00:02:08.400Well, you know, Isaac, at least, you know, you look like you should have the hard hat on.
00:02:12.780Carney looks like, you know, he's never been within 10 feet of a hard hat in his life.
00:02:17.280But in any event, I think that if you are the president of the United States and, you know, you're trying to impose tariffs on Canada or at least strike a bargain or strike a hard bargain with Canada.
00:02:28.060And you see, you know, Canada has a new prime minister.
00:02:30.440You look across the pond, he's looking like a goof on like the first week.
00:02:33.820You know, what signal does that really send?
00:02:37.800But it also shows that Mark Carney is willing to just, you know, evolve and adapt, transform into whatever he feels like he needs to become in order to be successful politically.
00:02:48.800I mean, he wrote a whole book called Values talking about the virtues of carbon taxes.
00:02:54.720And then, you know, one of his first campaign announcements is that he's going to drop the consumer carbon tax.
00:02:59.920You know, he's looking to keep the industrial carbon tax, which is really what drives up the prices on, you know, food and, you know, pretty much everything in the economy.
00:03:07.220But, you know, he is going to abandon one of his core values for political gain.
00:03:13.460He's going to, you know, let the world burn, you know, if this were 2020 Carney talking to 2025 Carney.
00:03:21.220But, you know, it is really interesting to see that Carney is going to try and, you know, engage in the same political gimmicks that Justin Trudeau engaged in in his nine and a half years.
00:03:33.180And what led him to becoming unpopular, you know, which is, you know, dressing up in all these costumes or whatever.
00:03:38.040And, you know, instead of just embracing the fact that he's a banker and he's an aristocrat and just, you know, wearing a suit to the event and saying, hey, you know, it wouldn't be incumbents on me to wear that, you know, just he's going to play dress up.
00:03:51.260Yeah, the word that stood out for me there, Cosmin, that you used was costume as well.
00:03:57.840Really, they are playing dress up because Carney is only pretending to even care about the working class.
00:04:04.320As we saw in those pictures on X, he was at the steel plant, not a single worker was there.
00:04:12.180But then we saw the contrast, the complete contrast with Conservative leader, Pierre Polyèvre, when he took pictures at a steel plant among 30, 40 workers standing alongside him because they agree with his policies, they agree with his future for Canada.
00:04:26.340And, you know, that's really what it comes down to here, I think, that Polyèvre really wants to present himself as a supporter of the working class, whereas I think Carney's just playing make-believe here.
00:04:41.920Well, it brings up an interesting dynamic that we're seeing at play heading into the next election, and we've seen in past endorsements that somehow the Conservative candidate, Pierre Polyèvre, suddenly is getting endorsements from unions, whereas that used to be the traditional territory of the NDP, of the Liberals.
00:05:02.280I think it has scared the NDP, I think Jagmeet Singh has totally dropped the ball, despite his repeated claims to represent workers, blue-collar Canadians, the working class.
00:05:13.980He has distanced himself not only by his support of the Liberals, who are essentially to blame for the current economic woes, the stagnation of wages, but also the inflation which impacts all of our wallets at the end of the day.
00:05:32.280But also his own personal choices. Jagmeet Singh has made quite a few personal choices, where he's shown himself to be this champagne socialist, you know, getting into Maseratis, wearing expensive watches and suits, and presenting himself in this way.
00:05:48.040And Conservative leader Pierre Polyèvre is benefiting off of it.
00:05:51.760And here we see an attempt with Carney trying to paint himself as this figure, as this friend, so to speak.
00:06:01.020And Noah, you bring up an interesting point, because you talked about the carbon tax.
00:06:05.560Now the Liberals want that problem to go away.
00:06:09.280They hope that Carney's solution, this idea of an industrial carbon tax, settles the matter.
00:06:15.940But I don't think it does, and we've spoken about this in the show quite a few times since Mark Carney was first floated as the Liberal leader, and now Prime Minister, that he hasn't actually addressed the main issue here.
00:06:32.180If you impose an industrial carbon tax, that is going to get passed down to consumers one way or another.
00:06:39.800The industry giants, the industry businesses, are not just going to shoulder that cost themselves.
00:06:47.380They will find a way to pass on that cost into their products and eventually into the products that consumers buy.
00:06:55.980So it's funny, because in one hand, he's talking about taxing industry, introducing an industrial carbon tax.
00:07:06.240And here he is, appearing at some industrial site as a friend of the industry.
00:07:27.200Is there a consistent message coming here from the Liberals in their introduction of Mark Carney, who is the Prime Minister of Canada?
00:07:38.060Has he presented himself in a way that actually makes sense and is coherent to the voter?
00:07:43.760Because coherence really is what matters, having a coherent message when you go to the ballot, which we're expecting to do in about a month's time or so.
00:07:52.820Well, Carney didn't need to present a coherent message in the Liberal leadership race because of who he was going up against.
00:08:02.060The Liberal Party executive, the committee running the election, they wanted Mark Carney to win.
00:08:08.320Mark Carney was the establishment candidate.
00:08:10.600He who is he's the person that Justin Trudeau wanted to win.
00:08:14.440He's the person who the majority of Justin Trudeau's cabinet backed to win in this race.
00:08:19.280And, you know, surprise, surprise, Mark Carney won.
00:08:22.340And, you know, it wasn't like his competition was great either.
00:08:25.100Karina Gould was, you know, just presented herself like a bit of a far left lunatic.
00:08:29.760And she wasn't exactly the most popular cabinet minister in the Trudeau government, besides what some online liberals might have you believe.
00:08:38.800Krista Freeland was the most popular, but she didn't really endear to anybody because she ran just a terrible campaign with a weird message.
00:08:47.560And ultimately didn't, you know, show herself to be competent in her time in government.
00:08:53.680So Mark Carney was basically coronated.
00:08:55.740So he didn't have to provide that coherent message.
00:08:57.600But now once he's going to be tested by Jamie Singh and Pierre Poliev and use Francois Blanchet and by the Canadian media as the prime minister and not just a potential prime minister, he is going to have to, you know, make his message more coherent.
00:09:30.880He said that the industrial carbon tax actually helps industry to remain competitive.
00:09:35.140But I don't see how that's helping industry remain competitive when it's just going to increase the price of their product and make their product less competitive compared to, say, American steel or Chinese or other steel from other countries.
00:09:48.320So he's going to have to sell some of his items that are not going to be popular with liberals because that is the message that they've been pushing for the past nine and a half years while also trying to be a sort of change candidate.
00:10:02.800And there are going to be some conflicts in trying to portray himself as a continuity liberal and also the change candidate.
00:10:11.440And, you know, I'm pretty sure that Pierre Poliev's team is waiting for Carney to make some of those contradictions so that he can point them out to the Canadian people and put them out in campaign ads.
00:10:22.860Just one thing I wanted to add before we potentially move on, because I'd forgotten to mention it when I last spoke.
00:10:29.220This was in regard to Carney having no workers at this announcement.
00:10:34.060It just reminded me of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during the end of his tenure and the press conferences similarly that he would hold regarding anything to do with the trades would have to essentially be done in complete and utter secrecy because otherwise these workers would just berate him.
00:10:52.040We saw him getting questioned, things he couldn't answer, and people were like, how are you going to help me?
00:11:18.120I think the one aura that he gives off and that voters are picking up on is inauthenticity and almost a smugness and assuredness that he's going to become Prime Minister for a while and that he's got this in the bag.
00:11:34.740And he has reasons to, if you look at some of the recent polls, more reputable ones, Leger showing a boost in his popularity, you know, some even showing neck and neck tie with the Conservatives.
00:11:48.220But maintaining that attitude while Canadians are watching closely, being super attentive, I would think that, you know, we had this leadership race.
00:12:01.560Canadians probably heard about it, probably saw it on the news, listened to some discussions, maybe mentioned it once or twice in their family.
00:12:10.020But when we're talking about an election, a general election, at a time when we are facing an existential threat to our economy, potentially our own sovereignty, we have nine years of disastrous policies.
00:12:29.200Canadians are going to be paying a lot of attention to this election that's coming up.
00:12:35.360And they're going to look at every single thing that Mark Carney says, as well as Polyev and the other candidates.
00:12:44.160But they're going to make sure to evaluate that and bring that with them when they go to the ballot box.
00:12:53.420So in short, what I'm saying is that is Carney really up to the task?
00:12:59.360Because one of the things he's presented himself as is this outsider.
00:13:04.060And most of us don't believe that he's not an outsider.
00:13:06.900He's about as establishment as you can get.
00:13:09.960But one thing he doesn't have is that experience of having the public eye, the constant scrutiny of every single word you say, every claim you make being fact checked.
00:13:22.160And Carney has proven himself to be quite poor at that.
00:13:25.420From what we've seen, he's made so many statements that don't line up with reality, he's embellished his own record, he's taken credit for other people's work, and he's exaggerated what he's actually achieved.
00:13:37.960So to carry on with that, there's a clip from this, from this event, he held this announcement at this plant.
00:13:46.160And it just goes to show, Noah, you've had experience with this being, you know, showing up to Carney's events.
00:14:24.160The first time I went to a Mark Carney event, I was able to kind of slip into the crowd and they didn't really notice me, even though I had my phone on a tripod and I was recording his entire speech.
00:14:35.100And then I sort of approached him, you know, as if I was one of the Carney fans in the crowd.
00:14:41.480But then, yeah, I asked him a serious question.
00:14:43.360I asked him a question about the carbon tax.
00:14:46.020I don't think he recognized that I was a journalist at that point.
00:14:49.840And he, you know, gave a pretty candid answer to basically saying, oh, you know, I didn't talk about that in my speech.
00:14:57.640But, you know, I'm going to, you know, throw some bones for you guys later.
00:15:01.440But the other times I went to Carney events, I was, you know, barred at the door in an Oakville event I went to at the boating club in the local boating club in Oakville.
00:15:59.880Try to avoid Canadian media as much as possible, especially if they're independent media, especially if they, you know, don't mind reporting on the negative facts.
00:16:09.420You know, Carney and his team probably sees the stuff that goes up on the Juno News website and says, wow, now they're actually reporting on the stuff that Mark Carney has said in the past.
00:16:19.060In his books, at his World Economic Forum speeches, you know, this is an outlet that we don't want at our events.
00:16:28.060You know, what if they report on something that he says, you know, and this is not the attitude that our prime minister should be having.
00:16:34.100Even though he was just appointed as prime minister at the governor general's mansion a few hours ago, it is clear that, you know, we or it is unclear what he stands for.
00:16:47.060And that is largely because media outlets have not been able to question him on the issues that matters to Canadians.
00:16:52.480Let's not forget, Noah, there's nothing new under the sun.
00:16:56.560I, of course, went to Carney's campaign launch in Edmonton and was banned from entering the building along with all other independent media.
00:17:03.300We weren't even allowed in the building.
00:17:05.760Other media were even trespassed off the property just for showing up.
00:17:09.800Only the legacy media that the liberals fund were allowed at Carney's campaign launch.
00:17:14.760And this has been consistent over his small tenure thus far, but I don't see that changing in the future.
00:17:21.000Yes, and it's provided a lot of fodder for Pierre Polyev.
00:17:25.840He came punching right out of the gate after Mark Carney was elected, a leader, spoke directly to the media, gave a statement, answered questions.
00:17:35.660A lot of the time, the legacy media blames Pierre Polyev for shutting them out and taking only one question, no follow-ups, etc.
00:17:46.560But here he immediately goes right in front of a press conference, takes questions about his own record, and hits back at Mark Carney.
00:17:57.800And I think there is an obvious contrast here, and it might be a political calculation by Pierre Polyev moving in to the next election to show that he's willing to tangle with the media and he's willing to tangle with the opponent.
00:18:13.880And there are some comparisons to be made here if we look south of the border with Joe Biden and the way that he was sheltered for the last, you know, before he's eventually stepped down from his campaign.
00:18:28.440They totally denied some of the issues, you know, health issues, old age issues that he had, and were eventually forced to confess that they ignored this problem for so long.
00:18:41.140But they also did the same thing with Kamala Harris.
00:18:43.700She was horrendous in front of the camera.
00:19:04.680He's kind of boring to listen to, but let's jump to Pierre Polyev's criticisms right after the liberal leadership of Prime Minister Carney.
00:19:13.460Now, Mark Carney is trying to hide from his record over the last five years of advising Trudeau in favor of raising carbon taxes, money printing inflation, and blocking resource projects, all while he moved his company headquarters and jobs to the United States.
00:19:32.240Mr. Carney is trying to distract from his many scandals and conflicts of interest, as well as his disastrous record as Justin Trudeau's economic advisor, by talking about Trump.
00:19:45.400Six days after Donald Trump threatened Canada with tariffs to steal our jobs, Mark Carney announced to Brookfield shareholders that he would move his headquarters from Canada to New York.
00:19:58.460And when you asked him about it, he lied to your face.
00:20:02.320We got it in writing, and we proved it.
00:21:37.720You say accusing, which I find an interesting verb, given everything Polyevre said there in the press conference is just stating facts.
00:21:47.420Carney said this, but this is the truth.
00:21:49.460Carney said this, but this is the truth, which are, of course, complete opposites.
00:21:53.060And then we've seen Carney, too, saying the complete opposite thing in French versus English.
00:21:59.160We saw him in Quebec saying, I'll never put a pipeline through Quebec, guys.
00:22:01.840Trust me, in French, but then he, speaking to English Canadians, he said, oh, I'll do everything I can to get pipelines across Canada and we'll be an energy behemoth.
00:22:10.420These are two completely opposite stories he's telling just based on the crowd he's telling it to.
00:22:15.240So, it really feels, taking it back to the first story, when we're talking about him dressing up in costumes at the steel mill,
00:22:21.940it really, he just caters what he's saying to the crowd he's speaking to, just based on what he thinks they want to hear,
00:22:30.080which either he could dress how they think they want to dress or he wants to say what they want to say.
00:22:35.420It really feels more like he's acting than telling Canadians the truth.
00:22:39.980And Polyev brings up an interesting point.
00:22:44.020He's framing this as Carney's past business dealings, his unwillingness to disclose his financial holdings, his ties,
00:22:55.000actually make him more vulnerable when dealing with U.S. President Donald Trump.
00:23:01.360Pierre Polyev paints his picture of Donald Trump is at his, you know, White House desk in the Oval Office looking through Mark Carney's record.
00:23:11.240How much of a vulnerability is Mark Carney's refusal to disclose what exactly he has, what invested interests he has,
00:23:21.320and whether there are any conflicts of interest, Noah?
00:23:24.840Well, it's very important because Mark Carney says he's going to shell out a bunch of money for,
00:23:30.920like, infrastructure projects of the like.
00:23:33.180Well, Brookfield Asset Management is vested in a lot of companies, a lot of companies that the public doesn't really know about right now.
00:23:41.920And I'm pretty sure Mark Carney has his own personal investments on the side.
00:23:46.500And if it is disclosed that, for example, Mark Carney still has significant shares in Brookfield Asset Management,
00:23:53.520and that the Carney government is granting certain contracts to businesses that Brookfield is invested in,
00:25:09.860Let's just shift to the tariffs because that's the central issue we're talking about.
00:25:14.380That's going to be on top of mind for everybody when they head into an election.
00:25:18.460And we've seen for the past two months, I will give credit to the premiers,
00:25:23.460they have taken the lead on this because we've had an absent government.
00:25:27.200There was nobody really advocating on our behalf publicly at the federal level.
00:25:33.160But the premiers have taken it upon themselves to advocate for Canada.
00:25:38.300And to me, that's it is a good thing because it does provide a case for provincial autonomy and that the provinces collectively should decide the future of this country.
00:25:48.840And we shouldn't have this heavy handed federal government approach.
00:25:53.580And in a way, it is a blessing that we have this conversation about who is actually the representative of Canadians.
00:26:01.700And for a while, with the Trudeau government, it's been a top-down sort of lecturing, we know better approach.
00:26:09.960But the premiers have taken different approaches.
00:26:13.280You know, in Alberta, Isaac, you have Premier Danielle Smith making gains, you know, getting that 10% instead of a higher tariff on Albertan oil and gas.
00:26:25.160And she's also trying to be more conciliatory.
00:26:28.180But in Ontario, Noah, you're a neck of the woods, we have Doug Ford.
00:26:32.640And this week, this last week we just had, Doug Ford tried to make a big play.
00:26:39.720He introduced, briefly for a moment, 25% surcharge on electricity sent to U.S. states, which neighbor Ontario.
00:26:49.860And Ontario does supply U.S. states with quite a bit of electricity, I think upwards to like double-digit percentage of certain states, a composition of their energy mix.
00:27:06.340How did U.S. President Donald Trump respond to these threats from Doug Ford?
00:27:12.140Well, as we know, Donald Trump has imposed a 25% tariff on aluminum and steel imports to the United States.
00:27:20.280And so when Doug Ford said that he's going to add this 25% surcharge on electricity going to the American states, his Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick, told the president, the president sent out a, you know, mean, menacing tweet or truth on Truth Social.
00:27:38.920And he threatened to increase that tariff from 25% to 50% on aluminum and steel, which would be a major blow to Canadian steel and aluminum manufacturers because, you know, perhaps maybe they can sell to some American importers with a 25% tariff.
00:27:59.660A 50% tariff would be catastrophic, absolutely catastrophic.
00:28:03.820So Howard Lutnick and Doug Ford had to get together.
00:28:07.680They worked out a deal where they would both, you know, back down from this escalatory approach to the tariff war.
00:28:15.600The United States would back down on increasing the tariff on aluminum and steel.
00:28:20.200And Ford would back down on the surcharge on American electricity going to America with the incentive that they both meet up in the future to renegotiate USMCA.
00:28:32.400So overall, for people in the United States and Canada, it's a good thing that we're both in a very small way de-escalating this trade war.
00:28:42.180You know, you don't want it to escalate to the point where we're imposing 100% tariffs on each other, which, you know, would not be good for either of us, quite frankly.
00:28:52.360But it is, quite frankly, weird that Howard Lutnick and the Trump administration sees Doug Ford as the person to negotiate the USMCA and not the Carney government.
00:29:02.880What does that say about how the Trump administration views the Carney government?
00:29:07.120Perhaps that they view Carney as more of a placeholder or they just have more respect for Ford and view Ford as or view Carney as a placeholder.
00:29:16.840Because at the end of the day, sure, maybe Ford didn't get the win by being able to levy the surcharge on electricity going to the United States as a retaliatory effort.
00:29:26.620But at least Trump said that, you know, Doug Ford is a strong man.
00:29:31.520So at least, you know, the Trump administration is showing some respect to Ford and are willing to talk with and negotiate with Ford.
00:29:38.320We have not seen the same thing with Trudeau over the past few months.
00:29:41.460And we currently are not seeing this with Carney.
00:29:44.140It's actually a slap in the face that Trump wants to negotiate with Ford, not Carney.
00:29:48.080So very, very interesting to see how the Trump administration approaches trade negotiations with Canada going forward.
00:29:57.060Now, Isaac, how does this compare to Daniel Smith's approach?
00:30:01.620Because she has imposed her own tariffs to some degree.
00:30:05.740I know there is the whole removing alcohol, which all the provinces have done.
00:30:09.840But how does it compare to the way Doug Ford is approaching this in a more heavy handed, you know, fisticuffs sort of way?
00:30:17.520Yeah, I'll just speak firstly to what Noah was saying, how the premiers have really or how you both were saying, how the premiers have really headed the negotiations over the last month or two, as we've not had a sitting prime minister until today.
00:30:30.660And of course, Doug Ford is the head, the chair of the Council of the Federation, which is the group of Canada's premiers.
00:30:36.260So it only makes sense that he's been leading the negotiations with Trump and therefore Trump sees him in that light.
00:30:44.180And it's good that he's getting some level of respect from him, which we unsurprisingly haven't seen towards the liberals because every press conference they hold, it feels like all they do is smack talk Trump.
00:30:55.060As for Danielle Smith, she has taken a more, I don't want to say collaborative approach, but diplomatic approach, because she's, as we've seen, you know, in the United States, like half the time, just trying to not only negotiate with Trump, but she's speaking to the governors, governors from all the different states saying, how can we make this work?
00:31:22.460And she's doing everything in her power to negotiate with these governors and, of course, the president himself.
00:31:28.760We've seen her, yeah, probably actually spend more time in the United States than Alberta because she's actually over there doing the negotiations while we see some liberal leaders sit in Canada and say things but not actually do much at all.
00:31:42.700And to your point, you know, that approach has bore some fruit.
00:31:45.200We've seen the lower tariff rate on Canadian energy, which is definitely, you know, a good thing for Canada's oil and gas sector.
00:31:54.700But also, you know, Daniel Smith is, you know, willing to talk to, you know, American congressmen and senators and try to convince them that, you know, these tariffs are not a good idea.
00:32:05.720You see, you know, for example, Rand Paul, who has always been a libertarian, you know, he vocally says that, you know, the tariff war against Canada is a stupid idea and that we should not be doing that because it's going to only impose higher costs on Americans.
00:32:18.340She's going to talk with Ben Shapiro, who is a leading thought leader in the American conservative movement.
00:32:25.000And Shapiro has been one of those commentators who says that the tariff war is actually stupid and it's going to hurt American consumers.
00:32:33.120And, you know, this is a point that I think really should be emphasized.
00:32:36.280This is not a move that is going to help America in the long term.
00:32:40.480It is something that Daniel Smith has been trying to impress upon American politicians and American thought leaders now talking to Shapiro.
00:32:48.380She I think Ford has been trying to impress this upon, you know, say, the viewers of American media.
00:32:55.060He's been going on Fox and saying this.
00:32:57.680So we we've seen some premiers, you know, at least try to articulate the negative effects that this is going to have on their country.
00:33:05.820Well, you know, people like David Eby is not trying to do that at all.
00:33:26.280You know, you have to you know, they want this Team Canada approach, but they are really, you know, doing the opposite.
00:33:31.820While you have other premiers like Smith and to an extent Ford, who are really, you know, looking out for the national interest and actually getting these wins.
00:33:40.720And they're not, you know, berating sort of the the quality of the American leadership, you know, all the time in the way that the liberals are.
00:33:50.040And, you know, that's actually producing results.
00:33:52.480So let's just play a clip here of Donald Trump reacting to Doug Ford walking back this electricity surcharge.
00:34:01.500And we've talked about, you know, some respect that Trump has shown.
00:34:05.480But here it's it is quite a different story.
00:34:08.100He's taking a victory lap and he's claiming victory over this.
00:35:25.460He wants to keep Canada on their feet, be unpredictable in a sense.
00:35:31.420He's won elections based on his unpredictability.
00:35:35.300And his opponents are unable to figure out what his next move is.
00:35:40.040And this is all approaching the USMCA renegotiation.
00:35:46.180And it will be up to Carney or the next government as well to carry on that negotiation into what deals and terms the Canadian government will have with the United States.
00:35:59.640And perhaps my hope is that these tariffs are simply a negotiating tool to when eventually they sit down at the negotiating table and work out in USMCA.
00:36:13.860Now, just to bring this to a different issue, I know you've all heard a lot about Mark Carney, the tariffs every single day, every week.
00:36:22.940You turn on the TV, radio, or you read the news.
00:36:26.300It's all about these federal issues and the upcoming election.
00:36:29.740But here in British Columbia, a university, the University of British Columbia Okanagan campus, has prohibited or rejected an attempt to set up a student conservative club.
00:36:45.340They essentially rejected a proposal to start a club.
00:36:48.960Now, I recall from back in my university days, it was pretty common to have a university conservative club, a university liberal club.
00:36:58.940There was communist Marxist-Leninist clubs for crying out loud when I went to school.
00:37:03.820But now, suddenly, I guess it's not acceptable to have a conservative club.
00:37:09.160Now, Noah, you're in university still.
00:37:12.040Can you tell us what the atmosphere is, what the vibe is on campus?
00:37:16.400Is it even acceptable to be conservative or have right-wing views at a Canadian university today?
00:37:24.380Well, you'd be hard-pressed to find a student union or many professors who are tolerant of right-wing or just even moderately-centered views.
00:37:36.400I've had professors who are closet conservatives and they try their best not to articulate their conservatism because they know they'd be eaten alive by their students, which is something to think about in and of itself.
00:37:49.940But, you know, it is really a hostile environment to conservatives or just anybody who has, you know, just normal opinions.
00:37:58.000Like, if you go on the York University campus, where I go to, especially after October 7th, there was a ton of pro-Palestine protests, you know, on almost a daily basis.
00:38:09.420Certainly, at least once a week, a massive protest would happen.
00:38:13.100And many, many other universities are like this.
00:38:15.980At least at York, the campus conservative club was able to get ratified.
00:38:20.480But the student union here even gave them a hard time.
00:38:24.560Usually, it takes about a few weeks to get ratified by the student union.
00:38:28.620And the student union, YFS, the York Federation of Students, gave the York conservatives a lot of, you know, just a lot of crap.
00:38:37.020It took several months to get ratified.
00:38:39.260And it took, you know, I think, I think four months in its entirety to get ratified.
00:38:43.940It did not take the young communists that long.
00:39:43.640But I know for sure the central Okanagan MLA is a conservative.
00:39:47.540So it is pretty interesting that they're represented by a party that they're not even allowed to represent on campus.
00:39:55.040It's pretty disgusting and anti-free speech, like the left has been for the past, you know, decade and a half.
00:40:03.380So let me just read the decision here.
00:40:06.260This is by Student Union Vice President Internal Rajat Arora, who includes his he-him pronouns in his signature there.
00:40:16.120He says that the board's decision were due to certain opinions and policy positions, political stances of the party their club would represent, speaking of the federal conservatives.
00:40:32.180Actually, it's not clear whether they're speaking of the federal conservatives or provincial conservatives.
00:40:36.960But let's just assume both because they pretty much align on many of these issues.
00:40:45.540So particularly views regarding the black and LGBTQ communities.
00:40:52.360Now, as far as I know, the federal conservative party does not have any particular position on black Canadians or any sort of discriminatory policies that they've promoted.
00:41:06.000And as for the LGBTQ communities, what I assume they're mentioning is opposition to gender ideology,
00:41:13.580which they're just generalizing as being anti-gay or anti-LGBT, which is totally missing the point of the entire issue.
00:41:24.800It's against, you know, transitioning children.
00:41:27.400The issue is much more complicated as just being against LGBTQ communities.
00:41:32.400So, like, has this DEI diversity, equity, inclusion, this mishmash of progressive beliefs just been used, and it's been adopted all over universities, student unions first and foremost, Isaac.
00:41:49.340Has this been used just as a hammer over the head of any group that might differ or oppose those particular opinions or ideological viewpoints?
00:41:59.920Yeah, Cosmin, and you know what this actually reminded me of was of the Canada Strong and Free Network in Red Deer last year that I attended,
00:42:08.060where Chris Rufo, the American conservative commentator, he spoke there, and he outlined strategies for defeating wokeism, which is relevant here in regard to this email.
00:42:18.780He was saying, do not accept their premises.
00:42:22.160So, when they're saying, we can't allow a conservative club because it's anti-black, anti-LGBTQ, I would respond to that email and say,
00:42:29.980can you give me one example of a policy that's anti-black from the conservatives?
00:42:51.240But, yeah, I mean, obviously, I graduated from university with my bachelor's a few years ago.
00:42:58.440But I do recall, I think there was like a communist Marxism party on the campus, though I won't say I know that there was a conservative one.
00:43:07.220So, really, we've seen left-wing ideology run amok on universities across Canada.
00:43:14.900And, of course, the students become the professors.
00:43:18.460So, it's just a revolving door of that ideology.
00:43:21.700And it's really been the predominant, especially, I mean, it depends on the faculty.
00:43:28.060Because, of course, if you're in business, there's going to be more conservatives than if you're in the Bachelor of Arts.
00:43:32.860I was obviously in the Bachelor of Communication, so it was in the Arts Department.
00:43:36.600So, it was – I walk around some days amongst the hundreds of students and think, man, I'm the only conservative here, I could just tell.
00:43:44.060So, really, was living in the shadows.
00:43:46.780But, yeah, I don't know what – if – I've always thought this.
00:43:51.740I don't know what can fix what universities have become with the ideology and the far left-wingism at universities.
00:44:00.400Because, as I said, it literally is a revolving door where the students that have these ideologies become the professors.
00:44:06.060So, I really don't know what the answer is.
00:44:08.620But what Rustad said was pretty interesting in cutting off funding.
00:44:12.840We've seen that happen in the States because, of course, most universities there are through private funders.
00:44:19.440And these funders are saying, we're not supporting you if you're implementing DEI policies.
00:44:23.880Now, the same thing can't happen in Canada with many public universities unless it comes from the government.
00:44:29.180Yeah, you bring up a really good point where people are able to register, say, communist clubs, but not, you know, the mainstream conservative club.
00:44:38.960The Socialist Fight Back is, I think, the most predominant communist club around Canadian campuses.
00:44:46.020But also the Communist Party of Canada, they also register our parties.
00:44:49.260So, I'd be interested to see if any of those clubs are registered and if they deem communism to be hateful or at least an extremely violent ideology.
00:44:59.240But, you know, Rustad's, you know, idea of allowing students to opt out of paying student dues is, you know, one of common sense.
00:45:07.920It is one of personal autonomy and freedom.
00:45:11.480If I don't want to fund the student union, well, I don't have a choice, at least at York University.
00:45:17.440I assume it's the same thing for students who attend UBC.
00:45:22.380You are going to contribute that, you know, 10 bucks, 20 bucks, 50 bucks to your student union.
00:45:28.240And I don't want to, you know, personally, I don't want to contribute money to the YFS because they promote, you know, pro-Palestine stuff.
00:45:35.540And, you know, they're rabidly anti-Israel.
00:45:38.920You know, you could say they're pro-Hamas even.
00:45:41.060You know, I think some of the statements that the YFS has made were utterly ridiculous.
00:45:46.120I think CIA has also condemned them and the York administration has condemned them because they're so radical.
00:45:51.780I don't want to contribute money to them, but I have to.
00:45:54.240So the ability to opt out of these student unions and perhaps even create alternative student unions, you know, that are able to compete for the ability to legitimize certain unions and I mean certain clubs and then provide those clubs with funding so that they can carry out their events.
00:46:13.940I think that would be a really good idea.
00:46:16.580But these student unions, they have a monopoly.
00:46:19.600They're going to do everything in their power to ensure that they retain their monopoly.
00:46:23.980And, you know, as a monopolistic entity, they're able to impose certain ideological, you know, certain ideological positions on the student body, even if the majority of the student body doesn't want it or is just apathetic to it.
00:46:40.060So the way that you combat these monopolies and break them up is by, you know, having the government, the provincial governments intervene and say that, hey, students, you are able to opt out and, hey, you can create your own student union.
00:46:54.160That's really the only way to be able to break the university monopoly by the left, at least in the student unions.
00:47:01.420You know, doing that on a broader level in the universities is such a harder task to accomplish that, you know, we don't have enough time to talk about that here.
00:47:13.120But at least, you know, the possibility of defunding these radical left-wing student unions is possible.
00:47:19.660Well, unfortunately, there have been very few, if any, provincial governments willing to be up to the task of defunding these woke student unions, as well as universities altogether and their imposition of DEI ideology throughout those institutions.
00:47:39.140It's definitely been an interesting week.
00:47:42.040We are going to head into an even more interesting week, if not an election called Any Moment.
00:47:49.260But as always, this has been Off the Record.
00:47:56.720You got to get your hard hat back, man, for the outro.