00:04:07.900He was running as a Conservative for a number of elections, including the last one under Pierre Faliev.
00:04:13.620He ran provincially for the PC party in Nova Scotia.
00:04:17.160So, he has a career that has sustained, you know, actually a few decades.
00:04:21.980In the case of Michael Ma, I think a lot of people are learning his name for the first time.
00:04:25.460And looking at his background, I mean, this is his first time sitting in the House of Commons.
00:04:30.200So, Pierre Faliev essentially gave him the job when they got him in the writing, and he won.
00:04:35.000And, of course, this was the writing, if you guys remember, that had the concerned candidates, the two Chinese descendant candidates,
00:04:42.420one of which was fired or resigned forcefully from his role as the candidate because of his ties to Beijing and to Beijing Front-linked organizations.
00:04:53.940And, of course, even his book of commentary about how the Conservative candidate, Joe Tay, should have been or could have been taken into a Chinese consulate for a bounty on his head.
00:06:13.400So, I guess you could even say the same thing about Ontario to that extent.
00:06:16.220But I really feel like this was one where, you know, a lot of people didn't see it coming.
00:06:20.940Because, like I said, we don't know who Michael Malm was.
00:06:23.580So, I guess maybe not just listen to constituents, but maybe even someone on his team or himself just feel comfortable, you know, being on the government benches instead.
00:06:32.620What's most interesting about this is, like it says in the title, one more seat and they can get a majority.
00:06:37.920And that's going to change the dynamics of Parliament.
00:06:40.540That's going to set the election date three more years or four more years further than it would have been given where we are now in the minority situation.
00:06:49.260Even then, you know, we could argue that the Greens or the NDP or the Bloc or whoever wants to take a turn at it can still prop the government up for their own interests.
00:06:56.900As we've experienced between 2019 and 2021, those sections where we had minority governments that probably outlasted their terms.
00:07:07.060But, yeah, so it's all interesting stuff.
00:07:09.260But, again, I think with consumers right now, they have a quite sour taste of the mouth.
00:07:13.160Kind of wondering, you know, like how many of these people are properly politically vetted in the sense of, you know, do they really believe in the values that consider the party in leadership of Pierre Paliyev?
00:07:22.960Or are they just like installed as candidates? And this is the question that I think a lot of disenfranchised conservative people have in Canada.
00:07:29.340I'm sure you're here for this PPC argument about how the, you know, there's a union party in Canada.
00:07:34.100Well, I think this argument is becoming more popular because, you know, you're looking at people like Chris D'Entremont and Michael Ma and asking yourself, you know, like what really makes these people stand out as conservatives?
00:07:43.100If that's how easy they can flip off to a new party, to a new direction, under a new government and have major consequences.
00:07:49.500I mean, Chris D'Entremont was budget time. Michael Ma is now post-budget time up leading up to leadership review of Pierre Paliyev.
00:07:56.300I think Pierre is still safe as leader, but I still think that this is going to piss off a lot of conservative, you know, volunteers, donors, supporters.
00:08:03.540Because the fact of the matter is they put a lot of energy and faith behind Pierre and the party and the party still made significant gains.
00:08:10.380But to see the cracks open up and two MPs leave in a span of a month and a week, it kind of shows the fact that maybe there are some people that are on the ballot and there are some people who are in the House who aren't exactly subscribed to what they're advertising on their campaigns.
00:08:24.820Yeah, Alex, I'll ask you something quick to loop you in here, because we've seen a lot of Canadians raise concerns about the fact that MPs can just cross the floor and there is no by-election forced.
00:08:38.180Because I think that would change these dynamics, as you said, Waleed Ma, or the Conservative Party, more specifically, in that riding, would likely win an election.
00:08:45.220So if a by-election were on the table, if you were to cross the floor and that was forced, I don't think that these two MPs may have made that decision.
00:08:53.700And this is, in my opinion, a subversion of democracy, because how Canada politics work, you're not voting for the MP.
00:09:00.460Like, let's be realistic. No one in that riding knows who that guy is.
00:09:03.040They're not voting for the MP. They're voting for the federal Conservative Party.
00:09:05.780Like, the MP is just kind of, like, in most cases, and I would say at least the majority of voters, specifically for myself, like, I would say many of these voters don't even know who the MP is.
00:09:17.240It's like, I'm just going to vote for the Conservatives because I want, they're supporting the leader, Pierre Paliyev, and the party as a whole, more so than the MP.
00:09:23.380So, Alex, I'm just surprised that, obviously, we've had our democracy as it is for some time or for a long time.
00:09:32.560And I'm just surprised that this issue has never gotten big enough that it has been changed where a by-election is forced.
00:09:37.900So, Alex, do you think maybe going forward that that would ever happen?
00:09:41.400Because, obviously, the Liberals in their position, who are going to be the ones who benefit from this stuff happening, aren't going to change this law.
00:09:48.560But do you think there's any way where we could, I guess, strengthen democracy and somehow pass a bill to force a by-election when someone crosses the floor?
00:09:58.020I don't know. I mean, that would be kind of a higher level question.
00:10:04.600I mean, a by-election is triggered if somebody resigns as opposed to crossing the floor.
00:12:02.800We'll move on to our next story, which is, well, it was super interesting to me, at least, because...
00:12:08.520And I'll ask a few things of you guys here, but the Liberals faced extreme backlash over an ex-post that was promoting free speech.
00:12:17.840And they even had the hashtag, think before you share, on the post, which was super ironic, considering they got community noted for their post.
00:12:27.220Because the post, essentially, and the video, which just, it didn't really have audio, just sound, or music, sorry, but it had text.
00:12:36.700So, it was talking about foreign regimes, mass reporting posts to take them down, coordinating harassment, filing baseless legal threats, and essentially silencing online posts.
00:12:48.060But then, of course, the community note there, as you showed, Jeff, it said, hey, the Liberals are actually doing this with Bill C-9.
00:12:58.140And then the thing I focused on for this article was the reaction to the post, because it got so widespread.
00:13:04.460Even Conservative leader Pierre Pellievre commented on it, he quote-tweeted it, and he literally not just mentioned Bill C-9, but Bill C-11, which grants widespread censorship powers.
00:13:13.580Bill C-18, the reason you can't see news on social media in Canada, and he went on and on.
00:13:18.820So, I mean, other Conservative MPs did too.
00:13:22.780Michelle Rempel-Garner, she shared a clip of a Liberal immigration head trying to essentially suggest that they should stop allowing MPs to share posts from the House of Commons, which is just absolutely ludicrous.
00:13:36.680I mean, and it went on and on and on, even fans of, or colleagues of True North, like Rod Giltaka, the CEO, of course, of the Canadian Coalition for Firearms Rights.
00:13:48.180He was saying, he said, isn't this exactly what you're doing to the Liberals?
00:13:52.540And then a few Canadians too that I highlighted in the article.
00:13:56.420For example, one user said, quote, it's what communists do, accuse others what you're guilty of.
00:14:01.160And then there was the whole convoy aspect too.
00:14:05.560Sheila Gunn-Reed, she went into it with some evidence.
00:14:08.940She was talking about them suppressing evidence.
00:14:11.440And then, of course, Tamara Leach got involved.
00:14:13.520She was giving specific anecdotes, specific examples, like, here's what I went through.
00:14:17.720Here's how I was suppressed by the Liberals.
00:14:21.520And, of course, Waleed, you've been on the Bill C-9 beat a lot.
00:14:24.880But I did want to ask you guys something a bit more chill beforehand, because I see posts, and I'm sure you do too, every day that are from not just political parties, but politicians that are so clearly not true.
00:14:40.020So, yeah, what do you guys think of the whole community note in general on X and maybe the consistency of it and what we see from it?
00:14:47.760Well, I will tell you, and I'll speak on behalf of myself, because I, myself, am actually a member of the community note kind of, I don't know, feedback team or, but I'm someone that typically awaits the effectiveness and purpose of community notes, which effectively gives it its placement on some posts.
00:15:06.240So, for those that are not, you will either see a community note if it's already been given the thumbs up.
00:15:11.200But I can say sometimes, well, it's still in the process of being built up by the user base and the algorithm.
00:15:16.200So, I think, frankly, from an informational standpoint, I don't think it takes as long as, and this is the condition for me, as long as it doesn't take away from the original content.
00:15:26.160So, if you have a photo of something, even if you want a meme, troll, spread disinformation, or spread real information, where you might be accused of disinformation in some cases, especially in the political sphere, you have your image, you have your text, you have your information.
00:15:39.980But then you have an additional subtext somewhere outside of the frame of the message or the image or the text, which can then provide for the context for the reader.
00:15:49.700I think it's fine because one doesn't take away from the other.
00:15:52.140Now, what information is coming from the text also matters by itself.
00:15:59.700The next part that concerns me as well is, you know, because we saw YouTube apply a very similar policy where they had, you know, information, but it wasn't based off of user data or based off of open source data.
00:16:09.880It was typically based off direct government interference.
00:16:13.080The governments of some countries would like to indicate information to the users about COVID.
00:16:16.960So, if ever you had mentioned anything about COVID during the video, you'd have that COVID-19 sublet.
00:16:21.820You had something about climate change.
00:16:23.180I know because my last couple of videos at COP30 last month had that little climate change UN link attached right on the bottom, which I'm sure a lot of our users weren't happily or our viewers rather weren't happy to see because, of course, that's straight up, you know, institutional propaganda at that point.
00:16:38.980So, I think what really matters is where is that information coming from and how is it being displayed?
00:16:43.720I think Twitter is getting the, or X rather, is getting the model right because it's being a bit more democratic than any other platform that I've seen at that similar scale.
00:16:51.560So, I think for the most part, it's been good.
00:16:53.660Sometimes, you know, you want to get close to information and understand exactly if this is like, you know, some rage bait, as we say nowadays.
00:17:00.220I don't know if people are very familiar with the trend, but whenever someone says feeling absurd just for the sake of provoking, you know, an angry reaction from the user base, you know, you want to get to the facts real quickly.
00:17:10.900Other times, there might be things where context matters, you know, there might be some accusations out there.
00:17:15.200And I think sometimes even users that have posted false information accidentally could appreciate it because while they might be ratioed, while there might be like, you know, those retweets where they, you know, gotcha, at the end of the day, it gives you the opportunity to take down or to react responsibly over what you're actually posting out there.
00:17:31.880So, I think the community health model is good, I think, and I hope, hopefully, it will stay.
00:17:36.900And other platforms might consider that as an alternative to the other more draconian, top-down approaches of just feeding us government propaganda.
00:17:44.520Yeah, Alex, I'd love to get your thoughts because you're sort of an ex-celebrity.
00:17:49.300But, no, something that just came to mind when Waleed was talking there is last week, for some reason, everyone was, or I kept seeing the NHL video from 2021 where they were doing some sort of Indigenous thing based on the graves.
00:18:05.240No bodies have been found at these residential schools.
00:18:07.080And this was based on, of course, the CBC article that itself, I think, got community noted because they were saying that there were graves, and that's not true.
00:18:16.460But the NHL video, interestingly, this was from May 2021, and it was, yeah, some Indigenous celebration at some game was not community noted, so I found that interesting.
00:18:26.960But, yeah, Alex, given your presence on X, I'm wondering if you have any similar anecdotes or thoughts.
00:18:32.660Yeah, I mean, I'm also a community note.
00:18:34.640I don't know, is there a name for it, like, curator?
00:18:39.500So, yeah, I mean, I don't typically rate the notes very often.
00:18:44.200I do find community notes a little annoying sometimes.
00:18:49.420And a lot of times, community notes will just be opinions, which I find kind of defeats the purpose.
00:18:56.820Bill C9, if we can kind of return to that.
00:18:59.800I just think that's, like, super, super interesting.
00:19:01.740I don't know if anybody's been watching the Justice Committee where this bill is being debated, but it is by far the funniest and most dysfunctional House Committee of all time.
00:19:11.020It has reached such a plateau of absurdity that, like, all of the conservatives have brought in their holy books, which is, like, quite interesting.
00:19:21.980I don't know if that's against House rules to bring in props, but, you know, like, Andrew Lawton's got his holy Bible and Roman Baber has his Torah.
00:19:29.800And it's really, really interesting because, basically, what they're doing is they're bringing in the holy books to show that this Bill C9 is an attack on free speech and, in particular, free speech that is, I guess you'd say, espoused in the context of religious text.
00:19:45.900And so, yeah, I just think that this is such a funny thing that, you know, the government of Canada, on the one hand, is saying that they're a proponent of free speech, but then, on the other hand, they're also trying to censor Canadians, including, like, what should be a fundamental right, which is your ability to speak to the text that you believe in, right?
00:20:06.000I mean, faith is a fundamental freedom.
00:20:10.600Anyone claiming the liberals are a proponent of free speech, I mean, you've got to be, you've lost the plot.
00:21:19.920And it may have been more than just a swastika.
00:21:23.340Like, there may have been actually Nazi symbolism, because a swastika in itself, while symbolizing the Nazis, has other meanings, as we know historically.
00:21:36.420So, yeah, I mean, but that's one of the reasons that people are against this bill, including Hindus, right?
00:21:41.180They're saying that, especially if you remove this religious exemption for free speech, I mean, are Hindus going to go to jail because they're displaying swastikas, even though it's completely out of context?
00:21:50.640Like, it has nothing to do with Nazi Germany.
00:21:52.920I just don't know what the purpose of this bill is.
00:21:55.260And there are so many other priorities that we should be looking at in terms of criminal justice and human rights.
00:22:02.440It's just the most baffling thing I've seen.
00:22:05.200If I can chime in, I just want to say that I think there's always a great discrepancy between the raison d'etre or the reason why this bill is being pushed by so-called liberals.
00:22:17.680And, of course, this is, I think, where liberals have lost credibility in terms of deliberalizing social media, the media overall, and, of course, the public domain of expression.
00:22:28.140Whether we're talking about swastikas or not, I already think the laws are probably a little bit too far in some cases.
00:22:32.680I mean, being charged for symbolism, even as hateful as it can be, I think, is still, it's a bad direction to be heading in.
00:22:40.420But now you have, of course, it is true.
00:22:42.840You've seen, you know, we've all observed from different studies and different reporting that we've covered even ourselves,
00:22:48.660that there has been a rise of anti-Semitic incidents in Canada.
00:22:51.800There has been a rise of hate crimes for warts in communities in some cases.
00:22:55.260I mean, there just has been this pool of sectarianism, partially, in my opinion, flooded by demographics.
00:23:01.540Because now you have, the minorities aren't actually so small as they used to be.
00:23:05.420And they're actually much more frequent.
00:23:07.080And their counterparts from wherever they're from are also here.
00:23:10.340And there's those dividing lines of nationality, religion, ethnicity.
00:23:13.740Wherever they happen to be in the world, they happen to be present in Canada.
00:23:16.660I think every country, every major country on earth, at least, and every major religion on earth, has a diasporic presence in Canada.
00:23:22.840Which means, for all the conflicts that are out there, there's somewhere where that show can start to play off in Canada.
00:23:30.140And that's actually a very important thing to understand in terms of how we're heading towards a country without borders.
00:23:36.340I mean, yes, we might have kind of some set of a frontier, you know, ports of entries, airports, you know, a border marked on a map.
00:23:43.960But in terms of how we're able to fend away the kind of, you know, nonsense, sectarianism, hatred, ideologies that are, you know, ruining other parts of the world.
00:23:54.460It's becoming very hard because, of course, like, you know, we've covered many times, these diaspora groups are well pronounced and are in big numbers with a lot of power, politically speaking.
00:24:05.700And they're able to operate the way they were operating before.
00:24:08.840Or actually, in some cases, as we discussed, especially on the Sikh issue or other kinds of issues, even more.
00:24:13.920Because of our liberal democracy, they're able to amplify their voices more and say, I mean, incredible nonsense.
00:24:19.960I mean, there was that Sikh activist I covered, I think it was two or three weeks ago, that spoke on the CTV talking about, you know, the whole Khalistan Sikh referendum that happened in Canada.
00:24:30.220I think 50,000 people voted in Ottawa.
00:24:32.340But specifically that individual, someone that has called on, like, the death of the Indian Prime Minister, who was called for the deportation of Hindus from Canada and telling them to go back to their country, although he shares the same country of heritage as them.
00:24:45.400I mean, it's really funny stuff sometimes, but ultimately, taking it back to the point of hatred, I mean, hatred is there, it's increasing, and definitely there might be an appetite to see things change.
00:24:55.160But that's not the way you're going to get any change.
00:24:57.160I don't think C9 or taking down a few people, you know, to a jail cell for a swatika or for a tweet or for reciting certain verses of any religious text is going to make much of a difference,
00:25:08.960provided that it is enforced the way they were telling us it's going to be enforced.
00:25:13.520As it's written in paper, and as the C9 amendment that Bloc and Liberals have agreed on now, I actually think it's completely a Quebec-based theory of religious hatred is the source of what we're dealing with here.
00:25:27.300That is, in some case, but it's not the whole story, unfortunately.
00:25:30.300And I'm sorry to continue beating this dead horse, but this Bill C9 thing, there's often a discussion in legal circles when a bill is being proposed, is this supposed to be a shield or a sword?
00:25:42.140And in this case, it does seem like the Liberals are designing Bill C9 to be a sword rather than a shield.
00:25:49.580And a good example of that was when Mark Miller said that sections of Leviticus, which crosses across two religions, because it's in the Old Testament,
00:25:57.640he says that Leviticus is hate speech.
00:26:01.600And that there are certain sections of Leviticus, specifically that like, you know, man shall not sleep with man or whatever it happens to be in my Bible.
00:26:08.320Knowledge is not as sharp as it should be.
00:26:10.080But this is what I find just completely absurd, right?
00:26:13.600I mean, it almost seems like the government is not using this to shield people from hate speech.
00:26:18.020They're using it to attack people who espouse speech that they don't like.