn't like
00:15:00.080we first connected in April of 2022. And at the time, the only information I had to go on was
00:15:09.460what was being said in the media. And so I was fairly apprehensive about that conversation. I
00:15:17.120didn't know fully what I was walking into. But the reason for speaking is I had put out a thread
00:15:23.980describing my experiences with the Canadian Anti-Hate Network
00:15:52.880And that was kind of the end of it. We went our separate ways at that point. But I kept an eye on him on the situation from afar, just watching how media was reporting how, you know, this narrative was constructed around him, a variety of legal problems.
00:16:15.400And sort of that's the origin story there. And, you know, the when he got arrested and hauled from Halifax or Nova Scotia to Saskatchewan, something prompted me to go watch the bail hearing.
00:16:37.180And I'm very glad that I did, because it provided me even more insight into the situation. And, you know, from there, I was able to, my perspective at that point, had shifted from this is someone I need to be afraid of, to this is someone who is receiving a lot of heat from the state.
00:17:04.000and i want to better understand why and how and you know what's going on there's you know there's
00:17:11.600publication ban attached to the mail hearing so i can't be specific about what prompted um
00:17:18.640this light bulb but from there i've taken a real interest in watching these legal proceedings
00:17:26.720unfold and i thank you for that i thank you for that that uh you know the the whether it was your
00:17:35.200principles or your values or just your sort of uh intuition to be like maybe this guy isn't a
00:17:41.940boogeyman maybe there's more to the story um but i was thinking as you were saying as you were kind
00:17:46.480of sharing that you've covered this story you've covered hate gate in my opinion i know you like
00:17:54.220to be diplomatic and not too opinionated, Karima, but in my opinion, this seems like a really big
00:17:59.740deal in terms of the failure of the news media, failure of major institutions, and to an extent,
00:18:06.380the RCMP and police. Why do you think no major news outlets have picked this up?
00:18:13.420I think the simplest and most likely explanation is that, well, there's two. One is there's
00:18:24.180already been a lot of investment into a particular narrative and that narrative includes uh the
00:18:34.360canadian anti-hate network as an expert as a trusted source and to walk that back is a big move
00:18:41.980right and so i think that that's part of it and there's also a degree of whether it is embarrassment
00:18:51.620or you know egg on your face or what have you I think that that's sort of another part of the
00:19:01.360equation and there's actually a whole chapter in Hategate that's dedicated to cowardice and how
00:19:09.920in Canadian society it's a real problem it's a real problem because we enjoy being comfortable
00:19:18.260that makes us complacent and sticking one's neck out, given the precariousness of the media
00:19:28.860industry, for example, and how nepotistic it can be, the cronyism that exists, there's not a lot of
00:19:38.060push for uncomfortable truths. But fundamentally, that's what journalism is. Journalism is
00:19:44.860expressing uncomfortable truths and that's what Elisa and I are trying to do here
00:19:50.320yes absolutely uh there is a link to hate gate down below uh for those who have not yet read it
00:19:57.100um but uh yeah I did want to uh highlight as well uh a particular part of the story which I
00:20:05.820commemorate you for which is you I think you really tell a part of Jeremy's story very very
00:20:11.380well. One in which I don't think I've ever read
00:20:41.180his viewers to leave entertained and reassured the softness of this approach is sometimes
00:20:45.700camouflaged by the bluntness of military military culture it gives me chills just reading it
00:20:52.080because it's uh that is something that um what's the word context that's the context that is
00:21:01.680grossly missing from all the mischaracterizations uh of jeremy and the little quotes that are taken
00:21:07.240out of context and i think it's important to point out though that the only reason that you've had to
00:21:13.880you know make this very eloquent description of the context of what uh jeremy does is after he's
00:21:20.380been dragged after jail after he's been kind of characterized as a boogeyman like all all after
00:21:24.960fact after the fact because really no one would have needed to make that description of what he
00:21:29.720does what he does just would have been but the only reason that you had to kind of clarify all
00:21:36.140that is because he's been turned into this uh like quite frankly awful boogeyman i even have a story
00:21:42.180of uh a friend of a friend of my parents who who like asked oh have you heard of diagalon
00:21:48.620and they were like i'm pretty sure that's a joke and they're like no yeah that's what they all say
00:21:54.820that's what they all say and it's like something i've noticed in politics is the information or
00:22:02.140the message whether it's true or not whatever message is sent out by the news media it has a
00:22:08.560snowball effect it gets it gets exaggerated through gossip and all that type of thing
00:22:12.500and a good example maybe would be um well i kind of like to use the ppc as an example because they
00:22:19.760say oh they have like anti-immigration views and then that manifests and i know this because i ran
00:22:24.000for the ppc in 2019 that manifests as you're a nazi like you are the worst person oh my god like
00:22:29.980you you criticized immigration you are you are the worst boss you're hitler um so it is it is quite
00:22:35.800alarming but um i don't know if you want to say anything yeah no it uh i've talked about these
00:22:46.140concepts before but there's primacy bias and confirmation bias and the two feed into each
00:22:51.840other. And so the first time you hear about something that is going to subconsciously
00:23:00.680create a framing and new information that you subsequently take in, you try to make it match
00:23:07.740that framing because we don't like cognitive dissonance, right? We like things to make sense.
00:23:14.260And so if the first thing someone heard about Jeremy McKenzie, which it likely was, came from a news source portraying him in a certain way, then that makes it a lot easier to take in snippets or cherry picked moments and sort of fit it into a narrative.
00:23:38.580And frankly, Jeremy makes that easy sometimes for them to do.
00:23:44.260So that's, that's an issue. And to then change your mind about something. That's asking a lot
00:23:53.320for people, people do not like changing their minds. And if they do, they want to have an
00:23:58.740opportunity to do it gently and save face. So that's sort of what, you know, what you're up
00:24:06.480against um as far as public opinion and shifting that um and you know i we make this point in the
00:24:16.220report but if someone was a fly on the wall in a room where people were talking about risk
00:24:25.160or dungeons and dragons and you know they like risk the board game yeah risk the board game right
00:24:34.920And, you know, they're talking about coups and takeovers and we're going to destroy their crops and like whatever else, you know, I don't play any of those things.
00:24:45.420But I understand enough from popular culture to know that there's there's it's like a political game.
00:24:52.220But if you took that at face value, it would be very concerning.
00:24:54.680And, you know, the elements of military culture, gun culture that makes people uncomfortable if they are unfamiliar with it, because it is perceived as scary.
00:25:11.160And so it's a lot easier to spin a nefarious tale.
00:25:18.180And the fact is that, you know, the hate gate affair, it's not about endorsing Jeremy's content or, you know, diagonal on or it's irrelevant.
00:25:32.180irrelevant it's irrelevant to everything whether he is offensive or distasteful or
00:25:41.700or what it doesn't matter because the threshold for the rcmp is criminality
00:25:50.180right and if there is no criminality then what are we doing here why is information
00:25:57.940being passed up the chain of command to five eyes partners like it doesn't make sense
00:26:05.940and the reason or explanation for that you know we go back to complacency and cowardice and copy
00:26:14.100and paste work that it isn't solid um you know so so that's i don't know if that answers the
00:26:23.220question but that's kind of my my take on why it was necessary to put in that description because
00:26:30.980we're you know people have a perception that is deeply ingrained as a result of a year of bad press
00:26:41.860yeah yeah and quickly back to back to this kind of uh this important context that you give of
00:26:48.980Jeremy's story, I would make the argument that you could make the same sort of context for someone
00:26:57.960who is an anti-vaxxer or specifically someone who opposed vaccine mandates back during the pandemic
00:27:05.340because the media really didn't do these people any favors. There's the infamous Toronto Star
00:27:11.340headline that says, I don't care if these people die or something to that effect, which was very
00:27:17.000alarming there's also you know political cartoons that are kind of like you know a visualization of
00:27:23.700flicking away anyone who dares kind of stand up for the unvaccinated and there you could have the
00:27:30.380same context of like well these people are concerned about bodily autonomy and they have
00:27:34.720their like plenty of reasons and i think especially since the convoy with the mandates hopefully
00:27:38.920going away and staying away that i believe these people have been vindicated but um at the time
00:27:45.400There really was a lot of pressure upon unvaccinated people or even people who oppose mandates.
00:27:51.820And speaking of changing minds, Karima, have you changed your mind at all over how you covered some of this stuff back then?
00:28:02.060Because I can bring up a couple of cartoons of that you've done in the past.
00:28:05.160i'll bring up uh i'll bring up this one to start which is from i believe 2020 2021 july
00:28:14.120where you're depicting doug ford ontario is open for business but this is really just the donor
00:28:20.740saying this like with with the hand here and uh this is the education minister i believe your
00:28:27.760kids will be fine probably and my interpretation of this is it's these horrible conservatives who
00:28:33.960are dare daring daring to open up daring to open up the uh the province again as if it's like the
00:28:41.160worst not the worst i think you that's my interpretation of what the message that is meant
00:28:46.840um in this cartoon and for me you know i i obviously completely disagree with it back then
00:28:52.940but i disagree with it now but um you know this kind of like vilification of anyone who would open
00:28:58.620up um aspects of uh you know to reverse lockdowns um do you still feel that way about like the
00:29:06.860pandemic and everything that went down or do you stand by that still or kind of what do you what
00:29:11.120are your politics reflecting on that knowing that how misinformation operates now in the country
00:29:16.440i think the interpretation i would give to that comic if you pull it back up
00:29:20.400sure um so i forget when this came out i i guess it's sometime in this is july 22 here i'm pretty
00:29:30.520sure it's 2021 yeah no i think it would have been 2021 um yeah so two things um one is this notion
00:29:38.660of donors and lobbyists pulling strings i still hope that i think that that's an accurate
00:29:44.760reflection of the Ford government. And it's contentious because
00:29:52.400our whole notion of what is science-based, I think, is hard to parse through due to political
00:30:04.760interference. So I am not a scientist and I don't purport to be one. However, the point here
00:30:14.160is donors and lobbyists at no point should be controlling government right um and ontario's
00:30:21.240open for business like you're probably aware that's our provincial motto right um it's from
00:30:28.840yours to discover so that's ford and then leachie and the impetus behind this particular comic
00:30:35.680was an article about the different level of
00:30:42.240protection and resources that were afforded to private schools versus public schools.
00:30:51.340So, you know, the comic, that's kind of, I don't know that there's much I would
00:30:56.700change on that. It wasn't an endorsement of lockdowns. Although, if I recall correctly,
00:31:03.180at that time, there were concerns about the manner in which Ford was opening up. And that's
00:31:11.100been consistent throughout, because he's been inconsistent throughout. And there's been
00:31:17.020criticism, regardless of what move he's making. It just seems that he is unprincipled in his
00:31:23.920approach. And the minister, the education minister, for his part, I think does a disservice overall
00:31:31.160um in the way that he treats public schools now having said that lockdowns on public schools like
00:31:38.560that schools should have been the the priority and focus and that they were more of an afterthought
00:31:48.940in the way that all of these policies rolled out um so that's my take or analysis on that particular
00:31:55.880comic okay there's there's a lot more of these you know there's a lot more of these i mean
00:32:03.160you can do this all day but like that's my that was a product of its time um and i don't know
00:32:09.480that i disagree i think that the impact of lockdowns as we sort of as we unpack it um and
00:32:20.640even at the time it didn't make sense right it didn't make sense that you can go into some
00:32:25.040places, you can't go into others, that you need to wear a mask to go into the restaurant, but then
00:32:31.020you can take it off when you sit down. But you have to show your little passport in order to do
00:32:36.280that. Like it, none of that made sense. And I think that, you know, I don't know if there's a
00:32:43.060government anywhere whose approach I would wholeheartedly endorse. But I find it a lot easier
00:32:51.100to criticize Ford just because he's absurd in his approach.
00:32:55.320Well, I mean, compared to Trudeau, though, where he basically called all like unvaccinated
00:33:03.960people anti-science and they're all racist, they're all homo, like whatever he said that,
00:33:09.000you know, that clip where he's speaking in French, I would say that's...
00:33:12.620And in that clip, so that clip obviously gained a lot of traction and people sort of latched
00:33:18.040onto parts of that even adopting it as a symbol of pride right we are the fringe minority um and
00:33:25.240you know the original interview was in french um he in his framing was in fairness to him um and
00:33:34.520i'm not like a trudeau fan but i want to be fair he was talking about a subset of people um not
00:33:43.080kind of writ large. However, I think that it contributed immensely to division and polarization
00:33:51.600in the country. And the subsequent doubling down on that sentiment made it worse.
00:34:00.660Yeah. And I would argue just to push back on what you just said, like, it's easy to make fun of Doug
00:34:05.440Ford. I think it's easy to make fun of Doug Ford because he is more of a conservative. The media
00:34:10.460loves to hit like you know rip on the conservatives i think that's a real pattern that exists
00:34:15.160whereas someone who is like dehumanizing a specific group of unvaccinated people i feel
00:34:20.700like that's much more alarming uh and disturbing and it really did reach a boiling point uh leading
00:34:26.700up to to the convoy that i think especially you know left-leaning people it was just total
00:34:33.280hypocrisy it was it was total insanity you know it's like well we have to stick up for the minority
00:34:37.600even if they're a minority no matter what oh unvaccinated people like yeah ban them from
00:34:41.980society I don't care if they die like that like that's how insane it was uh right before right
00:34:47.400before the convoy happened to push against that um but yeah and here's another one because again
00:34:54.520it's related uh this this is the Andrea Horwath basically said I want to clarify my poorly
00:35:02.360received comments about mandatory vaccines today is opposite day so eventually she flip-flopped
00:35:08.340this is the joke about how she flip-flopped at the time but um it's not so much about that whole
00:35:14.980situation because a lot of what you say here is kind of like you know it's kind of lukewarm it's
00:35:19.600not necessarily you're kind of just documenting what happened and how she flip-flopped and this
00:35:24.260is like my bias coming out hardcore then you share a thread from nora loretto and she and you say this
00:35:31.900is mandatory reading this thread by nora loretto should be mandatory reading for anyone who has
00:35:36.460an opinion on quote vaccine passports and this thread is very much if we're going to think about
00:35:43.220vaccine passports then are we going to be able to actually vaccinate everybody like that like
00:35:48.380that's pretty well the framing you know if you want to talk about vaccine passports and needs
00:35:52.060to like are we sure we can actually vaccinate everybody um so it's i would argue that's very
00:35:57.360very one-sided it's not giving any sort of uh credence to the people who don't want to get
00:36:02.880vaccinated um i don't fully remember this thread but that's the angle that she was talking about
00:36:10.880right so any issue there's multiple angles and she's saying it's not our passport's positive
00:36:17.680or negative but underlying that is there an issue of like equality of distribution etc
00:36:26.640right she doesn't probably broach on the idea of what if people don't want to be vaccinated i
00:36:34.960imagine she doesn't since you're reacting to this thread um but the the way of approaching
00:36:42.320the question i think is is valid because it's not a complete story but it is a consideration
00:36:52.000in that issue i don't know like i it's you you look at any issue and it can
00:37:02.960there's dozens and dozens like infinite actually like underlying considerations and factors and
00:37:09.680some will be more important than others some less important than others and sometimes what's not
00:37:14.160said at all is equally important. Now, to be fair, having had my own sort of experiences with
00:37:23.440people, vaccine passports, all of that, I don't understand why it wasn't a decision at the outset
00:37:33.800to say in your immunization records, there is a new thing added, as opposed to show the teenager
00:43:21.880So what I actually saw in Whitby and Pickering, in Whitby, there was a counter protest as well as a protest.
00:43:30.340They were fairly similar in size, I would say.
00:43:34.200And everyone was on the same side of the street, pretty much, just like, you know, sharing the sidewalk, essentially, in front of a high school.
00:43:44.860And there was not like nothing particularly concerning or noteworthy in the ways that people were interacting.
00:43:57.240There were some speakers out of a truck.
00:43:59.360uh and you know it was more or less peaceful um apart from sort of the inherent act of being
00:44:07.380outside of a school which i i don't like any protests outside of schools to be honest um
00:44:15.620and that goes for the counter protesters as well i understand that their response would be well
00:44:20.140we're just showing up where the other guys are but it uh i think it's too volatile to be around
00:44:26.140schools that's my opinion um but in any event um from there there was a convoy to pickering town
00:44:33.420hall city hall um again there were some more speeches some religious leaders spoke uh and
00:44:41.180there was a march that was supposed to go to an overpass over the highway 401 um and ultimately
00:44:49.900that didn't happen there was a standoff with police who prevented road access or sidewalk
00:44:57.020access to uh to the overpass and there were sort of negotiations that didn't really go anywhere
00:45:05.980um and then everyone kind of went home but not before stopping along the side of the highway to
00:45:12.140to hold up signs. So it was, you know, it was not, there was nothing explosive, which actually
00:45:20.080is why I went to Durham region. I wanted to get kind of a more, a look at it in sort of a more,
00:45:32.680I'm not sure what word I'm looking for, but a less intense kind of, there weren't clashes
00:45:40.520between the groups right um and no counter protesters for the march in pickering and
00:45:46.860maybe a dozen or so um in the in the park there uh but you know my impression or understanding
00:45:54.840of the event is that it did in fact um originate with um a few muslim community leaders um some
00:46:05.460with ties to convoy related stuff um others who have emerged specifically around this issue
00:46:12.680um and the idea was quarterbacked or hijacked whichever however you choose to look at it by
00:46:19.520sort of secular parent groups um but there was still a very heavy muslim presence uh that was
00:46:26.600for sure the case in uh in durham um and there were also a fair number of people who identified
00:46:33.700as Christians and, you know, sort of cohesion between those groups around this issue. I think
00:46:41.720that a lot of the media framing kind of lapped up the Canadian Anti-Hate Network's narrative of
00:46:49.500this being hate-fueled and anti-LGBTQ, and that narrative was supported by some of the protesters
00:46:59.920and the ways they behaved in cities across Canada.
00:47:03.720And that's going to be the primary focus.
00:47:07.060But the people who I spoke with, you know, it was a range of views that were expressed.
00:47:14.960Some who I believe are regular convoy protesters who have just simply shifted to this subject
00:47:24.220because protest has become a form of community building and a pastime
00:47:29.160And, you know, they're prepared to run with whatever. There were parents like actual parents who were concerned about various facets of curriculum and school policies.
00:47:42.180And, you know, there were a handful of people whose views are quite regressive and broader than sort of the stated objective of curriculum and policy.
00:48:00.520But I would say primarily it was parents who want to, who aren't prepared to cede control of their children to ideologies to which they don't ascribe.
00:48:17.740Yeah, yeah. And there's such a, you know, consistent pattern here.
00:48:23.940And I like to relate it to the convoy because the convoy, I was there, I interviewed lots of people.
00:48:28.700they wanted to stop mandates if there's any one thing that united all those people i would argue
00:48:34.200it was stopping mandates and then it got characterized by the media as no no they want
00:48:38.540to overthrow the government they want they have guns all this stuff they're violent they're
00:48:42.240burning down apartment buildings all of which were lies but it was this very dishonest
00:48:47.940characterization of why people were generally there and we're seeing the exact same thing here
00:48:52.300where it's um i'll get justin trudeau to say it it's like yes this was all about transphobia
00:48:58.640and homophobia it was just about hating gay people right like that's what they're trying to say that
00:49:02.980all of a sudden all these parents decided that they that they hate gay people and that's why
00:49:06.940they showed up which again a very uh strong mischaracterization um of why parents were there
00:49:14.520they're concerned about the what's being taught taught to their kids and i think uh they have
00:49:19.600every right to do that and you you brought it up but i'll emphasize it again um the media was
00:49:25.460going off the Canadian Anti-Hate Network.
00:49:53.200um did they target you specifically actually when when they were like when you were being
00:49:58.240vilified for the um for the chris sky stuff the canadian anti-hate network wrote an article about
00:50:05.680me that has subsequently been used by a variety of named and anonymous accounts as proof of
00:50:15.340you being a bad person yeah right like evil i guess um in fact there's one account that was
00:50:22.440dedicated specifically to me that posted about me every single day anything that I post like
00:50:28.780they would take or misconstrue and try to portray in the worst possible light do smears by
00:50:34.680association etc and that account one day during the convoy reposted the article 17 separate times
00:50:42.520so they're unemployed so yeah are they though I don't know are they unemployed I don't know
00:50:51.440So it was a cudgel. And from then, the NTA network has, I think, only mentioned me by name maybe once and then by reference maybe a couple of times. But the real heavy lifting is done by, again, both anonymous and named accounts who happen to be parroting the exact same stuff.
00:51:18.800here's that article i love how they put interview in quotes here plan to interview
00:51:25.200racist anti-lock what else was i gonna do what else was i gonna do
00:51:29.060well their whole argument is uh you're platforming this person right like how dare you give them a
00:51:36.640plat like you can't even let this person speak that's a nonsense concept nonsense yeah but some
00:51:42.480to your question how do we get past this it's first of all by recognizing that civilian versus
00:51:50.280civilian and spy versus spy is not is not conducive to results that improve our democracy
00:52:00.040and it puts us in a very very dark place where neighbors turn against neighbors so we should
00:52:08.280avoid that at all costs. And the way to avoid that is by focusing on our institutions and
00:52:15.020making sure that they are as sound as possible, that there are checks and balances, that we
00:52:21.840minimize interference between them, and that they are holding each other to account, right?
00:52:27.580Which, you know, is a lofty goal and ambition, you know, a tangible thing that people listening
00:52:34.140to this right now can do is write to your member of parliament and tell them that the canadian
00:52:42.300anti-hate network which is seeking five million dollars in funding should not receive that money
00:52:48.300to be a watchdog they are eminently unqualified for that they've proven that to be the case in
00:52:57.100in my view. And again, it's not conducive to healthy democracy. So that's a tangible thing
00:53:04.500that people can do. But, you know, more generally, I think we kind of need to take a step back from
00:53:14.840constantly upping the ante. And what I mean by that is, it's very easy and tempting to dehumanize
00:53:25.220one another, to sort of assume the worst of one another, to
00:53:32.940take cheap shots, all of that. And, you know, I admit that I
00:53:38.360am guilty of those like falling prey to those instincts
00:53:45.260For sure. But okay, I think all of us. But you know, I can only
00:53:50.960be accountable for myself. And that's something that I avoid
00:53:54.980doing and I work on doing because at the end of the day, we all need to coexist. And we can't get
00:54:02.880to that place if we're constantly at each other's throats. So, you know, it starts with our own
00:54:09.860rhetoric. It starts with the ways that we engage with strangers online, being mindful that a lot
00:54:17.380of the accounts you interact with online may not be real people right and you know so dedicate your
00:54:25.960energy accordingly um and kind of focus on real people right the people in your personal circles
00:54:34.700and spaces and kind of checking in with one another right it sounds maybe a bit hippy dippy
00:54:40.880But like, how do we get out of this? It's by reconnecting where division has been sown, right? The pandemic did an incredible job of splitting up families, friendships, you know, all sorts of relationships that just were damaged.
00:55:03.460And, you know, is it irreparable? I don't know. But reaching out and kind of trying to connect on a human level, I think that's the the answer to this.
00:55:16.800I agree. Do you have a few more minutes? There's something else I wanted to go into just just to kind of drill into anti-hate before we go.
00:55:23.380um and i agree with a lot of what you're saying but you know we're able to have a conversation
00:55:30.280we have disagreements and i feel like when when when those conversations of you know bridging
00:55:35.300the gap or going across the aisle it's actually quite simple and i feel like the problem is more
00:55:41.320this uh guilt by association the sort of like radioactive uh effect that happens from cancel
00:55:48.420culture from the media hype that parrots lies from Canadian Anti-Hate Network. And I'm kind
00:55:57.680of speaking in generalities, but I think you know what I mean. This kind of phenomenon that happens,
00:56:01.660it really does, like the hate experts, the Canadian Anti-Hate Network really does act as
00:56:06.400this moral authority to justify spearing the reputations of people. And so I hear what you're
00:56:14.560saying. And I agree. However, I feel like the nucleus or the core of this problem are the
00:56:21.800Canadian anti-hate network and the fact that there is a funded or formerly funded Canadian entity
00:56:28.900who can almost, this might be an aggressive way to put it, but almost lie with impunity.
00:56:35.540Like they can get away with just like smearing and twisting things around. And that infrastructure
00:56:43.980still exists here in Canada because the Canadian NTN network is still there it's still getting
00:56:49.300quoted by by global news and as long as that's the case Houston we have a problem right um yeah
00:56:57.300would you agree with that characterization yeah I do um so again that's why I mentioned the
00:57:02.320tangible action of letting you know what not just your member of parliament all of your
00:57:08.640representatives know that you're not comfortable with taxpayer dollars going to an organization
00:57:16.300whose stated mandate is to effectively do call outs on relatively insignificant people
00:57:26.520because that's the track record um share hate gate with your elected officials um you know
00:57:35.100this is a national security issue right it's a national security issue if the five eyes partners
00:57:43.220think that we are like a monty python skit or if our intelligence agencies and i use the word so
00:57:54.500generously um you know can't discern between a joke and a real threat and to be clear sometimes
00:58:02.380real threats come camouflaged as jokes but we should be able to parse that out quickly
00:58:10.220or at least accurately and you know you asked is there kind of you feel that you've lost some
00:58:16.540faith in institutions i think um was one of your takeaways from this a little bit and that's that's
00:58:21.540fair but you know silver linings to this first of all there were rcmp officers who called it out as
00:58:29.100it was happening, saying, hang on, we only have one source. Regardless of what the media is saying,
00:58:35.820perhaps we should exercise caution. And, you know, that ultimately, Jeremy McKenzie was never
00:58:43.540charged with sedition or terrorism or kind of any of these high level charges that could have ensued
00:58:53.020if a frenzy really took place and they wanted to proceed in that way right so that's at least we
00:59:00.260know that there are some levels of checks and balances knock wood assuming that no one's at
00:59:04.920his door right now um and kind of a third silver lining is the freedom of information process it
00:59:13.600worked it gave us information that will help us with informed decision making um everyone is free
00:59:21.360to do it's very cheap uh to do these freedom of information requests you're entitled to information
00:59:28.160from the government about decision-making processes but be open-minded don't be tunnel vision
00:59:34.000like we saw with the rcmp um you have to be prepared to sort of take things that don't fit
00:59:40.400into your world view um but you know those are like there's some positive takeaways from this
00:59:46.960but uh yeah to the point about anti-hate continuing to operate in this way of course
00:59:53.280it will if we don't make enough noise so make noise yeah be respectful in the way that you do
01:00:00.160it right be reasonable stay grounded in facts no one's going to hear you if you are and i see this
01:00:08.640a lot and it irritates me on the hate gate um hashtag if you are being blatantly or subtly
01:00:15.920anti-Semitic in the way that you're expressing your concerns, no one's going to hear you.
01:00:21.220No one's going to hear you, right? If you are misstating facts, no one's going to hear you,
01:00:27.860you're going to be dismissed, and you're going to drag everyone else down with you. So if you're
01:00:32.180not capable of being nuanced, or like, that's not your jam, that's okay, shut up, shut up and let
01:00:38.780other people run with the ball because this isn't about any of those things this is about
01:00:46.140how we want our it's about truth absolutely and it's about how we interact with our institutions
01:00:52.620and whether we agree that an organization that's not accountable to anyone or anything
01:00:58.960should have this level of power i personally don't think so so if you agree with that then
01:01:06.000be smart and strategic in how you raise those concerns. Write to your representatives, do it by
01:01:12.080email so you have records, be persistent about it, but don't do it in all caps while you're swearing.
01:01:21.040There's definitely a good way to get the message out in a way that isn't as effective. I certainly
01:01:26.560agree with that. Although one point, it can be kind of frustrating because it does feel as though,
01:01:34.880hey make sure you check the facts make sure you don't oversimplify things make sure you tell the
01:01:39.680truth make sure there is nuance and it's uh you know i think of a quote from from justin trudeau
01:01:47.600you know like the there will be consequences uh the unvaccinated pose a risk like there's
01:01:53.200no nuance there you know like you want to be in a race to the bottom or are you going to elevate
01:01:58.320i just think it's frustrating because that hasn't stopped that hasn't stopped
01:02:04.000of course it's frustrating and it's frustrating if your adversaries aren't playing fair or playing
01:02:09.220by the rules does that mean you also discard the rules and just like fuck the game and
01:02:14.200we're just gonna all descend into anarchy i'm not gonna get hung up on uh nuance and details
01:02:22.940uh when there's such an epic intelligence failure uh happening in the country like like i'm not
01:02:28.220going to that's that's kind of my own personal uh approach to communicating this like well
01:02:33.760technically there's still some okay rcmp officers that's a fair point and you're absolutely right
01:02:38.780the fact that uh jeremy mckenzie is hopefully going to beat all of his charges and like you
01:02:44.100know there still is a system that works thank god but um you know there's a lot to be angry about
01:02:51.240as well and i get that and people can express their anger and should express their anger but
01:02:56.820But, you know, try to do it in a way where you're going to be heard is is my gentle suggestion.
01:03:10.500So get ready. You know, you were just saying how disappointing it is to see an organization like the Canadian Anti-Hate Network receiving funding from the government and being so inefficient or kind of spreading lies, as it were, misinformation.
01:03:23.360during the pandemic there was a fund to pay online influencers to promote COVID-19 vaccines
01:03:30.900did you receive any of this funding Karima no no no okay I would have applied but no
01:03:42.700okay um just had to be sure any last things that you want to say in regards to hate gates we
01:03:51.580covered a lot of grounds or 1 million March for children or to promote anything else that you got
01:03:58.160going on? No, just keep using the hate gate hashtag. We trended for over a week straight.
01:04:05.800Yesterday, there were a few other things going on around the country. So understandable. But keep
01:04:12.300using that hashtag. And sorry, throw that hashtag in when you're talking about the million March as
01:04:19.420well absolutely just throw it in there throw it it's only nine characters guys yeah yeah it's and
01:04:24.900nine characters well worth it because there's a lot to unpack and there's still threads that
01:04:29.640i hope to unravel um you know it's an evolving story and uh i'm not gonna go quietly into that
01:04:36.980good night absolutely thank you so much kareem is sad for being on the show um i'm glad we were
01:04:44.980able to be civil for the most part and uh yeah i'm thanks again so much for for writing uh hate
01:04:51.900gate and doing the actual work of organizing everything and laying it all out for people
01:04:56.240because i really feel this is going to be the beginning of uh you know calling out this whole
01:05:00.700ecosystem of of essentially mischaracterizing canadians and and really fomenting hatred they're
01:05:06.980the ones fomenting hatred i would argue but um and you can't fight hate with hate so keep that
01:05:12.360mind folks when you are reacting to this i know it's a big ask but i'm gonna ask you anyway raise
01:05:19.560your vibration leave your raise your chakras to the love vibration um and as we always say
01:05:25.320it is okay to demand higher standards.