Juno News - Defending history against the woke mob (Part 1)

00:00:00.000 Aaron Gunn, it's so great to have you join us. You really appreciate it. How are you doing?

00:00:09.700 I'm doing great, Candice. Thanks for having me.

00:00:12.460 Yeah, you're surviving these very interesting times we're going through right now, I'm sure,

00:00:16.400 with lots of opinions and lots to say on it. So we're going to cover everything that's going on.

00:00:21.240 But before we do, Aaron, I want our audience to get to know you a little bit better. I've known

00:00:26.360 you for several years now because we used to work together over at the Canadian Taxpayers

00:00:30.560 Federation, specifically working on the Generation Screwed campaign. But you grew up on Vancouver

00:00:37.060 Island, correct? Yeah, I grew up on Vancouver Island, born and raised in the left-wing sanctuary

00:00:45.880 of Victoria and still live there. Great. And so how did you find yourself sort of getting involved

00:00:54.820 in politics and, you know, issues like standing up for the taxpayer? How does a young guy growing

00:01:00.840 up in a left-wing utopia like Victoria find himself sort of more on the right side of the

00:01:05.540 political spectrum? Well, that's a really good question. I don't know if there's a kind of

00:01:11.060 silver bullet answer, but I always had a really strong family. It was also really close with my

00:01:17.840 grandparents, so always had a lot of respect for kind of tradition and this country. And kind of,

00:01:25.760 and there was always super interested in history and the history of this country and the world and

00:01:29.440 the role that we've played. So I think that was kind of my entry point into the conservative movement

00:01:35.260 at large. And then from there, I actually met Troy Lanigan, who you obviously know, who at the time was

00:01:43.500 the head of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. And I'd already done some stuff with the, with electoral

00:01:49.620 politics here locally. Back then, actually, I grew up in a suburb of Victoria and it was actually kind

00:01:55.600 of all old Reform Party seats. Gary Lan, if you remember, was actually the MP where Elizabeth May is

00:02:03.240 now. So it was a bit more of a mixed political environment back, back then in the, in the early

00:02:09.640 2000s or mid 2000s. And then I met Troy and started doing some work with the, with the Taxpayers

00:02:16.060 Federation throughout university and then joined them full-time after I graduated.

00:02:21.060 And it's pretty impressive what you were able to build with Generation Screwed. I mean,

00:02:24.460 I worked on the campaign with you and I wrote a book called Generation Screwed all about the same

00:02:28.940 issues, but you basically took what was a, you know, an intellectual idea like, hey, all these young

00:02:35.460 people are really going to get a broad deal from just the system that is set up, given that people

00:02:41.000 pay, you know, for the, the future. So, so, you know, taxpayers today are borrowing from future

00:02:48.820 taxpayers to pay off today's debts. Plus the fact that, you know, you have all these baby boomers 1.00

00:02:53.580 retiring and we haven't done any, any pre-savings. So taking this, this concept and then turning it into

00:02:59.120 an actual movement of young Canadians. I mean, I think Generation Screwed is now on what, 30 campuses

00:03:04.700 across Canada with hundreds of members. So how, how, how was it that you sort of took what was a

00:03:10.660 theoretical idea and turned it into a grassroots movement across the country? Well, I think the

00:03:16.760 biggest thing is that there's simply all of these young people across the country who are smart,

00:03:21.760 they're open to new ideas and, and they get it really at a large, you know, there's no such thing

00:03:26.620 as a free lunch. Like they understand that, but they're just not being exposed to a lot of these

00:03:30.900 ideas. Um, and just because all of our universities are so left-leaning, uh, you know, from coast to

00:03:37.720 coast. So what we were able to do is kind of present students with a, with an easy to understand

00:03:43.200 kind of alternative to that. And, um, and I think there was an appetite for that just because, you

00:03:48.640 know, people want to hear the other side of the story. I think that's something you see what you

00:03:52.860 guys are doing today at True North where, you know, people are tired of the same, uh, kind of lazy

00:03:58.820 and repetitive narratives coming out of mainstream media and their, their interest and want to hear

00:04:03.200 the other side of the story. Uh, so that's, I feel like what we were doing in part on university

00:04:07.960 campuses is, is, is, is delivering that side of the story that, that they hadn't heard. All they

00:04:13.000 heard was, you know, all these government programs are necessary and they're, and they're good and

00:04:17.120 they're needed. And, uh, without hearing, you know, the drawbacks of all the debt, what we're leaving

00:04:22.620 to the next generation, the tax increases, uh, the unfunded social program. So that's what we tried to do.

00:04:28.280 And, uh, obviously struck a chord. Well, it's great. I know just like from my own personal

00:04:33.220 experience in school, I was, by the time, especially by the time I was done university,

00:04:37.120 I was pretty conservative or at least pretty libertarian. And I had a lot of friends that

00:04:41.200 were like left-wing liberals who were very idealistic about the role of government as in like,

00:04:46.300 there's nothing the government can't do. And, you know, why not just spend a little more to,

00:04:50.140 to help pull everyone out of poverty. And then, you know, a couple of years after we graduate,

00:04:54.840 I meet up with them and talk to them. And now that they're taxpayers,

00:04:57.440 they have like a totally different perspective. They're like, man, I hate the government.

00:05:01.340 It takes so much for my money. And it's kind of funny how that happens. So it's, it's pretty,

00:05:06.080 I think it's pretty impressive that you can find students that haven't had that experience yet of

00:05:10.840 like, you know, the awakening that you get when you enter the real world. And that would still be

00:05:15.640 kind of, you know, interested in, in, in preserving the sort of fairness in society in terms of like,

00:05:23.040 how much you have to pay for programs that like other Canadians voted in and you didn't have a

00:05:27.640 say. So, so that's pretty exciting. And so you, you went on from Generation Screwed. I know you're

00:05:32.400 now the spokesperson for BC Proud and you were involved with Canada Proud, which is all, I guess,

00:05:38.060 similar to the Ontario Proud movement here in Ontario that really helped elect Doug Ford. So,

00:05:46.080 so what, what is it that you are up to now and what is it that BC Proud does?

00:05:51.840 Yeah. So BC Proud. So, so I should clarify in, in January, I moved away officially from BC Proud now

00:05:58.960 as well. So I got a bunch of my own initiatives on the go right now, a new show coming out called

00:06:04.320 Politics Explained. But being at BC Proud and Canada Proud was a really great experience.

00:06:09.960 Um, they're a really cool group, as you obviously know, and, uh, the amount of people they reach

00:06:15.940 millions of, uh, of Canadians, uh, each week. Um, and what I was able to do for them is basically

00:06:22.120 make short 120 second videos. Normally that really tries to condense and, uh, deliver a message on a

00:06:30.580 particular issue that that's in the news, or sometimes that the news isn't covering and should

00:06:35.080 be covering. Uh, so whether that's, uh, you know, the revolving door justice system, uh, the tearing

00:06:41.420 down of, of statues across the country or tax hikes, or the, uh, uh, did a lot of stuff on the illegal

00:06:48.220 blockades that were happening across the country and the attempt to, uh, stop the coastal gas link

00:06:52.840 pipeline up in Northern British Columbia. So, uh, really whatever's being talked about going out,

00:06:58.800 making a video two to three minutes long that really tries to condense the argument and get the,

00:07:03.700 the word out to Canadians that are oftentimes, uh, that they're not hearing again, not hearing the

00:07:08.560 other side of the story, uh, or what's really happening. And I about the removal of the Sir

00:07:14.480 John A. McDonald statue over in Victoria, which was supposedly in an effort of reconciliation. Well,

00:07:22.520 you know, no definition of the idea of reconciliation requires, you know, erasing history and reducing

00:07:29.840 what by all accounts was a great man, a great leader who had this vision to create a country

00:07:34.680 that is now one of the greatest countries in the world, reducing him to like a one dimensional

00:07:38.920 caricature based on his views about Aboriginal Canadians, which were views that were wildly

00:07:44.340 held at the time. And, you know, boiling them down to just that and pretending that that's the only

00:07:49.420 aspect of him that matters. It's like everyone's lost their mind. And you were sort of on the

00:07:55.860 forefront of that battle saying, this is crazy. This is madness. So why don't you tell us a little

00:08:01.460 bit about that battle and what it was like sort of being on the front lines of watching them actively

00:08:07.820 try to erase our history here in Canada? Yeah. Well, uh, I remember when it happened, when I found

00:08:13.440 out it was going to happen and I can't stress enough how it came out of absolutely nowhere. Like it was,

00:08:19.740 it wasn't like now where, uh, this kind of thing was in the news like every day. And it seemed like,

00:08:25.360 every day it's another statue being torn down or defaced. This came absolutely out of nowhere in

00:08:30.880 Victoria. I believe, I think it was in August of 2018. And, uh, I got a call from somebody,

00:08:38.220 I guess, when it came out over the news and they literally out of nowhere said, we're tearing down

00:08:41.460 the statue. Uh, no real debate in the community or on the council at the time. And we're tearing it

00:08:48.300 down in like three days. So I think this was on a Wednesday and they were, they were tearing it down,

00:08:52.640 I think Saturday ended up tearing it down Saturday at like, uh, four in the morning. So, um, because

00:08:57.720 they knew we were going to gather, we put out there, I set up just a Facebook event that said,

00:09:01.740 you know, people come out and show your support for, for Johnny McDonald and, and against them

00:09:06.160 tearing down the statue and more than a hundred people showed up. Uh, and this was in Victoria of

00:09:12.420 all places, uh, early in the morning on Saturday. So, um, but of course they preempted us and,

00:09:19.000 and brought the crew in at like three in the morning, four in the morning to start actually

00:09:22.320 tearing it down. And it was a weird thing to watch, like the actual process of, you know,

00:09:27.460 they had basically a rope around his neck or a harness around his neck and they had the,

00:09:33.020 the saw or whatever they used to cut the base of the statue, uh, down. And it was a really,

00:09:38.980 it was a really like surreal thing to see, to just actually watch the uprooting and, and tearing

00:09:46.820 down of, of our history. And I mean, there's so many contradictions. Uh, there's, there's so little

00:09:53.380 contact when talking about him. I mean, without Johnny McDonald, the country doesn't even exist.

00:09:58.720 And, uh, you know, we're here in Western Canada, probably living in the United States

00:10:03.400 and there probably are almost no Aboriginals because the Americans obviously, uh, uh, were dealing

00:10:09.320 with that issue in a, in a much less, uh, sympathetic way than, than we did. So I just think like the

00:10:16.700 lack of, it's just, it was, it was really sad to see. And, um, I think though it goes to the root of

00:10:23.160 what these people on that radical left really believe, which they believe like the actual country

00:10:28.080 of Canada is, is, it was a mistake that it shouldn't exist, that it has evil, uh, origins to

00:10:36.360 it. And, um, that's something that, that I don't agree with. And I obviously the majority of Canadians

00:10:42.180 don't agree with. So I think it's worth, worth calling them out for and, and, and taking a stand

00:10:46.280 on that. Well, absolutely. And you see it in every aspect. I feel like you were witnessing like the

00:10:52.260 first iteration of it. And I've, I've noticed a shift just in the last few years with sort of

00:10:57.640 extreme left-wing voices being amplified on social media. And you definitely hear this rhetoric that

00:11:03.800 they accuse Sir John A of genocide and they, they don't even call us Canadians. They call us settlers,

00:11:12.120 uh, which is supposed to be like a derogatory term. And they don't, I don't think they even call it

00:11:18.300 Canada. Like they call it Turtle Island or they call it something else. And the, the idea of course,

00:11:24.120 is that it was like some kind of utopia or would be some kind of utopia if it weren't

00:11:27.540 for Europeans coming to, to North America. But what I don't understand about the removal

00:11:33.060 of the statue, what was it, was there a vote? Was it, was it democratically decided upon or

00:11:39.720 did you know what the origins of that were? Cause I feel like a lot of times these are just like,

00:11:44.480 you know, a petition signed by a hundred people brought to a council person. And then, you know,

00:11:49.620 they just decide and it's, it's like, there's no transparency or anything like that. Do you feel

00:11:53.280 like this was a democratic decision in Victoria or how did this come about? Well, they have, there's a,

00:11:58.800 there's a couple issues. So, so this, the decision to remove the statue came from something called the

00:12:04.320 city family, which is this weird made up committee of, uh, I think the mayor's on it,

00:12:11.280 like one or two counselors are on it. And then they have some Aboriginal representatives on it, but I,

00:12:17.100 like, I don't know who, how they picked these individuals to be on it or whatever.

00:12:20.300 And basically it's a, it's a group of left-wing people that are using it as a way to justify

00:12:25.300 decisions that they want to make and take. Um, now after they announced it, that they were going to

00:12:32.660 remove the statue, they did hold a vote on council. And I think that vote was something like six to one

00:12:39.780 with an, someone abstaining or, or something like that. But it, but there was no consultation with

00:12:45.840 the community. And the other thing you find in some of these kind of radical left-wing cities

00:12:50.380 is, uh, that statue belongs. When I say there was a vote in council and I guess Toronto is not like

00:12:56.740 this, but certain cities that Vancouver is also like this and Victoria is the worst where Victoria

00:13:01.620 proper is a very small community. It's about, I think 70,000 people of a larger, uh, urban area

00:13:08.500 of, of 350,000. So, you know, the downtown of that, of our city and that statue, uh, belongs to everyone

00:13:16.620 and the statue, because it's a piece of our history, you could argue belongs to all British

00:13:20.020 Columbians and all Canadians. And yet you have a small group of individuals and like this, the most

00:13:25.520 left-wing, uh, uh, you know, very geographically smaller in the country have this kind of mock

00:13:32.280 council vote without any consultation in the community and, uh, tear down the statue three

00:13:37.300 days later. So, um, a statue of someone who died over 120 years ago. So I think it's, uh, that's kind

00:13:45.620 of the demographic, democratic background to how it, how it all went down. But, um, so there's a,

00:13:52.400 there's a lot of, there's a lot of issues there. There's no consultation and stuff as well, but also

00:13:56.340 the fact that these historical monuments aren't being protected by, uh, the province or, or the,

00:14:03.120 uh, the country, the federal government, uh, even as well, I think is an issue. And also just the fact

00:14:08.660 on amalgamated cities, you can get, there's some benefits to them, but you, the, the downside is you

00:14:13.360 get these really radical cores that usually pass all these ridiculous laws that, uh, that end up

00:14:18.680 affecting everybody. Right. Because all the sort of more normal people live in the suburbs and they're

00:14:25.100 the ones that have their own city councils and they have to deal with the madness of the,

00:14:29.820 of the left wing inner city or city crowd. So what did they, it's kind of funny that you say

00:14:36.360 there's no greater authority to pregnant. It kind of reminds me of like the idea behind UNESCO,

00:14:40.940 which is like world heritage sites. And the idea is that there are certain natural geographic sites

00:14:46.260 and, and, and human history sites that are so important that you can't trust local governments

00:14:51.460 to preserve. And so you had to have this international body and like the examples of

00:14:56.360 how, why it was founded was like to protect the pyramids and, and, and things that kind of go

00:15:00.420 greater than just like a national government. And it's almost like, man, we need, we need UNESCO to

00:15:05.400 step in here to protect Canada's cultural history from the woke, the madness. So did they replace the

00:15:11.620 John A. McDonald statue with something else or is it just a, a decapitated, uh, mass of a statue?

00:15:18.200 Oh, I think they have a little plaque there or something, uh, talking about how there was a

00:15:22.840 John A. McDonald statue there. And the last that I've heard is that it's still in a warehouse

00:15:26.780 somewhere. I've had a couple city officials reach out to me, uh, with the whereabouts of it. And

00:15:33.560 I think they just keep kind of punting the decision down the road of what to do with this thing.

00:15:37.900 Um, I, I, I bet they're going to probably bury it somewhere in the back of a museum or something

00:15:44.520 like that. And it's just so, I mean, what, like, how do you form a consensus in society if we can't

00:15:50.640 even agree that like the founder of the country who was the first prime minister, one of the longest

00:15:56.000 serving prime ministers considered by, uh, historians who I think, you know, all the polls

00:16:02.120 of historians who I think also in general tend to lean to the left. One of the, if not the greatest,

00:16:07.040 one of the three greatest prime ministers in Canada's history, uh, across the board. And we

00:16:12.160 can't even agree to have a, have a statue of, of him up. And the amount of amazing things that he did

00:16:17.000 is, is really a very, for anyone who's listening, who hasn't read like Johnny McDonald's, uh,

00:16:21.780 biography, uh, there's a couple of really good ones out there. And it's, he's a really, really

00:16:26.280 incredible, uh, incredible person, basically single-handedly put this country together that

00:16:31.200 you would have at the time you had, you know, half of it was Catholic and French and,

00:16:35.780 and English and Protestant. Then you had a couple of provinces over here, the British Columbia was

00:16:39.820 on the other side of a continent, almost nothing in between, uh, you know, a country to the south

00:16:44.280 that was, that was 10 times bigger and, uh, you know, had a massive army at the time, the civil war

00:16:51.340 was going on. It was amazing how they pieced the country together. So it just, uh, makes that much

00:16:57.440 more, um, kind of depressing to watch what's, what's been happening.

00:17:02.320 Even just the idea of Canada as a country, I mean, it seems like inevitable to us now, but

00:17:07.500 obviously at the time, you know, like you mentioned, there's so many different, uh, groups of people,

00:17:12.640 ethnic kind of backgrounds, and, and it wasn't really an idea, a concept at the time that you

00:17:17.280 would have a pluralistic society, a society made up of different ethnic groups and language groups,

00:17:22.760 because at that point, you know, every, every nation was, every state was like a nation of

00:17:27.720 people, a family, a tribe of people. And, and he had this vision and, and you're right, the civil war

00:17:32.400 was going on in the United States. He, he, he came to the table, um, of Confederation with a copy of

00:17:38.320 the Federalist Papers, which was the sort of brilliant papers crafted by the founders in their ongoing

00:17:43.360 debates that they were having about how to build a perfect nation or, or build a nation based on

00:17:49.560 ideals towards preserving individual liberty. And Sir John A. Macdonald took those basic ideas and said,

00:17:55.960 you know, unfortunately, look at where America is going. They're, they're killing themselves and killing

00:18:00.120 each other in droves, and we want to avoid that. So he took lessons from that. And, and really was a

00:18:07.000 tremendous experiment in nation building and, and, and creating a country. And, you know, to your point that

00:18:13.560 they removed the statute, nothing's there, and they put up a plaque, you know, they could have still put up a

00:18:19.020 plaque. They could have left the statue and said, you know, these are all the amazing things that Sir

00:18:23.500 John A. Macdonald accomplished. You know, like men of his time, he held beliefs that today we find to

00:18:29.940 be distasteful or despicable or liberal and include that. And then, and then, and then maybe put up

00:18:35.580 another statue of, of an Aboriginal hero or Indigenous hero, um, that, that, that, that tells a different

00:18:41.640 story. But the idea would be that you would contribute to public knowledge of history and, and sort of

00:18:48.100 common ideals of unity, as opposed to just tearing it down and saying, we don't, we don't believe in

00:18:55.580 this anymore. How did the, how did the local media cover this? Was it, was this seen as like a huge

00:19:01.520 controversy and an outrage? Or, or was media sort of complicit in, in this erasing of history?

00:19:08.580 I would say the media, uh, the local media here was, well, well, first of all, I'd say, I think the

00:19:14.780 media landscape has gotten a lot worse, even though this was only about two years ago, but, uh, the

00:19:20.180 media here did push back quite a bit. It was, there was a couple of really good, uh, there's a local

00:19:25.180 radio host, Adam Sterling, who was, who was all over them for it on the local rate. I mean, there's not

00:19:29.880 that much local media here in fairness. And, uh, but I mean, it was a huge story. Like, I mean, the,

00:19:35.940 the letters to the editor and the, in the, the times columnist caught a columnist here was, I mean,

00:19:41.440 that's the name of the paper at the times columnist. I mean, what else is just another good

00:19:45.080 example. I mean, so, so, so there was a decent amount of pushback that almost everyone I talked

00:19:49.940 to, uh, thought it was kind of outrageous and, and ridiculous. But, uh, again, a lot of the,

00:19:56.780 the rational, uh, what we might call normal people are out in suburbs or everywhere, but living

00:20:01.980 downtown. And, um, so it was, it was, it was really sad to see it happen, but yeah, it was,

00:20:10.620 it was, there wasn't a lot of groups that were other than the radical left that, that were

00:20:14.920 proponents of this. And like you said, with reconciliation, like there's, there's no way

00:20:19.060 you can make the argument that this somehow brought people together. Like it did not bring people

00:20:23.040 together at all. And these continued actions are bringing people together. And, uh, the, the point

00:20:27.840 you make about like a plaque or, or, uh, putting up other statues that I think the point is, is that

00:20:33.820 they're not actually interested in telling the full story. They're interested in erasing the past and

00:20:39.560 painting a narrative that didn't exist. Like Johnny McDonald, uh, number one, like you said,

00:20:44.200 the context of the time was a lot different than now. And people have views that, uh, aren't

00:20:49.040 acceptable today, but even at the time, Johnny McDonald, there's this incredible, uh, exchange

00:20:55.160 in the, in the house of commons where he's getting attacked for providing aid to, uh, first nations,

00:21:02.240 uh, on the prairies who were basically starving to death. And he was getting attacked for doing

00:21:07.760 that by the opposition liberals at the time, uh, which goes to show you. And part of that

00:21:12.240 was also just the fact that, you know, this is before any government programs even existed.

00:21:16.920 There's, you know, there's no, there's no welfare, uh, programs at this time or anything

00:21:21.500 like that. So, and I mean, the average family in the 1800s is just trying to put food on the

00:21:26.660 table and, and basically make it through life without dying before they were 40. So I think

00:21:31.240 like people just don't understand the context of, of the time, but by all accounts, uh, Johnny

00:21:37.720 McDonald was like a moderate, uh, progressive figure from social, uh, from a social perspective

00:21:43.200 while he was prime minister, which to me makes it even more outrageous that they're attacking

00:21:47.960 him. But I mean, just be like, they're attacking Winston Churchill now, which I, I'm sure you saw

00:21:53.820 in the UK and, uh, you know, they just, they just defaced the captain Vancouver statue in Vancouver.

00:22:01.780 And he's considered to have like the best relations of almost any explorer with the indigenous

00:22:06.980 communities, uh, got on great with them while he was mapping the, you know, the coast, uh,

00:22:12.020 the West coast of North America. And yet they're still attacking him just because, you know,

00:22:16.060 he's a figure of history. He represents, uh, you know, you know, great Britain or, or Canada.

00:22:22.280 And that's the real reason why they're going after him. It's not any of the loose connections

00:22:26.860 to these average. It's just the fact that Johnny McDonald is synonymous with Canada. He created

00:22:32.120 the country and they hate Canada. So they have to tear him down. So it's, it's, um, it's, it's just

00:22:40.160 really, it's really sad to see. And, uh, I think a big problem is too, is I'm really worried for

00:22:45.860 the people under 30 now, because there just seems to be a real lack of, you know, they don't know

00:22:51.140 anything about Canadian history. So all they hear, if all they hear is, you know, Johnny

00:22:55.400 McDonald was this really bad racist dude, then that's what they think. And then that's what

00:23:00.120 they're going off of. And they, and they don't know anything else. They don't know all the

00:23:03.100 other great things that he did. And, uh, they're not, they don't understand how everything's

00:23:07.740 being taken out of context.

00:23:09.980 Well, yeah, you're right, because it's not like, uh, Canadian schools are known as bastions

00:23:15.580 of, you know, preserving history and tradition. I mean, who knows what students are being taught

00:23:21.180 nowadays. And you're right without that connection to our past, like, what is it that, that really

00:23:27.180 holds us together? Well, I, I hope that there's a, uh, sort of stealth movement to liberate the

00:23:32.840 Sir John A. statue from whatever warehouse they're holding it in. And maybe some other community

00:23:37.220 that has a, a common sense, uh, council, or maybe some other province can, can liberate that

00:23:43.420 statue and, and resurrect it, uh, somewhere where people will respect it. But so, so this

00:23:49.420 was all happening almost two years ago, Erin. And I feel like you did kind of get a sneak

00:23:53.280 peek into the culture wars that have really just blown up and exploded. And you were definitely

00:23:57.920 mentioning a bunch of examples, uh, you know, even, even the statue of Queen Victoria in, in

00:24:04.360 Leeds, uh, England was completely, uh, marked up and disgraced and she was called a racist. 0.72

00:24:10.140 But of course she was the queen when, when slavery was abolished in the, in the British 0.81

00:24:14.720 empire, she oversaw that. And, and that was after a hundred years of sort of activism on

00:24:19.120 behalf of the British government to abolish it. So it seems like the facts of the matter

00:24:23.580 don't really, it's irrelevant. Uh, that's not the goal of these protesters. So what, what,

00:24:29.660 what do you make of the latest rounds? I think most people were in agreement. I think almost

00:24:33.840 everyone was in agreement that police brutality is awful, that what happened to George Floyd was

00:24:38.580 an absolute travesty and that the police officers involved should be charged. Um, particularly the,

00:24:43.280 the one police officer who had his knee on the man's neck. Um, but they, the, the, the protest

00:24:48.140 quickly morphed into something else. And first they morphed into violence and riots. And now they've

00:24:53.580 sort of morphed into this broader movement. And of course it's inflicted us here in Canada where,

00:24:58.840 you know, we, we just have to, you know, admit that Canada is this horrible racist country.

00:25:04.320 And if you don't, you could lose your job and you could lose your livelihood and you could get,

00:25:08.620 have your reputation destroyed. So what, what, what do you make of this sort of latest iteration of

00:25:13.320 these, of the same sort of culture war? And, uh, you know, what, what, what do you think we can do

00:25:19.340 to combat it? Well, I think, uh, like you said, there's a small group of individuals who are used,

00:25:29.360 who are almost taking advantage of the fact that of course, everybody is against racism.

00:25:35.520 Everybody is against police brutality. That's the weirdest thing about this whole,

00:25:38.960 whole movement is usually when you have this social change or, or political movement, uh,

00:25:45.340 it's trying to achieve something or, but everybody already agrees. Like everybody's in agreement on

00:25:50.180 these, on these points. And, uh, but what they're trying to use, like I, to me, it's trying to

00:25:56.160 manufacture a big, a big lie, um, and, and turn Canada into like we're apartheid South Africa, 0.55

00:26:03.660 and then use it as a way to justify, uh, various programs or defunding the police to kind of remake

00:26:10.360 society in their, in their, you know, uh, perceived, uh, iteration of a true utopia. So, um, yeah, I,

00:26:18.900 there's, it's not even, if you look at some of these groups, it's not even hidden that a lot of the

00:26:23.400 people behind it are, are Marxists or from Marxist backgrounds. And that's clearly where the push

00:26:28.420 is coming from. And to be honest, I'm sure you can, uh, understand this as well. If we both have

00:26:34.400 backgrounds in advocacy, but there are certain groups that are making millions and millions of

00:26:39.000 dollars off of, off of this, uh, publicity and protests and stuff like that. They're using the

00:26:44.680 funnel into their other, uh, political objectives. So, I mean, that's obviously what's happening and

00:26:49.540 it's sad, but what, what, uh, and then as far as how to combat it, I think, uh, the best thing to do

00:26:56.360 is, is people, whether it's someone like me with my videos over social media, or it's, it's, uh, you

00:27:03.100 guys at true North is basically speaking the truth wherever possible. And the, the, the scariest thing

00:27:08.620 for me is, is that I feel like, and I've had this conversation with multiple people lately,

00:27:13.920 is that speaking the truth is becoming harder and more dangerous to do. Uh, you, you pointed

00:27:20.420 out, like you can get fired from your job. Uh, you're not even speaking that you're just

00:27:25.560 speaking with an open mind. Even if you misspeak and apologize for it after, uh, you can be,

00:27:30.380 you know, saw what happened with Stockwell today. So I think it's, um, yeah, I think, I think

00:27:36.780 that's the part that actually concerns me the most is, is kind of the free speech dimension to

00:27:41.340 it and the mob mentality and that we have to shut everybody down. You saw with, with Rex

00:27:47.060 Murphy and the national post. Um, I'm sure you saw that. So I, I think all these, that's

00:27:52.760 actually the most worrisome aspect of it, uh, to me and, um, the, the inability of our society

00:27:59.640 to, to, to tolerate, uh, posing views when it comes to this, this issue. And although maybe

00:28:05.260 I wouldn't actually say society, cause I, I feel like I've had this conversation with lots

00:28:08.840 of people across the political spectrum and they're reasonable. They get it. They're okay

00:28:12.900 with having the conversation, but it's the media that just loses their mind. And, uh,

00:28:19.140 like if you have, if you're employed by one of these, these mainstream groups, like you,

00:28:23.500 what, you know, for your own livelihood, you have to keep your mouth shut or you're going

00:28:26.860 to be, you're going to be canned sooner rather than later. If you're not 100% all the time

00:28:32.080 speaking verbatim from like the woke liberal handbook. So I think that's, that's, I think

00:28:38.080 that's very concerning. Um, and, uh, thank God for the internet because at least there's

00:28:42.860 a way to nowadays to, to go around them.

00:28:46.740 Uh, well, absolutely. And you're right that the media really amplifies it. Like I just noticed

00:28:51.740 sort of in my daily news scan or, you know, going on Apple news, they always, uh, there were 1.00

00:28:57.540 always stories highlighted of like the one or two stupid people that do something that 0.99

00:29:02.680 like opposes the mainstream. Like, you know, here's this crazy guy that wore black face to 1.00

00:29:08.400 a black lives matter protest. And like, kind of as if that's like representative of, of, 0.91

00:29:12.860 of like what's happening out there in the country when it really is just like one really, you

00:29:18.140 know, deranged example, that's not accepted by, by the mainstream, but they really want to

00:29:23.200 highlight the like few sort of deranged people out there that are fighting against.

00:29:27.540 Uh, the mob, you talked about Rex Murphy and I kind of want to just go into that in a little

00:29:33.060 bit more detail because I find that what happened over at the national post to just be sort of

00:29:38.540 astonishing, uh, especially because national posts of course is supposed to be the sort

00:29:43.720 of conservative alternative newspaper, um, to the other sort of establishment, you know,

00:29:49.000 Toronto star globe and mail. And the idea that Rex Murphy's column was somehow controversial.

00:29:54.340 I mean, I've read it so many times now, sort of trying to understand what it was that really

00:29:59.760 triggered this response from the sort of left wing, I guess, group of people that are actually

00:30:06.040 working at post media, um, that working at, at the national posts that, that were, you know,

00:30:11.220 so horrified by this column where it really just says, you know, Canada is a great country

00:30:15.400 and we're not defined by racism. We should be careful of our rhetoric and be careful not to

00:30:20.040 import rhetoric from the United States, just given that the countries are so different in

00:30:23.840 their histories and their sort of political cultures. And, and somehow this was just like

00:30:28.840 seen as a total outrage. I think most Canadians, particularly most people watching this podcast

00:30:35.060 would fall into agreement with Rex Murphy and just be like, kind of, you know, this is obvious,

00:30:39.420 but at the time, even where you have a national post, a conservative paper, pushing this idea

00:30:44.540 that Canada is this sort of broken racist society that we'll, that we have our own demons and that,

00:30:51.560 you know, and, and even Rex said in his column, bigotry exists, racism exists in, in every country

00:30:58.880 and it exists in Canada. But, but, but, but Rex's point was that Canada is not, is not defined by this.

00:31:05.580 It's not an overwhelming feature of, of our daily life in Canada. Um, so, so you responded pretty

00:31:11.040 strongly to this. You, you sent out a tweet that said that it was outright embarrassing to watch

00:31:15.560 the national post cave to the far left mob. Consider canceling your subscription and supporting

00:31:19.780 one of Canada's many other right of center news outlets. Well, the problem is that there aren't

00:31:24.100 really any other right of center news outlets. I mean, post media owns the sun newspapers,

00:31:28.080 which are the sort of other sort of conservative populist newspaper. So as far as the mainstream media

00:31:33.580 goes, I mean, where, where, where can people turn or do they have to turn to the internet? And,

00:31:39.420 and what, what do you just, what do you make of the culture that over there at the national

00:31:42.700 post that this all happened? I mean, well, as, as, first of all, as far as the other outlets,

00:31:48.820 I think, I mean, everything's moving to the internet eventually. I think I'm sure even the CBC gets a

00:31:54.120 large portion of their traffic and viewership on online now. So I think, you know, obviously there's

00:31:59.600 groups like true North and the post millennial and, and, uh, others out there that are, that are

00:32:05.620 working to fill that void. And I think that's what it is, a void. And, uh, look, the national

00:32:10.300 post still has a lot of good calmness, obviously. Uh, but it's, but as far as what happened at the

00:32:17.100 national post, I mean, it, it completely blows my mind. I don't, I don't understand. I don't have

00:32:23.720 a lot of background in like print, print media. I know you have a lot more experience than I do

00:32:28.600 there. So I'm not sure how you become the kind of right of center paper of a record and then have a,

00:32:36.840 having like that opinion that Rex Murphy, like I read it like many days before this all happened.

00:32:43.280 And when the outrage happened and like the partial retraction, I had to go back and re re read it

00:32:48.120 because I was like, did I miss something when I read this? And you got to think that like 80 to 90%

00:32:53.240 of conservatives would agree with what Rex Murphy was saying and I'm guaranteed a majority of the

00:32:59.160 national post readership. So why are you hiring people that are not in alignment with your readership

00:33:06.600 and the majority of people that should be interested in your paper and your audience?

00:33:11.380 And that's something that, I mean, that's probably a much larger discussion. I don't, I don't know if

00:33:16.540 it's the, the, the, the, the journalism programs at universities or, or like, is it really this hard

00:33:23.600 to have a newsroom hired full of, of, uh, not even conservatives and open-minded people. And

00:33:29.780 look, you can, you can have, uh, I think national post ran another op-ed from somebody else that was

00:33:34.700 completely attacking everything Rex Murphy said. I think that's fine. That isn't that the point of

00:33:39.000 having competing ideas and, and, uh, this kind of balance. So it just, it just blows my mind that,

00:33:45.360 uh, it's like, you have to apologize for having a conservative opinion. So it was like, sorry,

00:33:50.800 we accidentally ran a conservative op-ed in a, in a right of center newspaper, our apologies. Like

00:33:57.580 that's, that's basically how I read the retraction and it just is, it's just amazing to me. And one

00:34:03.080 of the really disappointing things from my perspective about the Canadian media landscape,

00:34:07.320 but that's, uh, unfortunately I think it's probably going to get worse before it gets better.

00:34:11.540 So what was just all the more reason to have groups like true North and post-millennial,

00:34:16.980 and I'm doing my videos over, over whatever network. Well, it, you know, it's, it's kind of

00:34:21.880 like, you know, that they're humiliated and embarrassed that, that, that they're conservative

00:34:26.820 and they're, and they're having to like apologize for the fact that they're supposed to be conservative.

00:34:30.920 And even the, you know, rebuttal op-ed that they ran, I found that that op-ed was far worse

00:34:37.420 than anything that Rex said in his column, because the argument that the, the young woman writing it 0.75

00:34:41.600 was what she made was basically that Rex has no business writing about this issue because he's

00:34:49.340 a 73 year old white guy. So basically because of his identity and his skin color, he's not allowed 1.00

00:34:56.340 to talk about an issue. And, and she even called in her piece, um, saying that Rex should not have a

00:35:01.280 national platform. So, so her, her rebuttal wasn't really about the merits of his piece,

00:35:07.420 but more so just saying that he shouldn't have a platform because his opinion is, is, is counter to

00:35:13.500 what she had to say. It's interesting because there was a big, uh, sort of spat over at the New York

00:35:18.340 Times, uh, over something similar. There was an op-ed ran by, run by a conservative Senator,

00:35:24.220 Tom Cotton, who basically said, you know, it's time to call in the national guard to break up these

00:35:29.900 riots. And a whole bunch of staffers at New York Times just sort of, you know, published this

00:35:35.740 letter. And they, they were all tweeting about how the, the, the op-ed apparently put black lives at

00:35:41.920 risk at the New York Times. And, and, and they had this whole kind of issue blow up, but you know,

00:35:47.200 the New York Times is a, is a left-wing newspaper and everyone knows that it's a liberal newspaper.

00:35:50.980 So you kind of expect there to be a battle between the left and the far left happening at New York

00:35:55.540 Times. But, but why is there a battle happening between the left and the far left at the

00:35:59.800 National Post, which is the conservative newspaper? It's, um, kind of sad, although I, I guess I

00:36:05.520 wouldn't say left and the far left, I would say centrists who pretend to be conservatives and the

00:36:11.060 far left. That's sort of the, uh, where the battle lines are drawn over there. Well, it's not just,

00:36:15.980 uh, Rex Murphy, you know, we've seen in, in, in, you know, over, over the course of this whole,

00:36:20.880 uh, feud, lots of people get canceled. Stockwell Day, um, Wendy Mesley, Jessica Mulroney.

00:36:27.980 There's been so many people in Canada who have, have sort of had their platforms taken away from

00:36:33.260 them over really sort of obscure, I would say things that have happened. I don't remember this

00:36:40.400 stuff happening a couple of years ago, Aaron, do you, where did, where did cancel culture come from

00:36:44.780 and what can we do to combat it? I mean, it's, it's the number one thing probably that concerns me

00:36:50.700 right now, right now about the history of our society broadly. But I mean, in, I think it's

00:36:57.940 just like the, this radical left, I mean, they, uh, they tried to do it to me actually on a recent

00:37:04.000 video, but you can't really, can't really cancel me. But the, the, I think what they do is they have

00:37:09.200 this, this small group, uh, relatively small group of a country of 37 million that are hyper

00:37:15.760 committed that are just like, we'll do whatever the leader kind of tells them to do. And they just

00:37:20.820 go after people or, or they go at corporations and, uh, the media, they basically have the media

00:37:28.100 in their back pocket. And a lot of these corporations basically are just, are making

00:37:33.500 short-term financial decisions when they're weighing, getting rid of somebody or a bunch

00:37:37.920 of negative publicity for a short period of time. Uh, there's no doubt to me that like,

00:37:42.700 like tell us could have wrote, wrote this out if they wanted to, like before they fired Stockwell

00:37:46.980 Day. Um, and they would have been fine. It's not like there's going to be a bunch of customers

00:37:51.460 and like, it's not going to show up on their bottom line. So I think, I think they're a bit

00:37:55.860 of a paper tiger, but it's just their ability to the ability of this like radical left mob,

00:38:01.740 uh, because they they're very organized and they're very committed to control the media narrative

00:38:07.640 at any point of time, just set up a protest outside of any company's headquarters at

00:38:12.600 anytime, anywhere and get the media to cover it and call them racist or call them sexist

00:38:18.380 or whatever. Uh, that is giving them a great amount of influence. And I'm not really sure

00:38:24.740 what the solution is other than obviously broadening the media landscape as much as possible.

00:38:31.600 And honestly, like certain corporations are just really risk adverse and, um, they're bounding

00:38:38.640 to the demands of these small radical minority, which I think is really, really bad for, for,

00:38:43.560 um, for, uh, Canadian culture. But I mean, what's going on, like the national post is really

00:38:49.740 in some ways the most disappointing place because that should be a, you know, a place where conservatives

00:38:56.200 and libertarians should be comfortable to speak their opinions about conservative and libertarian

00:39:00.980 issues. That should not be a place, uh, where they have to really be worried about the,

00:39:05.560 the backlash, uh, as it were. So yeah, I'm, I mean, I'm, I'm super concerned about it.

00:39:14.940 So you, sorry, you, you mentioned a minute ago that you were almost the subject of, of

00:39:19.820 one of these cancel culture mobs. So I want to hear more about that. And I'll just add,

00:39:24.320 that's a great thing about owning your own platform and, and, and not having to worry about,

00:39:28.280 you know, getting fired or whatever, because you, on the internet, you can, anyone can have a,

00:39:34.000 a YouTube page and, you know, you, you built up your following over a number of years. So

00:39:38.200 it's, it's not that easy, but still the fact that they're trying, uh, is, is, is, is really

00:39:44.320 concerning. Why don't you tell us a little bit about what happened? Well, in my case, it was, uh,

00:39:49.700 it was a interesting couple of days last week. So I did a video that was, uh, unique. It was about a

00:39:57.600 three minute long video, but similar to Rex Murphy's column, which basically said, uh, racism exists in

00:40:05.500 Canada. Uh, it's terrible. It should be, uh, it should be, everything should be done to basically,

00:40:12.720 uh, to, to drown it out and to, uh, disown it. But that Canada is not a fundamentally racist country.

00:40:19.420 World they're successful, regardless of the origins, uh, where they come from. And, uh, in particular,

00:40:26.940 police aren't going around shooting people based on the color of their skin. And that's kind of the

00:40:32.420 high level summary. And I put that video out over, uh, all my different channels and, uh, there wasn't,

00:40:38.780 I mean, there's the normal, you know, you get the dialogue in the comment section, as I'm sure you're

00:40:42.900 aware, but the 98% of my followers were on Facebook. So Facebook's, it's a really big platform

00:40:48.600 for me. Instagram is much smaller and has, you know, maybe a thousand of my personal friends and

00:40:55.620 1500 other followers. And what happens is I put it on there. And for the first day or so, it was,

00:41:01.080 you know, you get a bunch of comments and likes and things like that. Uh, and then someone from

00:41:05.720 black lives matter, Victoria stumbled across the video or something, and then started posting all 0.98

00:41:12.600 of these comments. Then they put it in their story and sent it to like the black light. And of course I

00:41:17.500 can see all this because they're taking my account in this and told everyone to go and comment

00:41:22.320 and to report the account to Facebook and get this person canceled and send it to a bunch of the,

00:41:28.520 the black lives matter people in Vancouver and Toronto. So all of a sudden I woke up one day and I had

00:41:33.860 like 200 notifications or 200 comments on one Instagram video, which is not the main platform.

00:41:40.540 And, uh, you know, and they're even talking about, cause I can watch their stories and they're telling

00:41:44.680 people to go to my account, find out who follows me and then message people that follow me, telling them

00:41:51.680 that I'm a racist and that you should be embarrassed and ashamed. And, uh, even, well, I shouldn't tell

00:41:57.900 this one. Well, I'll say, you'll probably know who I'm talking about, but I can't say it explicitly.

00:42:02.760 There's even one instance of somebody emailing somebody who follows me, who I know who I'm friends

00:42:08.560 with and emailing their work to tell them that so-and-so is associated with a white supremacist and they

00:42:18.020 should be fired. Not even for, not even for me, if somebody who's friends with me should be fired

00:42:22.600 and just spreading all this, uh, defamatory, uh, garbage basically. Um, so I just, I mean, I,

00:42:29.720 I just weathered it out and it was, it's, uh, life goes on, but it was, uh, it was an intro,

00:42:34.680 it was clearly the reason I brought it up because it was a clearly a concerted effort. And if I had had,

00:42:40.160 say six months ago, I had got on a panel on the CBC or CTV or whatever, and I was doing something

00:42:48.040 once a week, 100%, uh, everything else equal, these people would have targeted the media and the media

00:42:54.060 probably would have, uh, you know, gassed me, uh, immediately. So as much to their, uh, uh, they weren't

00:43:03.640 happy about the fact that they weren't really able to do anything because I got my own, own platform

00:43:07.940 or I'm working with like-minded groups, but it's, uh, to me, just like the, the intensity of their,

00:43:13.900 um, resolve to destroy people's lives who disagree with them is, is very scary. And it should,

00:43:22.480 it should scare people. Uh, I think, because it's not, it's not, it's not in the spirit of,

00:43:28.300 of Canada and kind of freedom of speech and freedom of expression and, and all these kinds of things.

00:43:37.940 So,

00:43:42.420 uh,

00:43:50.040 you

00:43:50.620 we gonna, uh,

00:43:54.800 go.

00:43:55.520 We gonna say,

00:43:57.980 you

00:43:59.980 go.

Juno News - July 16, 2020

Defending history against the woke mob (Part 1)

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