Greg Wycliffe - The Toronto Star vs. Maxime Bernier

00:00:00.000 I'm a Canadian and my name's Greg. Whose voice and whose opinions do we get to hear most often

00:00:06.960 when we read the news here in Canada? My name is Greg Wycliffe. I'm the People's Party candidate

00:00:11.580 for Parkdale High Park. And in this video, I'm going to go over a few articles, mostly from the

00:00:16.640 Toronto Star, and look at how they characterize Maxime Bernier versus the actual conversations

00:00:22.980 that they've had. And also be a little bit critical of how some of these articles have

00:00:28.920 been framed. Yeah, let's just jump right into it. And speaking of voices, we're going to start with

00:00:35.680 Maxime Bernier's voice. This was a Maxime Bernier sits down with Toronto Star editorial board. This

00:00:43.800 was an hour long conversation where they asked him all sorts of questions about himself and his

00:00:49.040 policies. And I'll just give you this one short clip here. What do you know about Mr. Scheer for

00:00:53.900 running against him and the leadership that is informing your campaign? Yeah. First of all,

00:01:00.660 both of them, if you look at... You have to pick one.

00:01:06.420 Both of them, if you look at my platform and their platform is the same. On immigration,

00:01:12.600 they're the same. On the cartel, they're the same. On foreign aids, they're the same. On tax reform,

00:01:19.900 they're the same. On free speech, they're the same. I have a policy on free speech. On... Go

00:01:26.240 on. On the pipelines, they're the same. You know, I'm the only one who's going to use the

00:01:31.160 constitution. And yes, use the constitution, the section 9210, to be sure that we'll be able

00:01:35.940 to buy pipeline in this country. And they're not saying that. On equalization, they're the

00:01:41.380 same. I'm the only one who will change the equalization formula for being, listen to me,

00:01:46.080 less generous. And yes, I'm saying that. I said that in French, in Quebec, and in New

00:01:50.740 Brunswick, actually, I said that. And when I said that, the journalist from CBC said, Mr.

00:01:55.360 Bernie, you're in New Brunswick, and you're speaking about against the equalization formula

00:01:59.880 to be less generous? I said, yes. Do you know that at a provincial level, 60% of our budget

00:02:05.900 is coming from equalization money? So you're saying to our people here that you're going to

00:02:10.040 cut their provincial budget by 60% and you want to have some support? I said, yes. I

00:02:15.260 said, yes. We'll do that on a transition period because it's an unfair policy. We need to give

00:02:20.180 the right incentive to every province to develop their own natural resources. And right with

00:02:24.560 that formula, they don't have these incentives.

00:02:27.040 Steve. And so as we can see there, you know, Maxime Bernier is super passionate about his

00:02:32.700 economic policies. And, you know, you'll see a lot more of that throughout this hour long

00:02:37.020 video, which, of course, I will link in the description. Fun fact, when this video was first

00:02:42.480 posted, it was originally unlisted while all other conversations from the Toronto Star with

00:02:48.580 the different Canadian leaders was publicly available. So that's kind of strange. However, I

00:02:53.900 want to juxtapose that voice, what we heard from Maxime Bernier being passionate about economic

00:02:59.320 policy with this article here, which was posted two days after that interview, Why the Star

00:03:05.120 Talks to Maxime Bernier by Andrew Phillips, editorial page editor. As a journalist, I've interviewed

00:03:11.300 and platformed hundreds, maybe thousands of people in dozens of countries. Many of them were

00:03:15.940 appalling. They included murderers and terrorists, an IRA hitman in Belfast who wasn't shy about

00:03:22.640 describing as killings, politicians and generals who were later found guilty of carrying out genocide

00:03:27.280 in Bosnia, literal neo-Nazis in Germany, and the politicians who fronted for them. All this was

00:03:33.600 upsetting, even emotionally exhausting, to borrow a phrase, but it was my job to talk to whoever I

00:03:38.140 needed in order to get the story. And the story was often dark. That's what journalists do. And it's

00:03:44.560 what the Star's editorial board did this week when we sat down with Maxime Bernier, leader of the

00:03:49.520 right-wing People's Party of Canada. So I asked whose voice and whose opinions do we get to hear

00:03:54.920 when we read the news. And right now we're hearing the opinion and the voice of one Toronto star

00:04:01.660 journalist, Andrew Phillips. If I'm not mistaken, I'm going to try and be as unbiased as possible,

00:04:07.860 but I really feel like he just compared Maxime Bernier to murderers and terrorists. And I know that,

00:04:15.300 you know, equalization payments and getting rid of those can be very scary to some people,

00:04:20.640 but I really don't think that comparing Maxime Bernier to murderers and terrorists and people

00:04:26.300 who have carried out genocide is at all fair or accurate. He also later says, it's no secret that 0.93

00:04:34.340 Bernier holds extreme, even indefensible views on immigration, climate change, and a lot more.

00:04:39.240 He gets asked all about that in this hour-long interview. And what is really unfortunate is

00:04:46.500 this whole article here by Andrew Phillips, not once, I don't think at one point, he mentions

00:04:53.680 anything about what Maxime Bernier said. We do not get to hear Maxime Bernier's voice in this article

00:05:01.200 that's all about Maxime Bernier, which is two of the characteristics that are common in a mainstream

00:05:08.860 media article that kind of smears someone's character. We hear partisan voices. We hear the

00:05:16.020 voices of people that clearly have their mind made up politically. And they, in this case,

00:05:21.720 somebody who's easily is comparing Maxime Bernier to a murderer or terrorist. And then the characteristic

00:05:26.960 number two is the complete omission of Maxime Bernier's voice. We don't even get to hear from

00:05:34.300 Maxime Bernier. And this is very common in other articles that smear the PPC. We don't get to hear

00:05:41.500 our views. We don't get to hear our platform. We don't get to hear any details on the policy. We don't

00:05:46.800 even get to hear from candidates or in this case, Maxime Bernier. And I think that's a really, really

00:05:52.700 unfortunate. And, and I would, I would definitely make the argument that it's irresponsible as a like

00:05:58.480 trusted news brand, like Toronto Star. Uh, I think it's very irresponsible of them to do that and

00:06:05.260 completely omit Maxime Bernier's voice in this case. And I want to juxtapose this. Why the Star

00:06:11.880 attacks to Maxime Bernier comparing him to, uh, murderers and terrorists, like at least an implicit

00:06:17.600 comparison, and then compare their coverage on the Danforth shooter. This was, uh, over a year ago now.

00:06:24.880 Um, spare a shred of pity for the family of the Danforth shooter. This is only two or three days

00:06:30.580 after this man went on the Danforth and shot, uh, two young girls and injured 16 other people.

00:06:37.320 I'm not gonna, I'm not trying to be unsympathetic to people who are mentally ill by any means.

00:06:43.460 However, this is somebody who actually killed two innocent people and injured 16 others.

00:06:50.160 And the Toronto Star is, is telling us to have sympathy. Whereas we are seeing a French Canadian 1.00

00:06:57.000 politician who is trying to impose some, you know, new economic policies that he think is going to

00:07:02.780 help all of Canada being framed as a, you know, comparable to a murderer and terrorist. I think

00:07:08.780 this is very unfair coverage. If you are wanting to learn more about the Danforth shooter, I will link,

00:07:16.660 uh, an article, an article to the Post Millennial where a very, uh, brave and smart independent

00:07:22.460 journalist, Daniel Boardman, uh, kind of breaks down other connections that this Danforth shooter has.

00:07:29.180 Uh, basically a friend of a friend found 33 guns and 42 kilograms of carfentanil, which is one of the

00:07:36.020 most edliest substances on the planet, if I'm not mistaken. Anyway, there, there is more to that story.

00:07:40.480 And, um, so yeah, I'll just, I'll just leave that. If you want to look into that further,

00:07:45.040 let's go, let's move on to another article from the Toronto Star from award-winning journalist,

00:07:50.980 Heather Malik. Heather Malik is, uh, she's look at all these honors and awards here. She is the

00:07:56.280 winner of the Canadian Journalism Foundation Landsberg award in 2015. She wrote this, uh, op-ed,

00:08:02.760 this opinion piece. Bernier wants to break rules to sneak into TV debates. He wants to sneak in.

00:08:11.300 So let me just read the first couple paragraphs. Maxime Bernier, leader of the People's Party of

00:08:15.120 Canada, won't be allowed to join two TV election debates in October. We made it in to both of them.

00:08:21.480 Thank you very much. There's a simple reason for that. He doesn't qualify. The People's Party must pass

00:08:26.860 two of three tests. Heather is right about this one. We need to pass two of three tests have at

00:08:32.860 least one elected MP. That's Bernier wrong, wrong. This is one of the tests that the People's Party

00:08:40.340 of Canada can never pass or fulfill in this instance, because it needs to be an MP that is

00:08:45.560 elected under the People's Party banner. Since Maxime Bernier started the People's Party only a year ago,

00:08:51.120 he has technically never been elected as under the People's Party as an MP. So it's, I want to point

00:08:58.420 this out because this is a trusted news brand. This is an award winning journalist who is getting some

00:09:06.020 of the facts wrong. Yes, we need to pass two of the three tests, but no, this, this is not one of them.

00:09:13.080 I have at least one elected MP. That's Bernier. No, that is actually one that we can never get, but we did end

00:09:17.660 of fulfilling the second two running candidates and at least 90% of ridings nationwide. Good job,

00:09:22.800 PPC. And, or have a real chance of electing some of them. That would be Bernier. And I also believe

00:09:28.240 for not a Ford in Etobicoke North is, uh, another one who is, is, is set to win, uh, this October 21st.

00:09:35.360 Um, I want to scroll down to another part of the article, which I found a little bit, um,

00:09:41.140 I'll, I'll say interesting. Uh, instead of bemoaning dairy subsidies, they obsessed, they being PPC

00:09:50.020 supporters, obsessed about the subject of Muslims, which they call political Islam. I don't know what

00:09:58.440 that is. I don't know what that is. This is the voice of Heather Malik, an award winning journalist

00:10:05.620 saying, I don't know what that is. I would hope that if you don't know what something is and you're

00:10:13.960 a journalist, I would imagine that you would look it up and maybe do some research on it. Uh,

00:10:19.980 especially if you're curious about it, especially if you're writing about it, especially if you're

00:10:23.340 publishing it in a mainstream media news article, she goes on Islamist entryism. I don't know what that

00:10:30.240 is either. I would hope that you would want to Google this stuff and maybe look it up if you've

00:10:35.900 never heard of it before. Um, and, and again, I asked the question, whose voice, whose opinions are

00:10:43.200 we getting to hear when we read the news? Let me introduce here. Um, I hope this pops up properly.

00:10:49.020 Good. Uh, Andre Domiz, Domiz, I don't know how to pronounce his last name. He's a contributing editor

00:10:55.120 to McLean's. So there was a televised debate at McLean's. Maxine tweeted out wondering why I wasn't

00:11:01.820 invited to yesterday's McLean's debate. A contributing editor to McLean's and debate commentator

00:11:07.040 Andre Domiz flipped off PPC supporters, called them Nazis and wish them to die in car accidents.

00:11:15.620 Contributing editor to McLean's flip them off one more time on the way out with a couple suck your 0.76

00:11:21.480 muddas and hope you crash on the ride home thrown in for good measure. I don't know if you can see 1.00

00:11:26.980 he also says F Nazis. He also responded to Maxine Bernier's tweet and said F off Nazi scum. Uh,

00:11:36.460 the, the, this is a contributing editor to McLean's magazine, which is essentially one of the,

00:11:42.600 the largest and most trusted Canadian news magazines in the country. This is the voice we get to hear.

00:11:48.940 This is the people that are, are, are writing and disseminating the news that we consume across

00:11:54.200 the country. These are our trusted journalists, so to speak. I had to tweet at him. He has since,

00:11:59.560 um, blocked me. I said, people standing for fiscal responsibility and individual freedom,

00:12:05.080 fairness, and respect aren't Nazis. As a PPC candidate who had a grandfather that fought against

00:12:10.360 actual Nazis in World War II, I find your use of the term very ignorant, irresponsible,

00:12:15.740 and divisive. Openly inciting hatred and violence isn't a good look either. However,

00:12:22.380 I'd like to thank you for your contribution in ruining the authoritative credibility of McLean's

00:12:27.420 and rags like it. Canadians are taking note of objectively idiotic takes from news outlets more

00:12:34.720 and more. Thank you for watching this video. I'll pass off the question again, whose voice

00:12:41.360 and whose opinions are we getting to hear from when we read the news? Uh, I want to say big thanks to all

00:12:48.160 the new subscribers. Thanks so much for your support. I am Greg Wycliffe, People's Party candidate for

00:12:53.040 Parkdale High Park, and I'm going to keep making videos like these. Be sure to leave any comments below,

00:12:58.400 any suggestions, subscribe, share, all that fun stuff, and we will talk to you very soon.

Greg Wycliffe - October 09, 2019

The Toronto Star vs. Maxime Bernier

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