Juno News - An unhinged Elizabeth May

00:00:00.000 you're uh dressing down today isaac yeah like uh i i i i mean it's it's almost unbearable in my

00:00:08.000 house heat wise so i thought that a suit would be a bit too hot even right now uh without the

00:00:15.360 fan on even with the fan on i'm barely surviving here and i think you're wearing the same thing

00:00:20.880 you were last time william so i have no comments about your apparel i think so i was going to say

00:00:24.720 it was 35 degrees here in calgary yesterday but of course we are in the middle of stampede and the

00:00:30.720 best weather for stampede is hot and sunny that's what you want it to be for the whole 10 days so

00:00:35.360 i'm not complaining because this is a beautiful time to be in stampede all right let's get this

00:00:41.520 thing on the road hello and welcome everyone to another exciting or at least i hope exciting

00:00:54.160 edition of off the record this is our friday kickback show we cycle through a rotating cast

00:01:00.000 of the true north characters and we chit chat about the stories we have covered through the

00:01:04.320 week some of the ones we didn't get to we try to find the lighter side in this turbulent chaotic

00:01:09.280 and crazy world as much as we can as i've joked with a couple of people the worst things are for

00:01:13.600 the country the better they are for our shows and off the record is no exception i'm andrew lawton with

00:01:18.880 you for the next however long this takes joined by true north chief operations officer or is the chief

00:01:24.560 operating officer i don't know i just call you coo usually william mcbeth and our alberta correspondent

00:01:29.920 isaac lamaru uh good to have you both with us how's the alberta summer treating you it's great here in

00:01:37.200 calgary as i said stampede season everybody's happy it's hot it's sunny we have water again everything's

00:01:43.760 coming up calgary yeah it's uh it's okay here i guess really hot i'm dying in my house uh and all

00:01:50.720 my friends are at the stampede i guess they don't have to work uh nine to five jobs so they can just

00:01:54.960 go whenever they'd like uh but i'm obviously in my uh office working so yes and don't you forget it

00:02:02.080 i you're also in edmonton so it's not like it's not like we're the reason keep it's not like i'm

00:02:05.840 keeping you from stampede geography is keeping you from stampede uh now what we did do is force isaac to

00:02:11.520 turn off his fan before the show began because it was like coming through to the microphone so if

00:02:15.920 he's like just like melting into a puddle by the end of it that will uh be wise so uh this is the

00:02:21.040 the benefit of live to tape anyway i must say despite how people may make an assumption based

00:02:26.960 on my appearance i'm not a huge fast food person certainly i could not tell you the last time i was

00:02:32.640 at a kfc but kfc has been in the news this week isaac what's going on yeah i actually can't tell you

00:02:40.080 the last time i've been to kfc either but i definitely don't plan on going anytime soon

00:02:46.080 given the recent news which is that uh ontario kfc restaurants sorry ontario kfc restaurants

00:02:53.760 are going halal friendly or muslim friendly with halal chicken and the removal of pork products

00:02:59.680 from their menu so all of the restaurants in ontario except those in thunder bay and in ottawa

00:03:06.240 have switched to halal chicken and removed pork products like bacon from their menu except for

00:03:12.880 the joint uh kfc and taco bell locations do you still get your bacon if the kfc is sharing a roof

00:03:19.840 with a taco bell that's right so if you really want your bacon uh you're gonna have to go to a

00:03:24.800 shared location uh and when we were discussing this on monday uh when we weren't even sure if it

00:03:29.920 were true or not i i thought for sure that it would be the case that it was just one radical

00:03:36.240 owner at one kfc location but all across the province i mean this is very surprising for me

00:03:41.760 especially considering uh i like to think that western culture sees bacon as one of their favorite

00:03:48.080 foods whereas uh when i was looking at the data there's the the muslim population in ontario is about

00:03:54.240 five to six percent so you're really alienating a lot more people than you're catering to i'd say

00:03:59.840 what do you guys think yeah and and also i i would say everyone's focusing on the ontario bit but if you

00:04:05.120 can put that letter back up this is a letter that kfc sent out to community leaders so i believe it was

00:04:10.880 sent out to like the heads of various muslim organizations and mosques back in may it says this

00:04:16.960 will be followed by the rest of canada by year end so by the end of the year they'll have taken this

00:04:23.360 ontario project and made it national so this is causing a bit of a moral panic of sorts on twitter

00:04:28.560 you've got some people that are saying you know boycott kfc i don't want to eat that halal chicken 1.00

00:04:32.640 i actually am of the mindset that i don't really care i've had halal chicken one of my

00:04:37.120 favorite go-to things if i am out in the world is shawarma and shawarma restaurants are almost all halal

00:04:42.880 i do think that whenever a company makes a decision like this you always have to wonder

00:04:48.000 why is it because they're looking at a decision that's being made for commercial reasons

00:04:53.200 or is it that they're doing something to try to pander and apparently i didn't realize this

00:04:58.000 until i was looking into this story almost all the chicken chains in canada are halal like mary

00:05:03.600 brown's is halal popeyes is halal so kfc in that way is a bit of a laggard i'm more intrigued by the 0.85

00:05:09.680 removal of bacon because it's one thing to add something to the menu that doesn't really change

00:05:14.480 anything for anyone else like you're not you don't become a muslim when you have halal chicken 1.00

00:05:18.720 but taking away something that consumers wanted that to me is a bit more that that that to me i

00:05:25.360 find a bit more interesting here what do you think william yeah i was thinking about the bacon thing

00:05:30.400 and uh i i don't recall the last time i was at a kfc and i'm not sure if anything they sell

00:05:36.960 has bacon on it but then they said they were removing pork from the menu so it must have been

00:05:42.000 on the menu in some form i guess so you that i mean logically yes that would make sense i i guess

00:05:46.960 now i was thinking though that if you think about big fast food chains like big donald's or burger

00:05:52.160 king or even subway and i mean starbucks has breakfast sandwiches all of these places have bacon

00:05:58.320 and it it can't be that muslim people don't go to any of those fast food restaurants right like i i

00:06:06.160 can't imagine that that precludes people from going there and ordering like if you're at mcdonald's i

00:06:11.600 don't know the filet-o-fish which probably has very little bacon on it altogether so i'm not

00:06:16.880 to that led me to think this was more about virtue signaling than it was about specifically

00:06:22.800 addressing the religious dietary requirements of a segment of the canadian population and

00:06:28.400 virtue signaling of course is something that companies love to do without always thinking

00:06:32.880 through well it cuts both ways it signals good things but then what other signal does it

00:06:37.040 set maybe to the rest of canada so something to think yeah yeah and when it comes to like kosher

00:06:42.720 food and kosher restaurants some orthodox jews do have very strict requirements on the facilities

00:06:48.720 and even on the plates like they can't even eat off of a plate that at one point had non-kosher

00:06:53.760 meat or meat and dairy mixed or something like that i'm not aware of islam being so strict and again

00:06:59.680 that's just like orthodox jews so i don't even think there is a facility rule where if bacon was served

00:07:05.280 on something else they can't have even the halal chicken on the menu i don't know about that but

00:07:10.240 what was the reaction like to this that you saw isaac uh yeah well firstly i was actually looking

00:07:16.800 at the stock price uh this is from yum yum food or yum brands which is the yeah that's the

00:07:21.840 pfc and i was like oh maybe because obviously legacy media has picked up this story now so i thought

00:07:28.720 okay the story is getting around we'll see if their stock price has dropped and

00:07:32.640 to my surprise it hasn't really although it did drop over the last month but not in relation to

00:07:36.080 this news from what i can tell just based on the timeline there but of course people on x are always

00:07:41.360 more critical than any other public sphere so yeah there was definitely some backlash on x but it

00:07:47.280 hasn't really reflected their stock price so i don't know that that's obviously where what they're

00:07:51.760 going to care about most as a company uh in regard to public backlash so if their stock hasn't taken

00:07:57.600 a hit i don't think they're going to see a fault in their action personally yeah and and it's also

00:08:03.600 like one of these things that seems very online like the average consumer would have no idea going

00:08:09.280 into a kfc on one day that oh this chicken tastes halal versus the time before now i don't know i don't

00:08:15.520 know if the restaurants are now like in some areas putting up big signs that say you know now now

00:08:19.360 now halal like i don't know how much attention they're drawing to what i found interesting in the re one

00:08:23.280 of the reasons i found this to be suspect originally because what happened was this

00:08:27.840 letter that we put up on the screen earlier we're circulating online the letter is dated may we're

00:08:32.960 now july 11 so anytime you see something that you're like okay why now and i had wondered if

00:08:37.840 it was photoshopped or if it was faked or something like that so the fact that it's taken this long

00:08:42.800 means that kfc it seemed like in may when they made this change was really just quietly announcing it

00:08:47.520 to members of the muslim community they weren't trying to draw a lot of attention to it and when we

00:08:52.320 wrote the story i don't even think kfc responded did they i know from from what i read in the story

00:08:58.880 it said that they didn't yeah yeah and so so that i found quite interesting so again i like it's the

00:09:04.640 at the end of the day who cares it's a company they can do what they want but i i'm always just so

00:09:09.280 skeptical of any corporate decisions now that they're not rooted in in you know anything resembling

00:09:15.360 what they're supposed to be and the great example i give about that is that i uh you know i live not

00:09:20.240 too far from general dynamics land systems which in my city of london ontario is known for exporting

00:09:26.720 armored vehicles to saudi arabia so it's amusing when you drive by and you see like the trans uh 1.00

00:09:32.480 friendly pride flag up in front of the uh facility manufacturing saudi tanks and you're like why don't

00:09:38.640 you just put one of those on every one to saudi arabia what why don't you just slap that on the

00:09:42.560 the vehicles there oh because you don't actually believe this when it's about your business

00:09:46.560 that uh you're pandering to yeah and i had to laugh that if if i guess if ksc really wanted to

00:09:52.640 drive home the point we every location would have a cutout of the prophet muhammad eating a chicken 0.95

00:09:57.840 sandwich or something which i doubt is uh is what they're going to do uh i don't think we're going

00:10:03.200 to see that in kfc anytime soon but yeah you know every time you see a company try to virtue signal or put

00:10:08.800 out something that seems to be more about about style than substance you have to wonder if uh you

00:10:14.880 know is there uh an a an ulterior motive or is this simply a business decision as usual and everybody

00:10:22.400 should go about their lives i mean personally i'm waiting for chick-fil-a to open up here again in

00:10:26.480 calgary and uh solves all my problems so yeah we we have a chick-fil-a in london now and the problem

00:10:32.880 is it's like clean on the other end of town so i've never actually been to it although there was a time i

00:10:36.800 i would have killed for it and i don't know if chick-fil-a is halal i don't think so

00:10:41.360 i couldn't tell you don't know uh probably i'm not going to do the homework on it either if i'm

00:10:45.600 honest i so one one thing i will say when you mentioned earlier william other restaurants that

00:10:50.000 have bacon and pork the thing that's interesting i i've actually been to the middle east i've been to

00:10:55.120 well egypt is not middle east but it's a muslim country and i've been to the united arab emirates

00:10:59.200 and you don't realize how important pork is until you go to a breakfast buffet in a muslim country

00:11:06.960 and you realize that pork sausages are better than any other sausages and pork bacon is better than any

00:11:12.960 other bacon like they all have the alternatives but they're they really really pale in comparison

00:11:18.480 to the real thing well and let's be clear it's not bacon if it's not made from pork no matter what

00:11:23.840 the soy lobby tells you soy bacon is not bacon or turkey bacon beef bacon i mean turkey bacon which is

00:11:30.400 better than soy bacon is still not actual bacon it's a poor imitation at best yeah if you gave me

00:11:37.920 uh turkey bacon let's say and said it was sausage or something i i'd be less disappointed because once

00:11:42.640 you hear the word bacon you know you think of what bacon is the taste the smell everything that makes

00:11:47.200 it so wonderful and then you taste turkey bacon for example and it's like oh you're just going to be

00:11:52.160 disappointed because it's it's not comparable in any way all right well we can all agree on the

00:11:58.000 importance of bacon anyway uh let's move to the next topic which i've very much forgotten so excuse

00:12:03.760 me while i desperately try to find where we are in our rundown here oh i'm not even doing it it's you

00:12:08.720 uh william speaking of the middle east what has canada been exporting there yeah well you know if you

00:12:13.920 watch international news you usually see the uh prime minister embarrassing canada on the international

00:12:19.600 stage he's uh i believe down in the united states right now at a nato summit pledging that canada will

00:12:26.560 finally meet its uh its uh two percent gdp goal although he's providing precious few details on how

00:12:32.560 that'll achieve but one area where apparently canada is just thundering forward and leading the way

00:12:40.080 is in intersectional feminism according to our uh representative in lebanon she attended a 0.99

00:12:46.400 conference and she was proud to say that uh good news people of lebanon canada's intersectional

00:12:54.480 feminist approach to uh foreign policy is going great now uh let's roll the clip before we unpack this 1.00

00:13:04.320 as for canada it has been implementing a feminist foreign policy since 2016. 0.98

00:13:10.080 canada's feminist foreign policy seeks to be inclusive intersectional transformative and grounded

00:13:16.320 in human rights it takes into account the diverse experiences of women men and non-binary people

00:13:24.160 facing multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination and exclusion

00:13:29.360 like income race religion sexual orientation gender expression language ability and age this allows

00:13:38.080 us to be more responsive to systemic inequalities specific needs and circumstances and to avoid

00:13:44.400 unintentional harm our feminist foreign policy is also cross-cutting it applies across all of our 1.00

00:13:51.520 our international efforts including diplomacy trade security development and consular services

00:14:01.600 that uh was uh sylvie michaud who is a diplomat at the embassy for canada in lebanon speaking uh in

00:14:09.120 beirut at the asfari institute for civil society and citizenship uh okay

00:14:19.600 i'm a little bit just our colleague cosmon georgia wrote about this and he's noted that uh perhaps the

00:14:26.640 intersectional feminist foreign policy has not necessarily been well received in lebanon which

00:14:32.720 has a child marriage and uh basically takes a very anti-woman view on anything to do with family law

00:14:42.080 so it's not really working is it isaac yeah no uh what came to mind actually was i saw a clip earlier

00:14:48.560 of uh trudeau speaking at the nato summit where where he they questioned him on on the gdp spending

00:14:53.360 and he said canada was punching above its weight class which obviously isn't true in regard to defense

00:14:58.400 spending we have no plan to get to two percent uh of our gdp requirement as required by nato allies but

00:15:05.200 where canada might be punching above its weight class actually is foreign investments in um anything

00:15:12.480 to do with gender diversity any dei terms that come to mind like uh intersectional intersectional

00:15:19.920 feminism so i mean i i don't know i i kind of laughed even watching this i was like i i don't

00:15:26.560 really even understand what's happening here it's like the uh the the flags at the uh on the gdls

00:15:33.120 vehicles you know you can send them there but probably not william you worked for the harper

00:15:38.160 government previously and that was a time when canadian foreign policy looked vastly different

00:15:42.960 than it does now i mean would you ever have imagined there that even under a liberal

00:15:46.400 government this would be the way that we're portraying ourselves abroad yeah i mean uh you

00:15:52.720 know i this isn't to say by the way that advancing equality and human rights for women isn't important

00:15:58.400 it's absolutely the important thing the problem is the woke speech that so many of our diplomats now

00:16:06.400 seem to employ at the behest of our current government does tend to make countries like

00:16:12.320 say example lebanon who is um possibly going to go to war with israel at some point in the near future

00:16:19.360 possibly it seems out of step with the everyday concerns of people who are living in that country

00:16:25.600 that maybe focusing on intersectional feminism is a luxury compared to say fundamental human rights 1.00

00:16:33.840 the abolishment of religious courts which tend to persecute minorities women and people of different

00:16:39.520 sexual orientations or the fact that large swaths of the country still don't have um the infrastructure

00:16:46.000 and quality of life that you would expect so you know it when we show up in these places and preach

00:16:52.880 about woke nonsense it diminishes canada's standing in the world and certainly say what you will about

00:16:59.680 prime minister harper he was taken far more seriously and treated with far more respect

00:17:05.840 than the current incumbent is uh right now i i think there's something to the idea of leading by example

00:17:12.800 rather than preaching and you know one one of the things that the stephen harper government did

00:17:17.120 was uh ensure there was a path for gay people who were being persecuted in their home countries this

00:17:23.280 was something they've done and the liberals have continued and uh showing that you respect gay rights

00:17:27.680 that projects a positive image to the world the problem when you go into countries that have vastly

00:17:32.720 different world views and you start telling them how they're supposed to do things it just doesn't

00:17:38.000 work and i mean saudi arabia is an interesting example of it i saw this week there's a nike ad that

00:17:43.680 has been made that's in saudi arabia that is all about basically women's empowerment it shows

00:17:49.120 you know younger females that aren't wearing hijabs that are doing sports that are swimming running 1.00

00:17:53.840 around playing and again the idea that an ad like that in saudi arabia which again a country that i will

00:17:58.800 not say is at all a bastion of of liberalism for for women's rights or any other minority rights but

00:18:04.400 that that ad could be made there would have been unheard of but you don't get there by finger

00:18:09.360 wagging and that's i think what the canadian government is doing on a lot of these things

00:18:14.320 yeah that's another thing that came to mind here was uh i i mean why would lebanon listen to what

00:18:19.680 we have to say why why would they care you know we can tell them oh you have to do this you have to do

00:18:23.360 that but as you alluded to william if trudeau and canada as a whole don't really have international

00:18:29.440 respect they're not going to listen to us that's that's something people always brought up about former

00:18:33.920 president donald trump was like he he said things sure but he he also commanded leaders respect uh so i

00:18:41.520 don't know and another thing that i i i wanted to mention was call me a nationalist i guess but

00:18:48.080 i just think of all the issues happening here in canada and and maybe maybe i i don't agree with

00:18:55.360 investing hundreds of millions and billions of dollars abroad when we have so many problems to

00:19:00.160 fix uh in our own country well i know you're right about that i mean the entire foreign aid discussion is

00:19:06.240 one that i think desperately needs a reset because i've seen little to no evidence that the canadian

00:19:11.600 approach to foreign aid even works and is is yielding dividends i mean the problem is that the

00:19:17.280 countries that need the help the most are countries that typically have rampant corruption and money ends

00:19:22.640 up just in the pockets of dictators far more than it helps any people yeah no it's a sad reality that

00:19:29.040 uh so much of foreign aid well-intentioned foreign aid is simply going to make thugs and criminals 0.66

00:19:35.680 wealthy in these countries that desperately need help but it requires i think some really new thinking

00:19:40.880 and uh using the new technology that we have available to us you know there are examples of where

00:19:46.320 governments are bypassing ngos and governments entirely and simply loading money onto the cell

00:19:53.040 phones of individual people living in in very desperate circumstances because it's the only way

00:19:58.960 that they can get around the pickpocketing that happens for so many foreign aid budgets but you're

00:20:03.760 absolutely right and of course foreign aid is it comes at a cost you know money we spend on foreign aid

00:20:08.800 is money we can't spend on canadian health care is money we can't spend on our armed forces is money we

00:20:14.640 can't spend on any other of the thousand priorities that exist so uh you know when you see canadian

00:20:21.040 diplomats traveling the world and uh and talking about things like intersectional feminism it does

00:20:27.360 make you wonder really how much bang for our bucks we're getting on this dog and pony show that we call

00:20:33.200 foreign affairs what we really need when it comes to projecting an image of canada to the world is the

00:20:40.000 austere reverence of elizabeth may roll it i've got another grand baby coming at the end of october

00:20:48.480 and i feel very very committed as i think everybody my age should baby boomers have this planet and we

00:20:58.720 can't walk away and leave it for our kids to fix it and i'm sorry i just used the f word out loud but i

00:21:03.920 think kids understand what i'm saying i'm a very i'm a 70 year old angry cranky version of glitta thunberg

00:21:11.440 and am i ready you bet i feel like you could photoshop in like a giant overflowing wine glass

00:21:17.840 there in the shot and it would just it would be probably even more believable now this is a woman 0.93

00:21:23.600 who in the past i would remind you all has kind of become the civility tone checker in the house of

00:21:31.920 commons this was her taking aim at michelle remble garner back when she was uh just michelle remble 0.94

00:21:37.200 for using a different f word in the parliamentary precinct why does this government treat alberta

00:21:44.320 like a fart in the room that nobody wants to talk about or acknowledge that is where my constituents

00:21:50.560 have been at with this government for over a year the honorable member for uh sanich gulf islands

00:21:56.480 i interrupt my friend in her speech but i heard her to say a word that i know is distinctly on

00:22:03.120 parliamentary and i think she may want to withdraw it the word was f-a-r-t are we are you serious mr

00:22:10.560 speaker like is my colleague actually serious i just gave an impassioned speech about supporting alberta

00:22:16.320 jobs and that's what the leader of a political party stands up and has to say no i don't withdraw it

00:22:21.440 decorum is important and respect is important to this place i remind those who are now heckling me

00:22:28.320 that you are breaking the rules of this place when you do so

00:22:32.720 okay just just again let's go back to the other elizabeth may clip elizabeth may this week i i just

00:22:37.200 want to get that sense of decorum baby boomers have this planet and we can't walk away and leave it for 1.00

00:22:44.400 our kids to fix it i i'm not one of these profanity pearl clutchers i i keep profanity out of my show

00:22:52.400 and we generally keep it out of true north if you want to get elizabeth may uncensored you can you know

00:22:57.040 do that on twitter um so i again i'm not so i don't really care but it's a little rich for her to

00:23:01.680 you know take aim at michelle remple using a four letter f word for flatulence while dropping the 1.00

00:23:07.120 mother of all f-bombs uh herself again i am i am i reading am i paying too much attention to elizabeth

00:23:13.760 may isaac this is i'm totally prepared to accept that uh i don't think so and look a lot of the

00:23:21.600 chatter online let's say has has has uh alleged i guess that she was drunk or whatever and i don't 0.98

00:23:27.840 want i don't want to speak to that because i don't know whether she was or not but i i am slightly

00:23:32.880 i will say concerned about elizabeth may like is she okay on numerous occasions now we've seen

00:23:38.480 very odd things most recently from when she had a completely different interpretation of the uh

00:23:44.800 nsop report than jagmeet singh did because of course he said he said there were treacherous mps and she

00:23:49.840 said oh no there's no there's no treacherous mps uh the media blew it out of proportion which are two

00:23:54.160 very very very different things to say about very different so i i'm i'm very concerned uh about

00:24:01.360 elizabeth may also her co-leader uh or whatever jonathan had no just resigned and he said it was

00:24:08.560 family issues but of course there could be something deeper to that story as well i'm not i'm not really

00:24:13.440 sure i don't know and elizabeth may is kind of all over the place she also uh just said that it was 1.00

00:24:19.360 quote obvious that it was time for justin trudeau to step down which i i wouldn't say i disagree with

00:24:24.160 but i mean she's really putting herself out there more than we may have been used to in the past

00:24:28.000 past she's basically made herself out to be the permanent leader of the green party there was that 1.00

00:24:32.880 brief break from her with anime paul who was probably one of the more credible sensible people

00:24:38.080 that party has and now we're like right back into elizabeth may being just the the permanent

00:24:43.760 the permanent party leader for the greens yeah you know i mean i maybe i have a soft spot i enjoy

00:24:49.840 an elizabeth may press conference because they're rarely dull you never quite know what you're going

00:24:54.000 to get and she opens her mouth and starts sharing her things and on this where was it she did like

00:24:59.680 she played the welcome back cotter theme song and lisa rate had to pull her off stage was that the 0.98

00:25:04.560 parliamentary press gallery dinner i yeah i think you're talking about omar cotter and called him

00:25:09.840 like that it was weird yeah you know in um in classical times we would refer to politicians who uh maybe had

00:25:16.720 a glass or too much to drink as tired and emotional looking tired and emotional but uh just on the whole

00:25:24.240 use of foul language perhaps elizabeth may was more upset about the word fart because of course that 1.00

00:25:30.240 involves the release of greenhouse gas emissions which we know she's quite passionate about so

00:25:36.000 maybe that's what drove her to the the double standard as soon as you started that sentence i'm

00:25:41.600 like is he going is he yeah he's going there she she's offended by methane not uh not profanity uh it's 0.97

00:25:49.280 so you know it's a big part of the greenhouse gas cocktail but i think methane contributes more to

00:25:56.400 parliamentary decorum than anything elizabeth that's come out of elizabeth may's mouth 1.00

00:26:01.680 uh quite possibly but i'd say look you know at least she isn't dull at least we are getting just

00:26:07.040 another boring talking point filled speech oh so i just looked it up the the elizabeth may uh thing on 0.97

00:26:12.720 omar cotter it was 2015 it was during the parliamentary press gallery dinner and she used

00:26:17.280 the f word there too she said omar cotter had more class than the whole effing cabinet so it really and

00:26:23.040 this was before she tone policed michelle rempel uh now michelle rempel garner so my goodness okay

00:26:29.760 oh elizabeth may there we go uh we'll move on to our uh next topic today uh i keep i keep going away

00:26:36.560 from the screen that has the topics on it oh this one is also yours william this is uh speaking of

00:26:41.440 emissions some uh one of our favorite things to talk about here climate hypocrisy yeah and uh and

00:26:47.680 how to get yourself a government travel agent because i can tell you i'm pretty jealous about

00:26:52.800 where some of these people get to jet off with in this case are um and believe it or not we have one

00:26:58.880 our climate change ambassador who's been on the job for just about two years spending

00:27:04.800 a quarter of a million dollars on travel expenses which in you got to admit in two years that's an

00:27:11.680 pretty impressive level of spending you have to i think you really have to quite work at spending that

00:27:16.240 much money in such a short period of time but of course what so infuriates ordinary canadians like us

00:27:22.000 you know what what it was just a few weeks ago where mark um holland chastised anybody who was

00:27:28.320 thinking of taking a summer road trip as being a climate killer that's going to let the planet

00:27:33.840 burn and then meanwhile you've got the ambassador for climate change crisscrossing the country on

00:27:40.640 flights and staying in these very expensive hotels and achieving no one knows exactly what certainly

00:27:46.800 not a reduction in our greenhouse gas emissions i i would imagine hers are vastly higher than the

00:27:52.480 average canadian so uh yeah just another example of climate hypocrisy uh a government that says do as i

00:28:00.320 say not as i do yeah and i remember john carrey was the one criticized in the u.s because he's

00:28:07.440 their climate envoy and he was taking private jets and he was asked about this at one point and he very

00:28:11.840 glibly said well he's too busy he can't always fly commercial and and i had actually asked john

00:28:17.520 carrey about that when i saw him in davos where he is a bit of a mainstay and it's the same sort of

00:28:22.320 glibness you get from these people because they believe that they're more important than you so they

00:28:27.760 need to fly around the world because they have a really really important job to do the rest of us

00:28:32.320 plebs no no we don't get to yeah this is a nice uh transition i suppose considering we just went

00:28:38.800 from seeing the hypocrisy of elizabeth may now to the hypocrisy of these high flying elites let's

00:28:44.960 call them and we've seen this with many canadian ministers like guibo trudeau criticizing uh normal

00:28:52.160 canadians for i mean simply trying to live their everyday life as they fly their private jets around

00:28:58.640 the country uh on a daily basis what it seems like so i i don't know what it would take for this

00:29:04.880 hypocrisy to end but you know it's it just it's interesting to me whenever these ministers uh let's

00:29:10.960 say propose uh some sort of guideline for i don't know carbon emissions let's say uh a carbon footprint a

00:29:20.160 personal carbon footprint let's say it's like well could you live within that i i highly doubt that

00:29:24.720 the answer would be yes yeah and i i kind of take the view i mean france for example uh within the

00:29:32.240 last year i think it was banned domestic air travel and you know it seemed ridiculous on the surface and

00:29:37.920 then you think okay well at least in france you have a way to get around quite easily they've got a rail

00:29:42.080 system that's quite good but a lot of the eco radicals would not hesitate to push something like

00:29:47.760 that in canada as well and you know david suzuki famously would fly all around the world with a

00:29:53.200 huge carbon footprint i think always in business class telling canadians that oh no one should be

00:29:58.080 able that you know politicians who don't act on climate change should be put in jail it's okay well

00:30:02.800 why are you so different than them your carbon footprint is better uh is is higher than the average

00:30:07.920 canadian that you're trying to force to pay this insane carbon tax yeah i absolutely think it's the

00:30:13.840 hypocrisy that's that turns so many canadians off the whole uh preachiness of government you know we

00:30:19.520 talked about how preachy this government's been in foreign affairs and and on other things that's one

00:30:24.000 of the things the government likes to do most is to preach it likes to say you know you dear canadian

00:30:29.760 are not living up to our our vast and and high standards and the problem is you it's not how any of

00:30:36.880 us are living our lives and now correct me if i'm wrong i did read the article but uh i want to make

00:30:42.640 sure i get this right did it say she took a flight from ottawa to toronto and it cost ten thousand

00:30:48.320 dollars is that uh is that somewhere in there now i apologize if i read that part wrong but uh part of

00:30:55.360 me wonders what part of the world could you even fly to that's going to cost ten thousand dollars like

00:31:00.960 you can get from toronto to sydney australia which i would argue is pretty well the most the furthest

00:31:07.280 uh uh you could go uh from canada and uh i i think that even wouldn't cost you i think it was the

00:31:13.440 the conference attendance uh cost that i think oh oh yeah the whole trip yeah but i think she was

00:31:19.040 putting on a little thing still still quite insane and by the way why didn't she take the train from

00:31:22.960 ottawa to toronto that's one where you have a lower carbon alternative and you know why doesn't she

00:31:27.600 look for some cheaper options when staying in hotels or when taking flights you know oftentimes if i

00:31:32.720 you know as a true north employees can attest when they submit proposals for travel my first

00:31:38.400 reaction is often to see if there's a cheaper way of being able to do the trip can we send you

00:31:43.360 in a day before can we put you in a nearby town as opposed to right next to where the event is

00:31:49.520 happening that's almost in a different country that is dangerous poor uh for having a deal with uh my

00:31:55.600 cause i was but again i was being far more cost efficient than mark carney and our climate ambassador

00:32:00.240 are when they go to davos but it's almost like they purposely choose the most expensive option

00:32:05.840 whenever they travel and that really grates on canadians who are having to be so careful with

00:32:11.600 how they spend their money these days you know i don't think a lot of people object to the fact that

00:32:15.600 sometimes our politicians and government people are going to have to travel for their work you know

00:32:20.160 we're not going to ask justin trudeau to zoom in to the nato meeting we think maybe there's value

00:32:25.280 in him being there but do we absolutely have to choose the single most expensive way of getting

00:32:29.520 politicians from point a to point b having them stay in the nicest hotels uh i think that's what

00:32:34.560 really bugs canadians when they see their hard-earned tax dollars being just squandered on luxury for

00:32:40.320 politicians and the elite there was one time i think it was in washington dc actually where i was

00:32:46.080 booking a hotel room and it was you could choose the rate and it was you know the triple a member caa

00:32:53.440 member rate the regular rate whatever and i recall i looked at the government rate and just because i

00:32:59.760 was going through them and it was higher than the regular rate now it might have just been a fluke but

00:33:04.000 it might not have been because you know you have cities where they know that governments are going

00:33:09.200 to come in that don't care about the price of things and they'll just get mad mad cash from

00:33:14.640 governments and i think travel is is no different there these people are are not price shopping and why

00:33:19.360 would they and so there was the climate hypocrisy angle and there's also just the the government

00:33:23.280 waste angle of this um this is uh one that is related we don't trust government we also don't

00:33:28.560 trust media but you have government and media getting into bed together and what's the answer

00:33:33.440 what comes out of that isaac yeah so this comes from a new poll which was conducted by public square

00:33:40.320 research and they were trying to gauge the public's trust in different types of canadian news media

00:33:46.480 and then also the views on um media that received government subsidies so how do canadians feel

00:33:53.600 about government funded media versus obviously media like true north that receives no government

00:33:58.320 funding and interestingly yes 70 of canadians were not supportive of government subsidies for the

00:34:04.800 salaries of private news organizations so private news organization would be like the global mail toronto

00:34:10.320 star toronto sun national post those kind of things oh yeah only four percent of canadians said

00:34:15.520 they were very supportive of this while it was 26 that were somewhat supportive leaving yes seven

00:34:20.560 and ten canadians either not very supportive or not supportive at all well it's just insane that no

00:34:26.960 one sees this because you know we trust journalists to hold government to account so if government is the

00:34:32.400 lifeline for journalists and government is the lifeline for journalism how are you at all going to expect it to be

00:34:39.040 doing what you needed to do so yeah i mean the trust issues in media are outweighing just this aspect of

00:34:46.560 it but it certainly is going is only going to exacerbate the problem and william i mean it's just

00:34:51.200 fundamental and some journalists have criticized it because they see this but many have just demanded

00:34:55.760 more and more money from the government yeah i mean every journalist swears up and down that the fact that

00:35:02.320 some or even most of their salary that is being paid for by the government has no impact on how they

00:35:08.880 choose to uh to report on things but the fact is is that taken as a whole if you look at the legacy media

00:35:16.400 they often obsess about the the pet issues of this current government you know how many stories in a

00:35:24.400 typical edition of the globe of mail talk about climate change or talk about you know some example of a

00:35:31.040 of a of a of a someone who's dealing with a gender issue and and isn't it terrible that they couldn't

00:35:38.080 transition at three and a half years old and you know that's just the worst and if you and these are 0.99

00:35:43.840 not issues that canadians want to endlessly read about what are canadians concerned about they're

00:35:48.800 concerned about housing costs they're concerned about grocery prices they're concerned about you know

00:35:53.520 the fact that uh they can't pay their bills every month those are things that are really of concern and

00:35:59.520 yet legacy media doesn't pay them nearly as much attention as they should i would say one of the

00:36:03.680 reasons why true north has been so successful is we've actually looked at what ordinary canadians

00:36:10.240 from one end of the country to the other are concerned about and we tried to make that the

00:36:14.800 central focus of our news and reporting and as a result i think canadians in increasing numbers are

00:36:22.160 tuning in to us as they tune out from the legacy media so if that trend continues i think you are

00:36:29.600 going to see the legacy media either becoming you know solely dependent on government funding to stay

00:36:35.360 in power or we will simply see the end of canada's legacy media as a whole yeah yeah oh go ahead isaac

00:36:43.360 yeah just something interesting the the the study brought up which was that it said that most canadians

00:36:48.560 were completely unaware on how much funding these legacy media journalists were receiving they

00:36:54.400 estimated that there was up to 50 subsidy on those journalists salaries of up to 85 000 a year and then

00:37:00.480 just speaking quickly on on trust and legacy media they they cited a 2023 study in this research that

00:37:06.240 showed that the decline in legacy media was 50 or sorry the trust of legacy media was 55 in 2016 declining to

00:37:13.600 40 40 percent in 2023 which trudeau was speaking on um an alberta talk show in february where he said

00:37:20.640 that quote conspiracy theorists and social media drivers were the ones undermining mainstream media

00:37:27.120 to prevent people from uh essentially believing a common truth which is why the legacy media was failing

00:37:32.960 however the recent polling showed that only 12 12 of canadians felt that they were getting the

00:37:40.160 truth for mainstream news i mean what a low number and then uh another 20 said that they believed news

00:37:46.640 coverage in canada was fair and transparent yeah and you know the one thing and i've talked about

00:37:52.480 this on my own show anytime the institutions talk about trust and the trust deficit they always point

00:37:58.560 the blame at everyone else it's when we don't trust the media oh it's because of disinformation and we 1.00

00:38:02.560 don't trust the government oh it's because of the far right it's like no it's because you are morons a lot of the time 0.99

00:38:07.520 uh absolutely or you've covered something with such a biased slant or ignored such an incredible part 0.99

00:38:15.840 of it that you know reasonable people watching it simply say that is a lousy lousy job you've done

00:38:23.840 and if you're lying to us about this what else are you are you lying to us yeah yeah and i've always been

00:38:31.840 i guess prideful in in the work that true north puts out because obviously i'm very skeptical when i

00:38:37.680 when i read anything legacy media okay what in here is actually true because i i often find faults in

00:38:42.480 their work whether that's intentional or not but even in in other independent medias when i'm reading

00:38:46.640 their stories i often find errors so i i like to think that that we we produce uh uh uh stories that

00:38:55.360 generally contain very little uh errors uh in comparison to to to the rest of the industry so

00:39:01.200 yeah i just wanted to say that well what no you're right and one point and i mean i'm the

00:39:06.320 managing editor of true north so i i've insisted on this but i think a lot of our team does it anyway

00:39:11.040 is primary sources like don't just report on someone else's report on a report find the report

00:39:16.720 itself find the documents yourself and i know isaac you've had me tell i mean actually isaac is really

00:39:21.280 good at that because isaac loves reading the report and then you'll end up with like oh sorry

00:39:24.880 i am late because i have to write you know read this 179 pages to do and i was like well i technically

00:39:29.920 asked you to so i can't really complain but uh but it's so key because oftentimes especially with

00:39:33.920 academic studies like i used to do this all the time on my old radio show you'd get like a news story

00:39:37.680 about an academic study that would have this fantastic headline you're like wow that's great and then

00:39:42.080 you're just like looking at the study and you're like but it doesn't doesn't say that at all and it's so

00:39:47.520 you've got like a journalist that either is putting sensationalism first or a journalist

00:39:51.600 that doesn't understand what they're writing about but give your primary source and the one thing also

00:39:55.760 that we're good at in true north is linking to the primary source like we don't want to be

00:39:59.600 information gatekeepers we want you to have access to the same thing we did a lot of media will

00:40:05.440 reference something but not actually direct you to the original they'll say oh and these documents

00:40:10.640 we've obtained but they don't show the documents whereas we embed them because yeah we want you to

00:40:14.880 check our work that keeps us accountable my favorite example on this is there's a claim that

00:40:20.640 is recited ad nauseam by legacy media and it's that there are 300 far-right hate groups or white

00:40:27.920 nationalist groups active in canada and they just state that as a fact now when we've dug into that

00:40:34.400 we know that it comes from a single professor at one university who's done a well not even a

00:40:40.480 particularly top-tier university it's like the ontario tech university it's not a not a slight

00:40:45.360 against them but it's not harvard or something i would well i'm not convinced the harvard fair enough

00:40:51.440 it once was but it comes to this one person and this person despite multiple requests has never

00:40:56.400 released their work they have never released the list they have never released the methodology on how

00:41:00.880 this list was put together when we pushed on it the university turned down our a tips turned down our

00:41:06.400 requests and so and yet if you read any news story that the legacy media publishes about so you know

00:41:12.800 quote-unquote hate groups you will see that 300 hate group number quoted as if it is a stone-cold

00:41:19.440 fact and the truth is it's not as near as we can tell it's something that one professor may or may not

00:41:25.040 have just made up one day because she absolutely refuses to publish anything about it that supports it

00:41:31.200 far from even putting out a list of them oh yeah for all we know it's you know she was going by

00:41:36.240 facebook groups or something you know there's a facebook group that posted something she didn't

00:41:39.440 like so oh let's put it up on the list of 300 anyway uh so barbara perry it's not too late to show

00:41:44.640 your work we'll take it we'll take it we'll publish it in full you should be happy as a researcher

00:41:49.040 drawing more attention to your work unless that is you don't stand behind it but anyway uh that does it

00:41:54.960 for us for today my thanks to isaac lamoureux and william mcbeth for coming on the show as always and all

00:42:00.000 of you for tuning in we'll talk to you next week but have a great weekend everyone

00:42:11.440 and cosmon's been fighting over that barbara perry list for like two years now or something isn't it

00:42:16.720 yeah i think it's a personal sort of uh campaign for him now we should be yeah it's like before the

00:42:21.600 ontario privacy commissioner now it so yeah when we when cosmon ate tipped it uh the university came

00:42:27.680 back and basically said oh it's research in progress therefore we can't release it except

00:42:33.200 it's been research in progress for years and years and she's still releasing the claim which

00:42:38.320 suggests that that part's not in progress absolutely she's still making this claim this

00:42:42.480 without a shred of evidence and uh as a result uh you know i think uh if you read any of those

00:42:49.040 legacy media stories they provide none of that context none of them are saying oh and by the way this

00:42:53.280 is just this one person's thing from a report she won't produce from a list she didn't cite how she

00:42:59.040 compiled oh and we can't see the list like you know uh it was it it's just infuriating for those of

00:43:04.880 us who actually like to click on those links and read source documents to try and figure out what the real

00:43:09.440 story is

Juno News - July 23, 2024

An unhinged Elizabeth May

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