Juno News - November 10, 2021Don’t let the Woke Left ruin Remembrance Day
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Summary
Candice Malan and Mark Milkey discuss why the Woke Left is trying to ruin Canada Day, and how we can fight back against them. Candice is a public policy analyst, columnist, and author. Mark is a keynote speaker and author of six books, including The Victim Cult.
Transcript
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The woke left tried their very hardest to ruin and to cancel Canada Day this year.
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I'm Candice Malcolm and this is the Candice Malcolm Show.
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Hi, thank you so much for tuning into the program.
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Now, if you have been following the news, if you've been following our reports at True North,
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you know about the controversy when it comes to the flag.
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The flag was lowered to be taken down to half-mast at the end of May.
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May, so we're talking about six months ago, Justin Trudeau, the Prime Minister of Canada,
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said, let's lower the flags in commemoration at the time we just learned about an apparent
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discovery of unmarked graves at a residential school near Kamloops, British Columbia.
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So the band leader came out, said that they had evidence and proof of unmarked graves of
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children who had attended the residential schools.
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As you know, it created an incredible media backlash.
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Several other bands came forward with their own claims of unmarked graves.
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There was this great shame cast over all Canadians and these really, really wild accusations that
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Canada was a genocidal state that the residential schools were not aimed at with the intention
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of educating people and lifting them out of poverty.
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But the intention of those residential schools was simply to kill everybody.
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That's basically the accusation that has been leveled against Canada by the woke left.
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And Justin Trudeau just sort of shrugged and said, let's just lower these flags down to
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This is totally unprecedented, totally unprecedented for the flags to be lowered down in commemoration
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of a historical event and also to remain lowered for this long.
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So more and more people were calling for those flags to go up.
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They finally did go up, mostly just so that they could go down again on Remembrance Day.
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We're saying, look, some really bad things happened in the past.
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Residential schools were a horrible abuse of power and a terrible program that has gone
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However, I don't think that the intent of it was to kill people.
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Unfortunately, you know, this one-size-fits-all policy where they took children out of their
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homes and forced them into residential school, bad idea.
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OK, so because of this, because of the sort of discovery and this sort of public awakening
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that we've had when it comes to the woke left demanding that every Canadian can see
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to this point that we committed genocide, that Canadians are genocidal, that our country
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is built on this horrible legacy, that we're all white supremacists, that we have to
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decolonize our country, that they did their best to try to ruin our country's national
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As you recall, there were huge efforts to cancel Canada Day, and it worked, and it worked.
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Some politicians were just so afraid to speak back against the mob, to tell them what they're
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They canceled their own ceremonies, that they tried to equate all of Canada's history to
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this one program that was a failed program, and because of it, we just didn't get to
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I mean, let me just say that most Canadians ignored that.
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Most Canadians still went out and enjoyed their freedom and celebrated with fireworks and
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with friends and drinks and all the things that we love to do on July 1st on Dominion
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But there was that movement, and there was sort of an ugly shadow that was hanging over,
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Well, we sort of have the same moment now with Remembrance Day, where for some reason,
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instead of the whole country coming together to honor the good parts of our history, to
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honor the people who sacrificed for our freedom, some of the great accomplishments that Canada
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has had on a military front to keep the entire world safe, instead of talking about that,
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the same shame is sort of looming over us once again.
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The same woke forces are trying to cancel Canada Day.
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And so I wanted to bring on a guest today on the program to help us understand this phenomenon
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and really how we can push back and fight against it.
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Dr. Mark Milkey is a public policy analyst, keynote speaker, author, columnist, and an author
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His most recent book is called The Victim Cult.
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So Mark, thank you so much for joining us today.
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This is a time where Canadians usually reflect upon our history, where we honor those who have
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sacrificed for a country, but then there is this sort of looming, you know, guilt that
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Canadians are meant to feel about some of the revelations about our history, some of
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Do you think Canadians have reason to be proud?
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And, you know, how can we push back against some of the naysayers who say that we should
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just sort of feel this eternal guilt about being Canadian?
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And I think the core problem in what you're seeing today, this notion that we can't celebrate
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I mean, I read about this in the victim cult, but if you look at the past, the last century
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rather, the ideologues and the utopians were at least looking forward, right?
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I mean, Marxists were dead wrong in economics, but they thought they could create this new
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And now we're beset by ideologues and utopians who look past, to the past, and wonder why it
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Well, because you live in an imperfect planet with imperfect people.
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So the notion that we can't celebrate Canada is compared to what?
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Compared to a utopia of one's imagination of the past or the present or the future?
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First Nations in Canada who, you know, let me be blunt.
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I mean, look, everyone should be remembered fondly for their service to Canada and their
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But there was really no people group in the history of the planet, for the most part, that
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wasn't involved in, for example, slavery, including in British Columbia and including
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before, you know, what people like to call settlers.
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You know, most of us and most of our ancestors came.
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People somehow weirdly expect that history and those in it should have been perfect.
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Well, there's this weird moment, Mark, where we're supposed to really carefully reflect
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upon, you know, Canadian history and all of the wrongs that have been done by Canadians.
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But to your point, you know, the history of the sort of pre-European history in North
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America is really largely undiscussed and undiscovered.
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I remember you wrote an interesting piece not too long ago, I think it was in the Orca,
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where you talked about how prior to Europeans, you know, the idea that First Nations were
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peaceful and loving is totally wrong, that they were quite cruel and barbaric in some
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And like you mentioned, the history of slavery is really something that people don't know
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What I've noticed recently is that we can't even really discuss the history of migration
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when it comes to First Nations people, because when I was in school, we were taught that people
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Maybe it was prior to an ice age, but still, you know, maybe thousands of years ago, maybe
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But it seems now that there's this weird notion where none of this history is even discussed.
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So why is it that some history is so important to dissect and look through and revisit, whereas
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other history is completely brushed over and forgotten?
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So whenever politics gets into history, it's no longer honest history.
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Look, you know, if I came from a culture that had been recently abused, my ancestors have
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been abused, and again, everyone's has, if you go back far enough, I'd probably be sensitive
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But I think the problem is no one owns the past, no one owns history, no one owns even
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The question is, how do you get to a better spot today, which is, you know, where I like
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But I think you also have to start in honesty in the past.
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So yes, I think, obviously, you know, if I was an Indigenous Canadian, I'd be pretty
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upset that, you know, the vote was removed, it wasn't restored until 1960.
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But I think part of what we're facing today is this weird dynamic where social media can
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And there are all sorts of past tragedies that can be amplified.
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But if you think pre-social media, and let's go back to the 1970s, you know, I don't know
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if you were around, but, you know, I was a kid, but, or the 1980s, or in the early 1990s,
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You would have to have, say, major newspapers or news hour broadcasts at 6pm, say in the
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United States, the big three, pound on a story again and again and again to make it, you
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know, really, you know, give it life day after day, like the Watergate hearings, right?
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Weirdly now, there was social media that we can extract an event out of the past.
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And again, there's no shortage of tragedies and say, well, this, this is the reason I am
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the way I am today, or my group is the way I am today.
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But I think there's, there's some of that happening today as well.
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I don't know if I fully answered your question, but I mean, that's, that's part of the dynamic,
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And we have to think carefully about really dragging the past out to beat up the present.
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And, and, and to the point that you make in the victim cult is that it's not helpful.
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I mean, to people who come from a group that has been marginalized or that have been victimized,
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you know, it's, it's good to acknowledge that, but does it really help them move on?
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You know, you're thinking of some of these new concepts, these new woke concepts that
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we hear about like white privilege, uh, the sort of idea that is underground is that, uh,
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And, and, and, and that's a very dangerous message to be putting out in society because
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it, it can give people of all different backgrounds, a really bad, uh, idea of what the real world
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You know, if you're, if you're not white, you might think, oh, no matter how hard I try,
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And if you are white, you might think, oh, I'm going to coast through life and everything's
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And so a part, part of it is like, how do we, how do we come together as a country and
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make sure that there is equal opportunity and that all people are treated fairly now and
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make sure that people who are still in poverty, people who live in some of these really remote
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reserves have the opportunities that they should have in a country like Canada.
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Mark, how do we, how do we make our country better amidst this whole sort of, um, woke
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left, uh, guilt trip that we're in the middle of?
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Well, I think you're, you're onto something and, and what you mentioned earlier about remembering
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Uh, so again, I look, I'm fully in favor of remembering history, you know, all of it,
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Um, but I think part of it is again, reminding people that first of all, no one's ancestors
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Um, you know, uh, you go back far enough and everybody's got a black sheep in the family,
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their ancestral or ethnic or national tree, but also, um, you know, remembering the good
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parts of history, like it's not as black and white as people think when one of the articles,
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I think you, well, you referenced it a moment ago that I wrote a few months ago in the Oracle,
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And I came across this, this book about the history of, uh, black Canadians written in the
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It actually talked about, for example, there was a migration in the late 1850s, early 1960s
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And they were actually warmly accepted by the local Anglican church, by the local governor
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Um, and they wrote back to their, you know, uh, to, to other, you know, friends and relatives
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in California saying what a wonderful place Victoria was.
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And of course, like everybody who moves to Victoria, even then bragged about the gardens
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or, you know, the, the pleasant, uh, you know, climate and the rest of it.
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Um, but this was 1860 and oddly enough, or ironically enough, you know, the intolerance
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towards, um, some black immigrants to Canada in Victoria came a little bit later when there
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was more American immigration from California and elsewhere of whites.
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Um, you know, because there was, you know, I mean, they're in the middle of the civil war
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or about to enter it or, or exiting it, depending on the period you're talking about.
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But Anglican Canadians and, you know, British, the British empire in early 1860s, they were
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And in fact, they were encouraged to run for office.
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I think it was after nine months or something like that, or certainly not to run for office
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And so, um, I mean, there, there's no perfect history and there's, you know, black spots on,
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But I think part of combating the nonsense today is to kind of virtually shake people a little
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bit and say, again, are you're kind of missing the point if you think this group, you know,
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has some sort of moral advantage over this group.
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Um, I mean, as you know, from the victim cult, I, I quoted Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the famous
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Soviet dissident, you know, and he talks about how it's common for people to say, if only, uh,
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you are removed from this situation or, you know, taken out, you know, in communist, you know,
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dictatorships of, of his era, if only we remove this person, uh, life will be better.
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And what he said was, no, the line between good and evil runs between, uh, you know,
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is it each human heart it's in each one of us, that line, that dividing line.
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And so it's actually hubris for anyone to suggest that, again, we can't celebrate Canada,
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um, because someone in 1867 and 19th century imperialist was a 19th century imperialist.
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Um, well, I would hope we could take stuff from first nations history and celebrate it regardless
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of the fact that yes, first nations practiced labor in British Columbia when the British
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tried to stamp it out, including James Douglas, when one case bought a slave to free that slave
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in around 1850 and, uh, tried to wipe out slavery in British Columbia, uh, during his tenure.
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It lasted until the late 1890s in British Columbia because the region was so remote at that time.
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I mean, I think telling the truth about history, um, in other words, getting people to think a
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little more modestly about everyone's history might be part of the remedy.
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And, and again, something that we don't often hear about.
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We often hear about how the British had slaves, held slaves, or the Americans held slaves.
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Uh, we don't often hear about how it was the British and then the Americans who were
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sort of the earliest people in the world, um, to stop slavery and to fight against those who
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I totally agree with your point, Mark, that we need to do more to celebrate, uh, First Nations
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One of the things that happened this year, um, is that, that there was a second sort of
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Veterans Day, uh, First Nations Veterans Day, or I think it's called Indigenous Veterans Day
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that, that, that fell a couple of days before Remembrance Day.
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And I, for me, I would prefer that we celebrate all together.
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Our contributions came together, uh, whether it was in the First World, Second World War.
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Uh, Korea, Afghanistan, wh-wh-wh-wh-wherever it was, we were fighting together, um, uh, but-but-but to
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your point, perhaps having a-a second dedicated day, uh, to, uh, First Nations contributions might-might
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Do you think it's a good idea to have these two separate days?
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Well, it might, but I don't like separate ceremonies.
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The, uh, the acerbic comedian, American comedian Bill Maher, has ripped a strip off of,
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uh, colleges and universities in the United States that have separate Black graduation ceremonies.
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Um, because, I mean, really under, you know, he said, welcome back to separate but equal.
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You know, let's, let's help people remember it.
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I mean, I just wrote a column, uh, for the Calgary Herald on, uh, Winston Churchill remembering
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And the co-author was Kelvin Van Esch, who's half Mohawk, um, his, his father's Mohawk,
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his mother's Dutch German, um, and he hates identity politics because, as he told me in
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a personal call, and I don't think he minds, you know, me saying this, I mean, what's he
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Look down on his mother because she's white?
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Um, so this is a really dangerous, uh, precedent.
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Um, I mean, the, the ideal of liberal democracy, um, isn't, isn't bad.
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It is that you look at people as individuals only in law and policy, and it doesn't matter
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who you are, where you come from, rich, poor, your background, your ethnicity, your nationality,
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what happened to your ancestors, what your ancestors did to my ancestors.
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When you get before a court of law, when you apply for a government program, when you're
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in the unemployment line or whatever it is, um, you're treated as an individual.
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Um, and unfortunately we're going away from that, that, uh, focus on the individual.
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To, again, celebrating us because of, of whatever.
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The danger in that, Candace, is none of us can change, um, this, our skin color.
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None of us can change, you know, much else about how we were born or our history.
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Um, and I think it's, you know, people often make the same mistake in history and repeat
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the same evil and sometimes from the best of intentions.
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So they think, well, you know, to, to make up for past wrongs, we need to kind of discriminate
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So let's suppose you're, I don't know, the grandson of a Holocaust survivor, um, and somehow
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because you've got the wrong skin color in a, in an application for employment today to
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the federal government because you're not the right, uh, color or ethnicity, you may lose
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I mean, to even discuss it, to even have that, I think is so offensive to the notion of treating
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Um, and that's the danger is we're, we're trying to correct the past in quotes, um, you
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know, by, by making up for it in the present and, and you can't.
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Um, now look, there's, there's some, you know, if you step in my toe, Candace and, you know,
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or hit me, you know, your car drives into mine and it's your fault.
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Well, you know, you're on the hook for repairing my car, you know, I don't know my medical bill
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If this wasn't Canada and it wasn't public healthcare, but, um, beyond like pretty clear
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cause and effect links, you know, the Japanese, their property is confiscated.
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We owed them, uh, after that confiscation in, in, you know, in the 1950s for what we did
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in the 1940s or Canada did, uh, but, but beyond clear cause and effect links and recent
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It's really dangerous to go down this road of your group was, you know, unkind to my
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group and we're going to now, um, punish your group in the present as if anybody alive today
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had anything to do with slavery, you know, abolished in the United States in 1865 or practically
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abolished in Canada in 1820, uh, and in the entire British empire, but 1833 in fact.
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So, um, it's a very dangerous road we're going down.
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So again, I think it's helpful to remember that, um, you want to help people as individuals.
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Um, you know, if you're poor, we have a government program to help you out that sort of thing,
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but to stay away from identity politics, uh, again, my fellow, my friend, Kelvin, who wrote
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this op-ed about, you know, indigenous soldiers, by the way, we added that to the column three
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Um, you celebrate together, um, you know, and we've come a long way to try and get to
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Um, and it's really moving backwards to have separateness in any form or fashion.
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Just final question for you, Mark, you know, it's Remembrance Day, uh, is there any one
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specific moment in history or any one story that you, you like to reflect on, you like
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to think about, I don't remember, so you just mentioned a column that you wrote about some,
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So maybe, maybe you can, you can share one of those with us.
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And, you know, one of the soldiers and, and, um, so we had three names in the column and
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it's not in front of me, but, uh, one was an indigenous sword soldier born in Saskatchewan,
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um, was the first Edmonton police officer of First Nations ancestry and later went off to,
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to fight in the first world war, um, and was a runner.
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Um, in fact, he was also the first indigenous person in Canada to compete in the Olympics.
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Um, ended up being a runner because of his, you know, physical prowess
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Um, but that's the kind of thing we can, we can celebrate and point to.
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And, and if you look up the, the column at either markmilkey.com or the Calgary Herald and,
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you know, look for, you know, Mark Milkey and Kelvin Van Esch,
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you'll see the column there, uh, about the, uh, indigenous service in our history.
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Brilliant. Well, yeah, I encourage everyone to go out and do that.
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I hope you have a wonderful day reflecting and doing, uh, doing what you have,
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So thank you so much for, uh, joining us today.
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I'm Candice Malcolm, and this is the Candice Malcolm Show.