Juno News - CBC brags about its “award-winning Canadian creators”

00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome to you all. Friday, March 17th, 2023. Happy St. Patrick's Day to the Irish among

00:00:18.000 you and the 95% of other people who just pretend they are Irish inexplicably on St. Patrick's Day.

00:00:24.260 You don't need to pretend to be Irish today. You can just go out and wear green and drink

00:00:28.320 if that is your prerogative. Joined by Sue-Ann Levy, the co-hostess with The Mostess. Levy,

00:00:35.080 that's an authentic Irish name, is it not, Sue-Ann? Actually, I come from roots of Mick Levy,

00:00:40.620 but I changed it when my relatives changed it when they landed in Canada from Mick Levy to just Levy.

00:00:46.680 Okay, so Sue-Ann Mick Levy and Andrew O'Lawton here for Fake News Friday. There we go. We're

00:00:52.480 starting off with the fake news being the very names by which we identify ourselves. How was

00:00:58.580 the week, Sue-Ann? Great. Cannot complain. One thing not fake is that I've been on a great program.

00:01:06.820 I encourage your viewers. Lost nine pounds so far in four weeks.

00:01:13.020 There we go. We can start doing infomercials on Fake News Friday, but it'll be honest coming from

00:01:17.800 you. People won't know what to think. It's not a fake. I'm not faking it. I might need to do like

00:01:23.600 that program times 20 for it to be meaningful, but we'll have to chat off there about that.

00:01:28.940 Lots of stuff happened this week in the world of fake news. One in particular that I want to focus

00:01:35.220 on, which is a bit of a bigger picture topic. I know we spoke in the last show, or maybe it was

00:01:39.580 a couple of weeks ago, about the trend of drag story times that are seemingly pervasive now at every

00:01:46.320 library and county fair imaginable. But what's interesting is that the focus of the outrage

00:01:53.240 from the media is not on these shows, but on people who dare to raise questions about these

00:01:58.560 sorts of shows. In Calgary, they've now made it illegal to protest them, and the media likes to

00:02:04.440 talk about this as being the new trend of the far right. There was a piece in Global News that talks

00:02:10.400 about how anti-LGBTQ protests are on the rise in Canada. What's going on, the reporter asked. And I

00:02:17.340 think, let's just start and talk about the headline there. I don't think there is at all an honest way

00:02:23.680 you could say that protesting something very narrow and very specific, like a drag show of any kind or a

00:02:31.240 drag show for kids is an anti-LGBTQ2 protest. I certainly don't feel it. And you know that I'm L

00:02:38.460 in the LGBT series of alphabet letters. So I, you know, I don't feel it. I think it's a legitimate,

00:02:47.880 these are legitimate concerns by parents. You know, my dear wife asked me, whatever happened to

00:02:56.460 that? Why do we have to bring in these drag queens who are outrageous, and really are very, very, you 1.00

00:03:09.560 know, geared to mature audiences? They're actually, some of them very obscene. So I think little kids

00:03:16.240 don't understand it at all. So, you know, so the people, I hate the word, the use of far right too,

00:03:24.040 Andrew. Andrew. So anybody who protests, or is concerned about the impact on kids, young kids,

00:03:30.520 we're talking very young kids, is far right. What has happened to our world? What has happened to

00:03:36.880 our, you know, the sentiment in Canada? We're not allowed to speak up about this sort of thing.

00:03:41.860 Yeah, that's a great point about the librarians. I mean, this is librarian erasure, if nothing else.

00:03:47.040 Where's the librarian union standing up about, you know, having their jobs taken away for whatever

00:03:53.660 the reason? But, you know, it's interesting, because the idea that we see people that are

00:03:59.440 frustrated with this very narrow and very specific thing, I would say it's not even an anti-T protest

00:04:05.760 necessarily, let alone an anti-LGBTQ2 protest, because they're, in my experience, anyone who's

00:04:12.660 raising issues with this, is not saying we don't like drag performances. They're saying, hey, keep it 0.97

00:04:18.560 away from the children. And we can debate that point. There are drag queens that have gone on TV and 1.00

00:04:22.800 talked about why they think it's important and why everyone needs to stop their criticism.

00:04:26.860 Let's have that debate. And we can have it without denigrating people as being part of this new

00:04:31.700 far-right cabal, which is what the media is doing. And in doing so, relying on the Canadian anti-hate

00:04:38.640 network. So I know you have a lot of experience writing about this and researching this. Why,

00:04:43.580 who are they? And why has the media given them the authority on determining what's extremist?

00:04:49.160 Well, they're joined at the hip with the Liberal government, headed by Bernie Farber, who used

00:04:53.540 to be the CEO of the United Jewish Federation. And he kind of parted ways with them. And I think

00:05:04.940 he's a really bitter sort of mean guy. And he, you know, he's formed this anti-hate network,

00:05:11.980 again, funded by the Trudeau government. And the interesting thing is that they spew in many ways

00:05:19.580 more hate than you or I or anybody that they criticize. So they target people who have an

00:05:26.620 opinion. They don't, you know, I haven't heard them speak up. For instance, they did not speak up

00:05:32.140 about or came out very late out of the gate about the Lathe Maroof scandal. You know, the gentleman

00:05:38.580 who was funded, who's virulently anti-Semitic, again, funded. They had to wait until the Trudeau

00:05:43.540 government made it acceptable to criticize him before they would criticize. Exactly. So they're,

00:05:48.520 they're biased. They're conflicted. And I, you know, I don't know why the media, I mean, I used to

00:05:55.160 not yell at, but say to the people I worked with at Toronto Sun, why are you even quoting Bernie

00:06:00.760 Farber? Because he is so far out there now. His opinion is not perceived, particularly in the Jewish

00:06:07.720 community, with any weight whatsoever. So, and I mean, now they, they weigh in on things that aren't

00:06:15.320 hateful and ignore things that are hate. Yeah. Bernie Farber, just for context, a lot of people might

00:06:22.400 know of him because a year ago or just over a year ago during the convoy, he tweeted out this vile

00:06:28.260 anti-Semitic poster that he said a friend of his saw at the convoy in Ottawa. And it of course turned

00:06:36.400 out that the photo had been taken like three months earlier in Miami, before the convoy started,

00:06:41.940 before the convoy existed. And when he was called on this by Jonathan Kaye, he said, oh, well, it's the

00:06:47.900 type of thing you would see at the convoy. So he creates and invents hate where no hate exists. And as

00:06:54.520 you mentioned, Sue Ann, he ignores it in many cases when it does exist, if it goes against his narrative.

00:07:00.280 Exactly. I mean, that was the funniest thing being caught in the act with a flyer that was from Miami,

00:07:05.760 posted in Miami. And, you know, but he eggs on people. That's the thing. So the media still think

00:07:12.700 he's an authority. And he eggs on people and encourages them to hate what, say, you and I

00:07:20.220 are talking about with legitimate concern. I have to say that the anti-hate network hates me. So,

00:07:28.320 you know, hates me for having an opinion and some common sense. But this is like how crazy our world

00:07:34.360 has become with these kind of people who are funded by the Trudeau government and do the exact opposite

00:07:41.680 of what they're really supposed to do in a real world.

00:07:44.600 Yeah. And some of it is just disingenuous. So there is one person here who is quoted

00:07:50.840 in this article in Global who says that the criticisms of drag story time is coming from

00:07:56.240 white heterosexual men from the far right with religious backgrounds that are trying to demonize

00:08:02.060 the LGBTQ2 community. And I would like to note that I'm getting the acronym right every single time.

00:08:06.820 I'm not fumbling one bit, even getting the two in there. And the thing about that that I find

00:08:11.860 troubling for many reasons is that if you look at the landscape of who it is that's criticizing these

00:08:17.080 performances, it's actually more, in my experience, coming from women that are concerned about the 0.74

00:08:22.640 implications on women's spaces of the trans movement. I mean, yes, there sort of is a bedfellows

00:08:28.580 between radical feminists and the Christian right on some of these issues. But overwhelmingly, 0.96

00:08:33.540 the issues I'm seeing are coming from mothers. They're coming from lesbians. They're coming from gay men 0.98

00:08:39.640 that don't like what's happening here. Exactly. And this speaks to and I'm glad you brought that out 0.99

00:08:44.680 because this speaks to the great divide in the LGBTQRS community. Because there are those who in

00:08:52.920 Okay, two, two, one, two, three. There are those who espouse queer theory. Well, I hate the word queer.

00:09:02.280 I absolutely hate it. But now they want to be called queer because that means they're radical and 0.93

00:09:06.620 progressive. But the average person, the mainstream, say, LGB. Well, I don't know if I should include

00:09:13.900 T, because the T's have become radical. But the mainstream people abhor this kind of stuff. They

00:09:20.780 have core queer theory, they think it's radical. They're upset about kids being indoctrinated in

00:09:27.340 schools. And it relates to that as well, gender ideology at a young age being, you know, taught in

00:09:33.420 schools. So this has created this huge divide. So you've got these really radical trans people and 1.00

00:09:40.460 radical, you know, queer people, as they call themselves. They're the ones who are pushing this 1.00

00:09:46.220 and the anti hate network has latched on with them. And you know, one person we we've talked about

00:09:54.780 Faye Johnson, for example, the trans activist, who's making also Hershey or they she. Yeah, yeah,

00:10:02.220 who's also whatever the chocolate's called now. Yeah, Hershey, who's making money from the Trudeau

00:10:07.180 government, it gets funded. She's also she is also funded by the Trudeau government. And there's also

00:10:15.020 espousing this queer theory where she hates any lesbians, any women who say, well, you might be a 0.99

00:10:22.700 biological male, you're not really, you know, and discuss the reality of the biology of transgenderism.

00:10:30.300 So you know, this, this is, you know, again, like I said to you, the great divide that has occurred,

00:10:36.940 and, you know, enabled by organizations by the, but like the Canadian Anti Hate Network.

00:10:43.180 Well, and I think you're right there, Sue Ann, in extreme voices in any movement are always the loudest

00:10:48.140 and they cloud out people like I had, I've never talked about this. But I had, when I ran for office

00:10:52.620 in 2018, I had a really heartwarming encounter. And people that are familiar with the history know

00:10:57.580 that I said some things that I terribly regret about the gay community. And they were coming up 1.00

00:11:03.100 when I ran for office. And I knocked on the door of one guy when I was out canvassing. And I said,

00:11:06.940 you know, hi, I'm Andrew Lawton, I'm seeking your vote. And he said, I'm gay. And I said, oh, I'm,

00:11:12.060 you know, that's fine. I'm Andrew. And he said, I don't give a bleep if you march in a pride

00:11:16.780 parade. Are you going to lower my taxes? And I think that there are probably a lot more people

00:11:23.180 like him than there are people trying to vilify and demonize and on race as well. And there are a

00:11:29.820 lot more people that would welcome a dialogue, even with people that they might have some pretty

00:11:33.740 fundamental disagreements on than people that want to silence other people.

00:11:37.260 Yes. And that's created this huge divide in Canada. And I dare say it goes back to the federal

00:11:43.420 government. They're funding all these crazy groups who are sending out messages that you're a white 0.99

00:11:50.060 privileged male. I'm a, I don't know, white lesbian, Jewish, you know, and I'm a white supremacist as 0.96

00:11:57.420 well. That's the, that's the slur now. I'm a TERF. Yes. Yes. A TERF. Exactly.

00:12:02.380 Yeah. Well, again, I think it's safe to say that the left does very well this idea of reclaiming a word.

00:12:09.980 That was the whole impetus behind slut walk. It's as you mentioned queer. I mean, that's another one. 1.00

00:12:14.460 It used to be this thing that you'd never dare say. It's like the N word. And now it's something

00:12:18.380 that people are calling themselves. So we need to reclaim things ourselves. Don't let the anti-hate

00:12:23.660 network redefine what extreme is. That's right. So we are, but we're not far right. I love that.

00:12:31.820 I absolutely love that. So I always say to these people, are you far left? What is far right?

00:12:36.460 Right. You're far left, obviously, if you criticize us and call us these.

00:12:41.900 Yeah. But far, but far left is deemed like fun and harmless, whereas far right is like deemed the

00:12:47.900 second coming of Adolf Hitler. This is a bit of a heavier topic. So let's revert back to one that we

00:12:52.780 always enjoy, which is Canada state broadcaster, the CBC, getting a little bit defensive on Twitter

00:13:00.380 this week. The National Post published a column by Chris Selle, which I actually agree with the

00:13:06.140 fundamental point of. He said, CBC can't hope to measure up to even the BBC's fiascos. And what

00:13:11.180 he's talking about here is that BBC, despite being a state broadcaster, tends to be regarded a bit

00:13:16.940 better because it produces better content. I mean, some of the British programs that BBC has released

00:13:23.660 onto the world have been vastly superior to CBC, which has given us a couple of goodies like Schitt's

00:13:29.500 Creek, which is very popular and Kim's Convenience. But they also give you, need I remind you,

00:13:35.260 the colonial or anti-colonial talking tomato.

00:13:39.100 Isn't it true that feminists don't like boys? 1.00

00:13:42.220 I think we're really gonna need this episode.

00:13:46.380 Or the gender fluid South Asian nanny that is living a complicated existence. Yeah, not exactly the 1.00

00:13:54.540 stuff of BBC, but CBC gets a little defensive of this. They tweet out a screenshot of the National

00:14:01.100 Post column and say, we've got some internationally award-winning Canadian creators,

00:14:06.140 production teams, and actors who might disagree. Sue Ann, doth they protest too much? 0.99

00:14:11.980 Absolutely. I mean, if CBC would stick to the Schitt's Creek and Kim Convenience kind of shows and

00:14:19.740 stop trying to niche market, this is what it is, niche marketing, appealing to a very select group of

00:14:27.580 people. I mean, a transgendered nanny, that's very interesting, but who would watch that? You've got to 0.99

00:14:34.780 wonder about their ratings. If they aren't, if they weren't propped up by the Liberal government, would

00:14:41.340 they be producing, number one, these shows? And number two, you know, with their ratings, they have

00:14:49.100 no, we don't know anything about their ratings, let's put it that way. So, I dare say maybe three

00:14:56.220 people watch these kinds of shows, but again, they're bailed out by the federal government, so they

00:15:02.300 don't have to worry. BBC actually does produce some good stuff, and I've seen some of it on Netflix,

00:15:09.420 and it's clever, and you know, and there's some thought put into it. This is all appealing and

00:15:17.260 pandering to a select group, and CBC has lost its way. It's just really lost its way when it produces

00:15:24.220 stuff like this. I mean, I try to keep on top of media in Canada, so our colleague Harrison Faulkner

00:15:30.780 put together a list of some CBC shows. Now, I've not verified this, so if it's wrong, you can take

00:15:35.580 it up with Harrison. I'm just going off of his word here, instead of telling my computer that I might

00:15:40.220 like looking at CBC's website every now and then. But he put a list of shows together that I've never

00:15:45.260 heard of, which sound insanely CBC-esque. One is Canadian Ballroom Extravaganza, in which 10 ballroom

00:15:54.140 stars, such as they are, pair up with 10 queer and trans filmmakers for dance battles. There's

00:16:01.340 Revenge of the Black Best Friend, about a self-help guru who wants to cancel the entertainment industry's 0.63

00:16:08.300 reliance on the token black characters. There's Virgins, which follows the lives of four women who

00:16:14.780 are too modest for the big city but too provocative for the East African homes from which they come. 1.00

00:16:19.740 Ooh, some ethnic tension there. Real Blackity Talk. That's okay. Real Blackity Talk shines 1.00

00:16:27.180 perspectives on non-binary black folk in Canada. And then Queens, which is a comedy mystery whodunit,

00:16:34.460 following an eclectic cast of Toronto drag queens. Whodunit is probably the evil white 1.00

00:16:40.940 conservative character, without even seeing the show. That's probably the culprit of it. So Sue Ann, 1.00

00:16:45.980 are these on your and your lovely wife's evening viewing schedules? I've never ever heard of them.

00:16:52.220 And you would be in the whodunit. You would be Andrew in a trench coat with a hat.

00:16:58.540 Yeah. Well, that's the thing. You could probably see whodunit just by virtue of the character. It's

00:17:02.940 like, I don't know. Because they couldn't cast the drag queens as the criminals, because that would 1.00

00:17:07.900 be stigmatizing. A part of me thinks that Harrison has pranked me here,

00:17:12.700 and he just like plugged in some inputs into one of those AI generators of just like,

00:17:17.660 give me some titles of woke CBC shows. And these aren't even real things, but I think they're real.

00:17:22.700 Well, again, I've talked about pandering to a select group, and they don't even make sense. This stuff is,

00:17:30.220 you know, I have no problem now. I mean, we see commercials with people of color and visible

00:17:35.740 minorities. We have, you know, men kissing on TV. I don't care. Include everybody. We, you know,

00:17:45.100 and shows have gay characters. They have all kinds of visible minorities. But to target a entire show

00:17:53.420 around these specific oppressed intersectional groups is madness. It's just, you know, I can't

00:18:03.020 believe that they have any viewers for these shows. Other than maybe. I don't think they do.

00:18:07.740 Like, they're not driven by ad revenue. They're driven by subsidies. And that's like the entire

00:18:12.860 CBC existence here now. So can you imagine them filming the drag queen one in Toronto, 1.00

00:18:18.780 them running up and down the street looking for you and your trench coat?

00:18:23.180 Yeah. So I, you know what, if CBC does an open casting call, I might even just audition to

00:18:28.140 to get it over with here. All right. We've got time for one more here. Waterloo region that is in

00:18:35.580 southwestern Ontario near me, near me. Their public schools diversity job fair has garnered racially

00:18:41.740 charged backlash. They wanted to hire more indigenous black and racialized staff. But now people are

00:18:48.620 calling out, well, why are they discriminating against white candidates who may be just as qualified

00:18:54.300 for the job? Now, interestingly enough, they turned off comments on their tweet because of the backlash.

00:19:01.020 So they didn't seem to like that people were calling out, hey, why is one's race relevant at

00:19:05.500 all to their job at the Waterloo Region School Board? Well, I think this has been going on. And,

00:19:10.060 you know, as you know, I did a story about it. I think this has been going on for a long,

00:19:13.740 long time, but quietly now they feel that they have no problem just broadcasting there. It's not even

00:19:21.500 equity hiring. It's selective hiring. And I do think it's sort of a reverse form of racism. In the list

00:19:28.460 of people that are invited to the job fair are custodians and maintenance people and secretarial

00:19:35.420 staff. So what are you going to do if you don't have the qualifications, but you have the, you know,

00:19:41.180 appropriate skin color or whatever, are you going to get a leg up on other people? I mean, it's a recipe

00:19:48.540 for disaster. I think whatever happened to hiring based on merit, I thought that that was, you know,

00:19:55.500 basically a human right. That was part of the human rights code. And then now everything has been topsy, 0.93

00:20:00.860 turned on its head, really turned on its head or ear or whatever you want to call it. And you get

00:20:08.460 selected treatment. If you are indigenous in this case, or how are racialized as they call it or are

00:20:18.700 black. And, you know, it's the statistics I quoted in my article, the students population is very limited

00:20:27.500 in those groups. However, they're not asking for Asian teachers, for example, they're not asking for LGBT

00:20:35.500 teachers. They're narrowing it very, very selectively to this group of people. I don't think that's right.

00:20:43.180 But I mean, this is the Waterloo School Board. Sorry to drone on about this, but this is the

00:20:47.340 Waterloo School Board. I've done too many stories to count about the craziness that's gone on there,

00:20:54.460 particularly under the education director, Jiwon Chanika, who doesn't like to capitalize his name.

00:21:00.460 Just to jump in, they were the ones who back in October posted a Thanksgiving tweet that was like,

00:21:06.300 happy fall long weekend. And they canceled Valentine's Day at some schools. So, you know,

00:21:12.940 it's just a progression of a long line of things that have happened. But I think the pendulum has swung

00:21:21.180 this way far, far out, and hopefully it'll swing back. But right now, I'm like, my goodness,

00:21:27.580 it'd be interesting to have someone like Trudeau go in blackface and see if he's let into the job.

00:21:39.100 You went there. I didn't go there. It was all her. Take it up with Sue Ann. I did no such thing there

00:21:45.260 that anyone can take issue with. But, you know, I will say on a more serious point to try to pivot it

00:21:51.020 back to something that doesn't get me canceled alongside you by, you know, tonight. We're talking

00:21:56.620 about some cases, entry level jobs, you know, a custodian, a secretarial worker, administrator,

00:22:01.820 whatever they're called. You know, I'm actually a big believer in diversity in the workforce when

00:22:06.940 diversity enhances the workforce. So if you have, for example, a marketing team, you don't want all 1.00

00:22:12.860 white men because they're probably going to think more similarly about some things than people that

00:22:17.020 have different backgrounds. On some jobs, though, I don't think it matters. I don't think it matters

00:22:22.220 the race of someone who's pouring a coffee at Tim Hortons. I don't think it matters the race of

00:22:25.900 someone who's teaching your children when there's only going to be one teacher in the classroom. I

00:22:30.060 mean, if you're going to have, you know, like the pantheon and have, you know, like the panel of gods in

00:22:34.380 the classroom and you want one from every group and every nation and tribe on the earth, then fine. But

00:22:39.660 for the most part, I don't get why it matters. And this idea of focusing on these statistics and

00:22:44.620 numbers, it's like these school boards are trying to solve a problem that I don't think actually exists.

00:22:49.260 Well, that the problem, you're right. The problem is that there are poor math, poor literacy,

00:22:55.500 poor reading scores at school boards right across the province. So they think that their logic is

00:23:01.660 that if we bring in more faces that match the kids who are in the classroom, then they'll be able to

00:23:08.300 relate to these people. And then all of a sudden, you know, everything will break free and they'll do

00:23:15.020 well in their testing and they'll achieve blah, blah, blah. But that's not the case.

00:23:19.740 A good teacher is a good teacher. And it's actually exalting to white supremacists like yourself, 0.98

00:23:26.540 because this saying that you don't understand, you don't understand, you know, the issues of, 0.97

00:23:35.100 you know, blacks or racialized people. I mean, you know, it's crazy stuff. 1.00

00:23:41.500 Yeah, you called out Justin Trudeau in blackface. I get to be the white supremacist. We are just 0.96

00:23:47.420 like canceling ourselves and each other every which way on this show. Let's end it before we

00:23:51.500 do any more damage here. Sue Ann Levy, fantastic work as always at True North that people can catch 1.00

00:23:57.420 up with at tnc.news. We will talk to you all next week.

Juno News - March 17, 2023

CBC brags about its “award-winning Canadian creators”

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