Juno News - Candice Malcolm and Andrew Lawton discuss the biggest stories of the year

00:00:00.000 We'll look back at the biggest stories of 2021, both the ones that the legacy media completely

00:00:04.740 ignored and the ones that they blew way out of context and way out of proportion.

00:00:08.980 I'm Candice Malcolm and this is The Candice Malcolm Show.

00:00:16.080 Everyone, thank you so much for tuning into the program. It's great to have you here. I'm really

00:00:19.820 happy that we're able to provide content throughout the holiday, throughout Christmas. I hope everyone

00:00:24.840 had a wonderful time with their families on Christmas and that you're looking ahead to

00:00:29.040 New Year's. Now, for me, I wanted to bring in my colleague and my friend, Andrew Lawton,

00:00:33.960 to join me to sort of reflect on the year that was, look back at 2021 and talk about the biggest

00:00:39.820 stories of the year. And like I said, the ones that the media ignored, the ones that the media got

00:00:43.160 wrong. So first, Andrew, thank you for joining us. Welcome to the program. Yes, it's happy to be here.

00:00:48.380 Do we still get to say Merry Christmas? I never know when the statute of limitations on Merry

00:00:53.000 Christmases ends. I feel that way with November 11th and Remembrance Day because I love wearing

00:00:59.020 a poppy, but then I know that the like protocol is that you have to take the poppy off as soon

00:01:03.020 as you go to the Remembrance Day ceremony. But yeah, it's December. You can still say Merry

00:01:06.740 Christmas. Okay. Well, Merry Christmas to you and all those watching. Thank you. Okay. So for the

00:01:11.940 show today, I thought we'd do something a little different, a little fun. And so I asked you to come

00:01:16.420 up with your own answers to these three questions. And then I have my own. So we can sort of compare

00:01:21.340 notes here. But I asked you to bring the, what you thought was the top story of the year,

00:01:25.100 what you thought was the top story that the media just didn't cover and completely ignored.

00:01:29.320 And that what you thought was the biggest sort of media narrative lie or the story that the legacy

00:01:33.840 media just got completely wrong or blew out of proportion. So, so, Andrew, let's start with

00:01:37.960 your, your pick. What was your pick for the biggest story of the year in Canada in 2021?

00:01:43.780 So I almost did a cop out at first and just said, well, clearly the election. But to be honest,

00:01:47.900 I think the election was like the smallest story of the year because we all knew it was coming.

00:01:52.060 And the result was kind of the same as it was before the election. So I then kind of went back

00:01:57.340 and I ended up on an unconventional choice. So bear with me here. I thought that the flags being at

00:02:02.660 half mass for as long as they were, was one of the bigger stories of the year. And the two reasons I 0.99

00:02:08.140 think that are firstly, because it really informs the platitudinal way that Justin Trudeau approaches

00:02:14.620 most policy. And the other side of that was also because it involves so many different dimensions to

00:02:21.120 it. Remember there, there was no clear line on when the flags would go back up to full mass. There

00:02:26.080 was no metric and Aaron O'Toole had spoken out about it and it ended up becoming quite a significant

00:02:31.200 theme in the election and for several months after. So my pick unconventional, but the flags being at

00:02:37.200 half mass for basically five months.

00:02:39.400 Well, excellent choice. I think, I think that there's definitely a narrative around that, that, that, that, that

00:02:44.760 goes to show where we are as a country, this idea that Canada is a hateful, genocidal, um, you know, state

00:02:50.600 that's been built on, on genocide and slavery and all these things. That, that, that's sort of the, the left's

00:02:55.480 chosen narrative. I don't think very many Canadians buy into it, but there was a study and I think it said that

00:03:00.440 about half of Canadians believe that our country is systemically racist. So clearly that's something,

00:03:06.360 that something is a problem that, that so many Canadians believe that. Um, and, and, and of course

00:03:11.880 all the hectoring from the media, finding every little example of, of anything and blowing it out of

00:03:16.040 proportion as if that's the sort of defining feature of Canadian life. But also, um, Andrew, you know,

00:03:22.040 just to give you credit during the election, you were embedded in the conservative, uh, campaign.

00:03:27.160 You followed them, um, on the campaign trail for a week as a journalist. And one, one of the,

00:03:32.440 probably the, the highlight for us at True North was you asking this question to Aaron O'Toole and

00:03:38.600 him giving kind of a surprising answer because we, we know that Aaron O'Toole took a very sort of

00:03:42.840 timid approach. He, he didn't want to talk about any cultural issues. He didn't want to defend,

00:03:47.080 be seen as defending Canada. He didn't, he didn't really take very many conservative positions at all,

00:03:50.840 to be frank. This was one of the moments of the campaign where he actually did carve out a pretty

00:03:55.480 decent conservative position because you asked him this very question about, about the flags and him

00:03:59.960 saying this, you know, it's time to bring them up. So, so, so, so there's a true north element to

00:04:03.640 the story as well. Yeah. And one interesting behind the scenes aspect of that, you know,

00:04:08.680 because I got very friendly with a lot of the reporters that were on the campaign trail and

00:04:12.760 we were all sort of chatting and there was a collective frustration with how many non-answers

00:04:18.120 Aaron O'Toole was giving most days when he was asked questions. So it was sort of this,

00:04:21.880 this running joke of, oh, well, no news today because he didn't say anything. And this question,

00:04:26.680 he started out as though he was not going to give an answer because he just went through the whole,

00:04:31.480 yes, reconciliation is important. And then it was at the tail end of the answer when everyone

00:04:35.560 has sort of assumed that, okay, it's done. He's not going there. He said, but yeah,

00:04:39.080 it's time for the flags to come up. And there was just this jolt among the press there that were

00:04:44.280 saying, wow, whoa, he's, he's making news. He's going for it. So it was a bit surprising,

00:04:49.000 but it ended up becoming the story of the day. And then over the next couple of days, because then the

00:04:53.480 media tried to get Justin Trudeau's response. And eventually I think it got back where most

00:04:58.200 people, even a lot of people on the left were saying to Trudeau, like, what's the end game here?

00:05:02.760 Right. Like what, what is the point other than just doing what Justin Trudeau does best,

00:05:06.200 which is sending empty virtue signals that don't really mean anything that don't really do anything,

00:05:10.760 but can make him and his liberal followers feel good about something. I don't know. And, and

00:05:15.640 meanwhile, you know, make, make conservatives angry and just say enough is enough. Let's celebrate

00:05:20.120 our country with all its faults. It's not like we're blind to those. We are aware that we're not

00:05:24.520 perfect. All right. Well, for my, for my biggest story of the year, I mean, this is sort of two

00:05:28.920 years in a row where COVID is, is, is everything. COVID is everywhere we look, everything we talk

00:05:34.520 about. There's an, an element of that. So for me, the biggest story of the year, Andrew, is the

00:05:39.160 enduring presence of COVID in our lives. And not just that, the, the moving goalposts when it comes to

00:05:44.600 compliance and how we're dealing with it, the sort of, especially in Canada,

00:05:47.960 the media uniformity in the way that these issues are discussed, there's no dissenting

00:05:52.600 opinion allowed whatsoever. And even, even if you, um, raise some questions, what I found with True

00:05:58.760 North is that the other legacy media journalists sort of turn on you and try to bully you and try

00:06:02.840 to discredit you on social media. We've seen that so much. And interestingly, uh, Andrew,

00:06:08.120 one of the things that COVID has done is it's made conspiracy theorists, uh, made their points

00:06:12.920 validated. We've seen this so many times. Like I was looking at an old Justin Ling tweet,

00:06:17.320 right? This is from August, 2020. And you know, he hates us. He hates True North, whatever.

00:06:22.120 And so he did this particular piece. He is furious at, um, the Toronto Sun column by our colleague,

00:06:28.600 Anthony Fury. And the issue that he's angry about is that he thinks that Andrew, or sorry,

00:06:34.120 he thinks that Anthony is spreading a dangerous conspiracy theory, hinting at the idea that we're

00:06:38.680 going to have a vaccine mandate. Um, and, and, and this is my favorite, uh, uh, quote here.

00:06:43.320 It says Anthony Fury, the Toronto Sun and True North crew are actively pushing really,

00:06:47.560 really dangerous misinformation about the pandemic and they don't really seem to care. So,

00:06:51.880 so Ling was calling us conspiracy theorists because we were hinting that there might be vaccine

00:06:55.960 passports and vaccine mandates. Of course that's become true. Um, that, that's not a conspiracy.

00:07:00.280 That was just us sort of reading the writing on the wall, but you know, if, if someone were to stop

00:07:03.800 you, Andrew, in, in April of 2020, when this thing was first started, when we first started doing our

00:07:08.520 daily shows, a true north update to give updates, if someone would have described what life is like

00:07:13.800 in December of 2021, you wouldn't believe them. You would say, no, that's, that's conspiratorial.

00:07:18.440 They're not going to, uh, you know, have these huge campaigns to force, um, mandate vaccines,

00:07:24.040 fire people who refuse. Um, and, um, you know, then turn around and say, oh, well, these, these,

00:07:29.080 these vaccines aren't really working the way that we want them to. So now you're going to have to

00:07:31.960 continue with a booster. Like all of this stuff has happened over the last year. It's, it's,

00:07:36.120 it's really just been dystopian to watch. So I, and now of course we're seeing vaccines

00:07:41.560 rolled out for kids. Um, we're seeing the, the idea of a forced booster, the, the, uh,

00:07:47.080 revolving door, uh, goalposts, moving goalposts, uh, with regards to what it means to be fully

00:07:51.640 vaccinated. So the fact that COVID is still such a big deal in our lives, Andrew, to me,

00:07:55.720 is the top news story of the year. Yeah. And it's not just the presence of COVID,

00:08:00.440 but as you indicated there, the president's presence of all these government responses to COVID,

00:08:05.080 which oftentimes are worse than the COVID itself in, in the sense of, of what they achieve and

00:08:10.280 what they seek to do. And I think that's, that's very poignant. And I wish we could say that we were

00:08:14.280 going to leave this behind us in 2021, but with all the discourse around Omicron and, you know,

00:08:19.240 whatever the next six or seven variants, uh, that are being cooked up in Wuhan now are like,

00:08:23.240 it's going to get worse in 2022, I fear. And I do think that's why it's been so important to have

00:08:29.080 independent media actually talking about some of these stories. And like, I remember at the very

00:08:32.920 beginning when you and I were talking again, this is 2020 now, but we were talking almost

00:08:37.720 in a, it's like a novelty when you get these stories about, oh, you know, someone ticketed for

00:08:42.600 playing in a public park and they were wrong. But I mean, that was just so small potatoes compared to

00:08:47.560 some of the bigger battles we've seen in 2021 with churches being shut down, pastors being arrested. So

00:08:53.320 no, I would definitely agree. That still is the preeminent story of our time.

00:08:56.760 Yeah. So, so I was talking to, I was talking to a scientist friend of mine about COVID the other

00:09:03.160 day, and he said that the trajectory of COVID is exactly what you would want, that every variant

00:09:07.880 spreads more quickly, that it reaches more people, but that it is less impactful. So it's having less

00:09:12.600 of a deadly effect each time. It seems like that's what Omicron is looking like. So instead of saying,

00:09:17.400 okay, this thing is probably run its course. We don't need all of these over heavy handed,

00:09:22.360 overreaching regulations. We can start to just, you know, live with COVID. It seems like our

00:09:28.360 government officials and this sort of expert classes evolved from this whole pandemic. It's

00:09:33.400 like, they're, they're just clenching onto control. They don't want to let go of that glory of that

00:09:37.320 power. And it's like, you know, there's no such thing as a temporary government program, right? Now,

00:09:41.320 now that we've lived with this kind of overreaching government presence in our lives,

00:09:44.840 it's going to be a fight. It's going to be a fight to, to win back our freedoms and to go back to

00:09:50.920 the way that things should be in a free and liberal society, Andrew. So again,

00:09:54.520 just more reasons why this is the biggest story of the year. Okay, let's move on and talk about

00:09:59.560 the biggest stories that the media did not cover. So I'll, I'll let you go first with this one,

00:10:04.760 Andrew. What was it? What was your biggest story that the media did not cover?

00:10:08.040 For me, and this is a huge one, Bill C-36. And if that number doesn't ring a bell to you,

00:10:13.320 that's because the media was not giving it much attention. This is the bill that the liberals put

00:10:17.880 forward just before, like literally the day before parliament rose for the summer with the liberals

00:10:23.560 knowing parliament wouldn't go back because they were going to call an election. It's the bill that

00:10:28.440 would put a hate speech in the criminal code, or sorry, put hate speech in the Canadian Human Rights

00:10:34.280 Act, and also amend the criminal code to genuinely allow for the prosecution of thought crimes. So this

00:10:40.680 was restoring a formerly repealed section of the Canadian Human Rights Act and actually doing more with

00:10:46.440 it. And this is again, a tremendously dangerous bill, significant implications against free speech

00:10:53.160 on face value, it's in the text of the bill, and the media coverage on it was virtually non-existent.

00:10:59.080 And part of that was because the political opposition was virtually non-existent. Darren O'Toole

00:11:04.040 did not utter a word about this when it was released. He did in the campaign come out in the platform

00:11:09.880 and say that he would oppose such measures, but did not utter a word at all. There was talk about Bill C-10,

00:11:15.480 sure, but Bill C-36, which was much worse, was ignored by the conservative establishment

00:11:21.000 and completely ignored by the legacy media as well. Which is pretty wild because, you know,

00:11:27.240 you'd think that the purpose of a free press is to defend sort of the basic freedoms associated with

00:11:32.440 freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and yet they didn't want anything to do with it. I think

00:11:35.960 there's been this weird narrative built up, Andrew, that somehow there's these dangerous right-wing

00:11:40.760 forces that exist online that somehow pose a threat to society, or that it could lead to

00:11:46.040 political violence, or something like that, even though there's not really any evidence,

00:11:49.800 any evidence that I can see, that these shadow groups really exist in the way that the media and

00:11:55.080 the liberal government describe them. What do you think is behind this? Why is Justin Trudeau doing

00:12:00.440 this? He's a liberal. He's supposed to care about the charter. The very first thing listed in the

00:12:04.280 charter is freedom of speech and freedom of press. So why is he doing this, do you think?

00:12:12.280 Well, I think there are two things there. Number one, the government knows that when it uses words

00:12:18.680 like hate speech, they're kind of like assault rifle, which is that people hear them and they

00:12:23.000 conjure an image of what they are that isn't inherently accurate. And most people would say,

00:12:27.320 well, yeah, of course I'm against hate speech. Okay. Ergo, if you're going after hate speech, that's fine.

00:12:31.880 But the reality is those terms lack meaning and they're very political because the government can

00:12:37.160 use them to apply them to whatever they want. So I'm all, I'm against hate speech as well. I think

00:12:41.960 hate speech is deplorable, but you and I may have different definitions of what hate speech is.

00:12:46.840 Certainly Justin Trudeau and I are going to have different definitions of what hate speech is.

00:12:51.000 And I would take the view that even if speech is hateful and deplorable,

00:12:54.280 that doesn't mean it is not protected by free speech. So I think that one of the big explanations

00:13:00.280 to address your question there of the why is because they can.

00:13:05.480 It's wild. It's almost like everything the liberals do. I just cynically think the purpose

00:13:09.800 is to try to trap the conservatives. So they presume that a principled conservative opposition

00:13:14.440 will say, no, no, no, we believe in free speech. We believe in these principles and sort of make the

00:13:19.720 case as to why you don't really want to just outright ban this stuff. Because if you take an idea,

00:13:25.480 you ban it, it's just going to push it underground. It's going to make it seem more appealing.

00:13:28.680 And that idea will spread that the best way to combat real hate speech is through daylight,

00:13:33.720 right? The daylight is the best disinfectant, they say. And so a principled opposition would

00:13:38.200 make this case, whereas we don't have that in this country. We don't have that with Aaron O'Toole.

00:13:43.240 And so instead, Aaron O'Toole says, okay, whatever you want. And we've seen that with multiple bills.

00:13:48.680 And we saw that earlier in December with the quote unquote, so-called conversion therapy bill,

00:13:55.880 which really just banned conversations that people might have with, even with a registered

00:14:01.160 therapist. If they're confused about their gender or their sexual orientation, that's now illegal.

00:14:05.560 And all the conservatives were jumping up and down for joy that this bill got unanimous consent. So

00:14:09.800 the problem is that we don't have a real opposition in this country because the conservatives are so

00:14:15.000 desperate to be loved by the media and sort of fancy people like the liberals, that they're not

00:14:20.920 doing the job they're supposed to be doing, which is opposing the government.

00:14:25.320 Yeah. And I think you're right to point out the conservative default position of being timid. I think

00:14:30.520 that's so huge. And also I think related to that is that in order to take a principled stand for free

00:14:36.040 speech, you need to defend some very unpopular and unpalatable things. Now, I have no issue doing

00:14:41.240 that, not because I defend the merit of the comments, but because I defend the right for people

00:14:46.040 to say unpalatable things. That's the whole point of free speech. But there are a lot of people certainly

00:14:51.000 in the political class that are not comfortable standing up for things that on their surface are

00:14:55.560 bad because they don't want to have to own that. And I think it's actually more important to then

00:15:00.280 return to the principled stand, because if you're consistent in supporting free speech as a general

00:15:06.040 concept, as a general ethos, then you don't need to get into the details of, oh, what about this comment

00:15:11.080 and what I have said that you don't need to because you're consistent. So I don't even engage

00:15:15.160 on the specific merit. Same as when we were talking about individuals that have been de-platformed and

00:15:20.120 someone would say, well, do you agree with them saying X? And they say, I don't care. I don't

00:15:24.200 care what they say. It could be, you know, Mahatma Gandhi speaking. It could be Mother Teresa.

00:15:29.080 It could be Milo Yiannopoulos. There's a trio that is one for the ages. It doesn't matter if you're

00:15:34.040 consistent about it and you focus on the importance of freedom. You don't need to get dragged into that.

00:15:38.680 But the conservatives have never quite been on sure enough footing to do that.

00:15:43.560 Well, these conservatives know, but I think the broader issue, of course, is the media narrative

00:15:48.120 that they don't want. They know that the media will frame it exactly how the Liberals have asked,

00:15:52.520 exactly what the Liberals say. And so exactly to your point, rather than, you know, the headline

00:15:57.400 being Aaron O'Toole defends free speech, it will be Aaron O'Toole defends this horrible, horrible Nazi

00:16:03.080 who said this deplorable thing, which, you know, Aaron O'Toole might not be sophisticated enough to fight

00:16:08.040 back against that. He wants to avoid any mention of that. But in the process, he is completely

00:16:13.000 selling out conservative principles and putting us in a dangerous position as a country where we don't

00:16:17.560 have anyone to fight back against these horrific assaults on our freedom, Andrew. So good choice.

00:16:23.640 I tend to agree. My biggest story of the year, to me, has to be the assault on Christians in this 1.00

00:16:29.080 country. And we've alluded to it a little bit. This is pretty wild, Andrew, because it's particularly

00:16:33.560 happening in Western Canada. You would think that Western Canada, the whole country, would be the

00:16:38.040 sort of least likely place where we would see these sort of sustained attacks on Christians.

00:16:42.360 But I'm talking about two stories in particular. The first is the arrest and prosecution of a handful

00:16:47.800 of pastors, mostly in Alberta. We had Artur Poloski, we had Tim Stevens, and then another fellow pastor

00:16:54.520 in Manitoba named Tobias Thyssen, who was arrested. All of whom, there were probably others as well. I

00:17:00.280 don't know if you can think of any others, Andrew, but there were so many that were arrested for the

00:17:04.040 crime of holding church services. And a lot of times, this was at the same point where something

00:17:09.640 else was open. You could go to a restaurant, you could go to a sports arena, you could do all kinds

00:17:13.640 of things. We're starting to open up again. And yet, for some reason, we are still going after a

00:17:18.920 religious sacred ceremony for people in a time where we need hope, where we need community. And the fact

00:17:26.520 that they were arresting and making examples out of these pastors was despicable. Andrew,

00:17:30.200 in fact, if this was happening in another country, you would see conservative leaders,

00:17:34.840 people like Jason Kenney, I hope people like Aaron O'Toole speaking out against it,

00:17:38.200 if we're seeing this happen in China or somewhere in the Middle East. Yeah, it's happening in Canada,

00:17:43.240 and no one bats an eye at it. And of course, the media doesn't cover it. And then the sort of

00:17:49.320 other story that had to do with Christians was the burning and desecration of dozens and dozens of

00:17:56.280 churches across Canada in the summer. And, you know, sometimes it was barely reported. It was

00:18:01.080 reported as a local story. And none of it was ever tied together. We at True North, of course,

00:18:05.960 took the opposite approach. We had a story called a map of the churches that had been vandalized or

00:18:11.640 burned since residential school story announcement. We kept updating this piece as it came. At this point,

00:18:18.120 there were 68 churches across the country that were either burnt to the ground or desecrated. And again,

00:18:24.920 this was one of our biggest news stories on our website this year because no one else was doing

00:18:28.920 this. No other media outlet was keeping track of them or giving you a tally or giving you maps and

00:18:33.720 filling Canadians in in the way that they clearly wanted because this was such a big story for us.

00:18:38.680 Andrew, but again, this sustained assault on Christianity and its institutions and its house of 0.55

00:18:43.960 worship and the fact that the media was just nowhere to be found. Yeah, it's the last acceptable prejudice.

00:18:49.800 I mean, there have been stories in the last few years when someone has vandalized a mosque or a

00:18:55.160 synagogue, which is also deplorable. And Justin Trudeau will put out a statement, he'll condemn it,

00:19:00.840 he'll call an address, he might even go and visit the site of it and have a meeting and talk about the

00:19:05.720 importance of fighting against Islamophobia, and in some cases, anti-Semitism. But when dozens of

00:19:10.920 churches had been burned, had been vandalized, had been threatened, he was literally completely silent.

00:19:17.160 I don't just mean he didn't say a lot. I mean, for the longest time, for weeks, he was completely and

00:19:22.200 utterly silent, had no condemnation, finally gave a half-hearted one when it became such a bigger

00:19:28.360 story. I think thanks in large part to the reporting of True North and other independent

00:19:33.240 media outlets. And then as well, you had that lawyer or the head of the BC Civil Liberties Union saying

00:19:40.360 that, you know, we should burn it all down. And that was something that, again, was met with a lot of

00:19:44.920 defense and support from several of the elites in the civil liberties world, or so-called civil

00:19:50.840 liberties world and government. So this is a very real problem. And, you know, in Ontario, we had

00:19:57.080 two churches notably, actually three, there was Harvest in Windsor, there was Trinity Bible Chapel

00:20:02.600 in the Kitchener-Waterloo area, Church of God in Elmer down in Elgin County, churches that had their doors

00:20:08.760 walked on them, because they were refusing to comply with measures that were restricting them,

00:20:14.680 but not restricting the grocery store and the liquor store.

00:20:18.200 It's so wild. Such a double standard, Andrew. And you say it's the last acceptable prejudice. I agree,

00:20:25.240 except for now there's an even newer and more acceptable prejudice, and that is against

00:20:29.480 unvaccinated people. That's like the only group that we're allowed to, yeah, that puts you at the very,

00:20:34.840 very bottom of the totem pole. Okay, let's move on to the last question I had for you, Andrew,

00:20:41.320 which is, so we talked about the stories that the media did not cover, but we know that the media

00:20:45.880 is mostly just guilty of creating these total fake narratives that just have no connection to real

00:20:52.600 life. And they're so easy to pick apart that it's sort of self-explanatory. But I wanted you to pick out

00:20:58.360 what you thought was the biggest story of the year that the media either got completely wrong,

00:21:02.200 or they completely blew out of proportion. I think the, for me, this was a slam dunk,

00:21:07.000 the People's Party of Canada. Now, at first, this was one that the media didn't cover. When Maxi

00:21:12.120 Bernier launched his campaign, I was at the press conference he did in Ottawa, and there were a bunch

00:21:17.000 of reporters there. He took like 40 minutes of questions. And then at the end of it, no one really

00:21:22.520 ran any stories. No one actually ran any of the coverage. And for the longest time, we were seeing

00:21:28.360 polls that had Bernier up at 9%, 10%, 12%. In Alberta and parts of Ontario, it was up even higher

00:21:35.320 than that. And the media was just completely doing a blackout. We know he wasn't in the debate. And it

00:21:41.800 was only near the end of the campaign when people realized this wasn't a blip, that the media started

00:21:46.520 to pay attention, but even then didn't really understand or seek to understand where it was

00:21:51.320 coming from. They didn't understand that a big part of the PPC support was not coming from

00:21:55.960 disgruntled conservatives, but was coming from people that had been traditional non-voters,

00:22:00.680 people that had voted green or NDP in past elections, a lot of natural living types that

00:22:07.080 were against vaccine mandates because of their own personal ethos that are not politically

00:22:11.880 conservative. So there was a very diverse support base there. And we covered not just the conservative

00:22:18.520 campaign, but also the PPC campaign. I was on the road with Maxine Bernier for a few days in Alberta

00:22:24.200 and saw this coalition that the media just simply wasn't covering.

00:22:29.320 Well, no, it's so true. And then even to add another element onto that,

00:22:34.040 when the media finally did start covering Bernier and the PPC, they did it in such a condescending,

00:22:40.040 mean-spirited, disauthentic, unauthentic way, because they painted these people as if they were

00:22:47.640 anti-vaxxers or anti-science or quacks, like fringe far right. We saw a lot of stories that had that

00:22:55.320 undertone that really, instead of trying to understand and respect Canadian voters who are

00:23:00.840 part of a political trend, even if it's a political trend that you don't have respect for, instead of

00:23:05.800 doing that, the media just completely took the worst of the worst and held that up as an example of who

00:23:12.200 these voters were. I can't imagine them treating Green Party voters or NDP parties with party voters

00:23:18.680 with such disdain the way that they showed towards the PPC.

00:23:22.280 No, not at all. And I mean, just the imbalance there of the Greens versus the PPC, I think is

00:23:27.800 interesting because the Green Party was just in a perpetual state of turmoil that involved the

00:23:33.160 resignation and, well, it was going to be an expulsion, but I think she resigned before they got

00:23:37.400 to her of Anna Maeve Paul. But the Green Party was still being treated as though it was just this

00:23:42.200 entirely normal, happy, peaceable alternative to the mainstream parties when the Green Party paled

00:23:48.680 in comparison to the PPC. And again, this is not an endorsement of PPC. I don't have a stand,

00:23:54.440 I don't endorse any party, but I'm all about endorsing the idea of covering the PPC and covering

00:24:01.320 the narratives. And the mainstream media certainly was ignoring what was happening there, which we know

00:24:05.720 from the numbers was not as significant as those, you know, 12%, 13%, 14% polls were suggesting,

00:24:11.400 but was still a pretty significant trend in the election.

00:24:14.040 Absolutely. And the fact that Bernier wasn't allowed into the debate. So you had this ridiculous

00:24:19.320 spectacle where you had Anna Maeve Paul, who doesn't really have any political background. You could tell 0.99

00:24:23.960 that she was really out of her depth when asked about any issue that wasn't related to the environment.

00:24:29.000 And then they wouldn't let Maxine Bernier, who's a former cabinet minister, almost the leader of the

00:24:32.920 Conservative Party. He lost by a hair. Could you imagine, Andrew, if someone came that close to

00:24:38.040 winning the Liberal leadership and then ended up splitting off and forming their own sort of Liberal

00:24:42.280 adjacent party? The media would be all over it. That person would be a star. But of course,

00:24:46.360 because it's a Conservative on the right, they had to come up with the worst accusations and really,

00:24:52.360 really just malign him with character assassinations that didn't suit, didn't actually have any living

00:24:59.160 connection to Bernier and what he actually was about and what he actually stood for. So I tend to

00:25:05.720 agree with your choice. Well, for my choice, Andrew, I'm sort of going to bring this whole episode full

00:25:09.880 circle because I think that the biggest story that the media got wrong and blew out of proportion was

00:25:14.440 the story of the mass graves at residential schools. And I say that tongue in cheek because there were,

00:25:19.160 of course, no mass graves found at residential schools. The story, when it first came out,

00:25:24.680 it was really vague and unclear. And I think that the way that the uncertainty sort of compounded with

00:25:31.960 reporters filling in their own words. So, you know, the original news release from the T'Kemloops

00:25:37.160 Band was, we have discovered graves at our school, basically, at this former site of the residential

00:25:44.600 school. We use ground penetrating radar. Nobody really knew what that meant. So the headlines were

00:25:49.480 saying bodies were discovered, graves were dug up, you know, children's remains were found.

00:25:55.080 They were found in mass graves. There was just a huge disconnect from the, what the media was

00:25:59.880 writing. Well, it wasn't just Canadian media. It was a global media. It was BBC, New York Times,

00:26:04.920 Washington Post, all of these big outfits, as well as the CBC and Globe and Mail and Post Media and Canada

00:26:11.320 completely botching the story. And then it kind of took on a life of its own where, you know,

00:26:17.160 everyone had to agree that Canada had committed genocide. Everyone had to agree that this was a 0.71

00:26:21.960 crime against humanity. And everyone had to agree that Canada was awful. We're going to cancel Canada 0.98

00:26:26.120 today. And to bring it back to the first story we talked about, that we were going to lower that flag

00:26:31.160 and basically just hang our heads and shave. Of course, none of that was wrong. When they finally

00:26:34.920 got around to the presentation by the scientists about the ground penetrating radar, we learned that

00:26:41.800 the science is really unclear, that the researchers themselves said that there was no way to know how many

00:26:46.040 people were buried, whether they were children or adults, whether they had anything to do with

00:26:49.640 the residential school. Their estimate wasn't 215, as every media outlet had reported. It was

00:26:55.640 probably more like 200. And then, you know, all of the other stories that came out of it,

00:27:00.760 other reserves making similar accusations, you know, we heard from people in their community saying,

00:27:07.240 well, you know, these graves were found in a graveyard. They used to be marked, but the

00:27:12.040 gravestones eroded over time, and we don't know whose graves these belonged to. This was also a

00:27:17.720 community cemetery. In one of the cases in Lower Kootenay, the cemetery predated the residential

00:27:23.720 school by about 30 years, and it was actually associated with a hospital and not with a residential

00:27:27.720 school. So there's just so many holes in the story, Andrew, that the narrative just bared no

00:27:33.640 similarity whatsoever to the facts on the ground. At times, I felt like I was one of the only

00:27:37.480 reporters in the entire country that was even bothering to look into this stuff. And again,

00:27:41.480 because of that, this was a huge story for us at True North. My report, Six Things of Legacy

00:27:47.160 Media Got Wrong, also became one of the biggest sites in the history of our website. So I think

00:27:51.720 that Canadians started to sort of see through the myth and realize that there's more to the story

00:27:57.160 than the ridiculous narrative headlines that were being pushed by legacy media.

00:28:01.080 Yeah, and I think, I mean, you did absolutely tremendous work on that, and I'm still very proud to have

00:28:06.440 been, not on those projects, because you were taking the lead on it, but to have been working

00:28:10.120 with you in general, as you worked on this, because one of the big challenges, and you mentioned

00:28:14.200 the word narrative there is important, is that you can't let facts get in the way of a narrative

00:28:19.240 to a lot of the people that are pushing narratives. That's the attitude they take. And

00:28:22.840 I would say it's entirely possible to deplore residential schools and Canada's past treatment 0.82

00:28:27.880 of Indigenous people, while also raising questions in a journalistic fashion about any

00:28:32.520 allegation that's made about anything. And I do think that the deference that we are expected to

00:28:38.760 take on the Indigenous file is something that very much clouded the mainstream media's willingness

00:28:45.000 to ask questions that would be asked about any other group making a claim. If you say, you know,

00:28:50.040 so-and-so murdered my daughter, asking for details about that has nothing to do with not believing or

00:28:55.720 challenging. It's doing your job. It's doing your due diligence. And there was, I think, a lot of fear,

00:29:01.400 a lot of fear that anything you do to poke around and ask questions and try to demand proof

00:29:07.800 was going to be stepping on the toes of the Indigenous communities, which media did not want to do.

00:29:14.120 And it's sort of a sad state where we would rather just take these terrible accusations against

00:29:19.000 our country at face value than bother doing a little bit of journalism. Because, of course,

00:29:23.160 I agree, like, I'm the last person to defend a residential school program. It was a big government

00:29:27.720 centralized program that sought to break up families. That's complete opposite of what 0.55

00:29:34.040 conservatives believe in and want. But at the same time, it's like, I care about the truth,

00:29:38.760 and I care about facts. And I think that that is sort of what led, you're right, that's what should

00:29:42.920 lead all journalists. And the fact that it was just True North, maybe a few other outlets, but hardly,

00:29:48.200 not even. I didn't even really see Post Media pick up this issue other than my own reports in Post Media.

00:29:53.240 So really, a chill over the legacy media out there, because no one really wanted to be seen

00:30:00.600 poking around on this issue and raising questions. Well, again, Andrew, I think that all of these

00:30:05.880 stories we talked about just confirmed the reason why True North exists, the reason why True North is

00:30:10.360 doing so well, the reason why True North is growing, and we have a bigger audience than ever. And, you know,

00:30:14.840 you've been with us pretty much since the very beginning. And it's so great to watch our team expand

00:30:19.560 and continue to grow. And, you know, the reports that you and I do continue to have to reach. So

00:30:25.400 I just want to say, yeah, it's great to have you on the team. It's great to have you

00:30:28.680 part of True North, a leading force here. And thank you so much for joining the show today.

00:30:33.320 Hey, it's my pleasure. Thanks for all your work.

00:30:36.440 All right. Thank you so much for watching. I'm Candace Belcom, and this is The Candace Belcom Show.

Juno News - December 29, 2021

Candice Malcolm and Andrew Lawton discuss the biggest stories of the year

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