Juno News - Ep. 3 ｜ Shuv Majumdar ｜ Dealing with China, Iran & global terrorism

00:00:00.120 I would say the biggest geopolitical threat to Canada is China and the China model.

00:00:05.480 I would say the biggest security threat to Canada is the Iranian regime and the instability

00:00:10.600 they foment through exporting terrorism around the world.

00:00:13.720 The evidence is increasingly clear.

00:00:16.280 Either intentionally or unintentionally, China has unleashed a deadly disease onto the world,

00:00:22.840 grinding our economies to a halt, leading to unprecedented crackdowns on our rights

00:00:27.800 and freedoms, and forcing Western governments to ratchet up deficit spending to unimaginable

00:00:34.080 highs.

00:00:35.080 Will China face any consequences for its evil actions?

00:00:38.240 What can liberal democracies like Canada do to hold China accountable and make sure they

00:00:43.000 pay for their reckless actions in covering up the coronavirus, lying about the damage

00:00:48.040 it does, and for the global death and destruction they have caused?

00:00:52.480 Meanwhile, it wasn't that long ago that the Islamic Republic of Iran shot down a commercial

00:00:57.680 airliner whose ultimate destination was Canada.

00:01:02.080 How can Iran get away with a murderous act of war?

00:01:05.460 And has the world already forgotten?

00:01:07.600 My guest today on the Candace Malcolm Show's True North Speaker series is Shuv Majumdar.

00:01:13.120 Shuv is a monk senior fellow with the Macdonald Laurier Institute.

00:01:18.240 He served as the policy director for conservative foreign affairs minister John Baird and worked

00:01:23.920 with Jason Kenney when he was the defense minister.

00:01:26.680 Shuv worked in Iraq and Afghanistan from 2006 to 2010 where he led the efforts of the International

00:01:33.660 Republican Institute.

00:01:35.900 In my conversation with Shuv, we talk about Canada's role in the world, how to deal with

00:01:40.560 our greatest adversaries, namely China and Iran, and also how to properly tackle the pressing

00:01:46.640 issues of our day, including combating terrorism, building a responsible refugee program, integrating

00:01:53.920 newcomers to Canada, and promoting pluralism while not succumbing to leftist multiculturalism.

00:02:00.520 Shuv has a vision for Canada as a conservative superpower, and he wonderfully articulates how conservatives

00:02:07.520 can win the upper hand and push back against the leftist cabal that promotes global citizenship,

00:02:14.000 climate alarmism, and worldwide socialism.

00:02:16.740 Shuv, it's a great pleasure for you to be joining us today.

00:02:26.740 So welcome and thank you for being here.

00:02:28.500 You missed an important title.

00:02:30.000 I'm also the honorary chairman of the Candace Malcolm for Prime Minister fan club.

00:02:36.980 Okay, okay.

00:02:37.980 That's very nice of you to say, Shuv.

00:02:39.980 Although, I don't know, I don't think that's a job I would want, seeing how the media treats

00:02:46.220 conservatives and how they like to sort of demonize them.

00:02:49.220 I don't think that's an enviable position to be, and I like being a journalist just fine

00:02:54.720 over here.

00:02:55.720 You and True North have been such an incredible group of warriors for the cause and for the

00:03:01.200 movement.

00:03:02.200 I'm just so flattered and honored that you would want to spend a bit of time with me

00:03:05.460 today.

00:03:06.460 Thank you for having me.

00:03:07.460 Well, Shuv, you're really a knowledgeable expert on so many topics.

00:03:10.460 I wanted to first talk to you about just a general situation we find ourselves in.

00:03:14.500 We're all locked in.

00:03:15.500 We've been inside for weeks and weeks now.

00:03:17.780 We're watching the economy tumble.

00:03:19.800 But sadly, we've also seen thousands of Canadians die from this mysterious virus that originated

00:03:25.980 out of Wuhan, China.

00:03:27.620 So what are your thoughts?

00:03:29.160 What are your thoughts on the lockdown, on the virus, and the government's reaction?

00:03:34.220 Do you think they've done a decent job?

00:03:35.540 Do you think they've gone too far?

00:03:36.720 What do you make of it all?

00:03:38.660 Well, listen, I mean, hindsight, pardon the pun, will be 20-20 on this.

00:03:43.160 I think that the government federally was slow to respond despite the intelligence that they

00:03:48.660 would have had access to.

00:03:49.760 It's been revealed over the last weeks that there was an awareness that this crisis had

00:03:55.540 been brewing in Wuhan, in China.

00:03:57.640 And despite the Chinese cover-up, Canadian officials didn't take the threat as seriously as they

00:04:03.400 could have, and probably deferred too much to international organizations like the WHO,

00:04:09.520 the World Health Organization, and the standards that global bureaucrats had set that forsake the

00:04:15.080 Canadian interests at that time.

00:04:16.460 Um, the recovery, the lockdown that had ensued, uh, had been awkwardly implemented federally.

00:04:24.140 Uh, I'm so grateful that we have a federal system of government in Canada that has powerful

00:04:29.660 leaders, uh, spanning Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario, you know, our friend Jason Kenney,

00:04:34.620 I think is probably the model for, uh, incisive smart leadership that actually puts the interests

00:04:40.620 of, uh, his constituents, his province, his people first, rather than the priorities of

00:04:45.580 some international group.

00:04:46.700 Well, or, or an ideology.

00:04:48.700 I mean, just, just sorry to cut you off, but I know Kenney implemented, uh, enhanced security

00:04:53.180 measures because he knew that Trudeau wasn't doing it at the airport, even though that's

00:04:56.620 federal jurisdiction, you know, he said, forget about the ideology here.

00:05:00.780 What's important is keeping a Canadian safe from foreign travelers.

00:05:03.700 Well, that is part of, I think that's, that's the prioritization of his ideological disposition

00:05:08.320 in that our citizens, our country comes first, um, and the safety and their security

00:05:13.200 is the primary responsibility of any government.

00:05:16.080 And so I'm glad that he never lost sight of the most important aspect of what his job

00:05:21.600 is and the responsibility on his shoulders.

00:05:24.000 Uh, and I don't think that we saw that at the federal level.

00:05:26.080 Well, right.

00:05:27.760 And, and not just with that, Shuva, I mean, sure, uh, China was providing misleading information.

00:05:32.880 The WHO was sort of repeating it, but we even saw the Trudeau government and, and his top

00:05:39.200 health official, Theresa Tam sort of almost parroting what seemed to be like Chinese propaganda,

00:05:45.280 saying that there was no, uh, human to human transmission, that travel bans were ineffectual,

00:05:50.240 that you didn't need to wear a mask.

00:05:51.840 You had Patty Haju, the health minister, actually applauding and praising China.

00:05:56.480 And then she doubled down on it a few weeks later.

00:05:58.480 Uh, she said that there was no reason not to trust their data, even as China was actively

00:06:02.960 changing its own data and changing the definition of how it calculated coronavirus and infections.

00:06:09.520 And then she said that she had actually been praising China's initial response to the virus.

00:06:14.880 Well, I recall the initial response in China to be a complete coverup.

00:06:18.720 They were arresting journalists.

00:06:20.240 They were arresting scientists and whistleblowers.

00:06:22.720 People were disappearing.

00:06:24.160 Um, you know, they, they, they had locked down travel within their own country,

00:06:27.920 but they didn't lock down international travel.

00:06:30.080 So I, I, I just want to transition and ask, how can we hold China accountable?

00:06:35.760 What, what, what can be done, uh, to, to push back in China?

00:06:39.280 I mean, I don't count on the Trudeau government to do it, but what can citizens do?

00:06:42.880 What can the international community do to hold China to account?

00:06:47.120 Well, listen, that's a huge question, Candace.

00:06:48.800 And I think a lot of what you, your preamble there was, was right on point.

00:06:51.840 Um, I mean, China had their senior advisors, um, speaking to President Xi Jinping as early,

00:06:58.640 as late as, uh, I should say as early as November last year, uh, already discussing how they could

00:07:03.680 leverage their position on global value chains with respect to medicine and medical supplies.

00:07:09.120 As an instrument of economic power, they were effectively weaponizing their medical

00:07:13.200 supply chains to the world, which is not what trusted friends and partners do.

00:07:17.200 Um, what we are seeing today, I think in the country is because, you know, millions of people

00:07:23.840 are locked down. Our main concern is about the safety and health of our people in public health

00:07:28.480 systems that could be overrun. Uh, every Canadian is directly encountering what happens when a

00:07:34.400 predatory government in a country far away, uh, makes decisions to the contrary, to the interest

00:07:40.240 contrary of Canadians. Um, and I think in Canada, we're starting to experience an awakening, tragically,

00:07:46.960 an awakening of the fact that the world is not some sort of kumbaya community of good actors,

00:07:52.720 but that in fact, the most, uh, belligerent rising economy in the world, that being of the Communist

00:07:58.720 Party of China, uh, is actually acting against our interests and against, uh, the values that we hold

00:08:04.560 dear, um, and the values that have actually seen, uh, an unprecedented period of global prosperity.

00:08:10.560 Now the institutions that, that China has been manipulating, I think is one of the first ways

00:08:16.480 to deal with this. Um, you know, president Clinton had invited China to join the world trade organization.

00:08:21.920 Uh, I myself included have to do a mea culpa. I spent a balance of the 2000s advocating for deeper

00:08:28.880 trade with China with the hope that, you know, um, the prosperity of the people unleashing the

00:08:34.320 entrepreneurial, uh, entrepreneurial, um, ethic of the Chinese people would also be matched by a demand

00:08:42.320 for more democratic government, the rule of law. We've seen exactly the opposite emerge. Um, and

00:08:47.600 we've seen this pattern building for the last decade and come more acutely into focus, uh, five years ago

00:08:52.880 with president Xi reading himself into the Chinese constitution as lifetime rule. So what do we do about

00:08:59.520 this? Um, I think, you know, first and foremost, we should be unafraid to talk about China for what it

00:09:07.600 is rather than what we wish it were. And what that means is that we, we should be loud and clear that

00:09:13.760 their, uh, concentration camps for Uyghur Muslims, uh, uh, some, two, uh, some reports up to 2 million

00:09:21.040 people, uh, is, is certainly not tolerable. We should, we should acknowledge that the basic law that informs

00:09:28.480 a relationship with Hong Kong, which would assure Hong Kong democracy, uh, is something that they

00:09:33.840 have walked away from materially. You can see it manifest in the presence of Chinese police

00:09:39.040 and propaganda in Hong Kong. Uh, the people of Hong Kong, a generation who never grew up knowing what,

00:09:44.960 you know, it was under, uh, British under the British mandate are now standing up for the freedoms

00:09:49.040 that were promised. Uh, so with China walking away from the basic law that they had agreed to uphold,

00:09:53.760 I think the world should revisit the question of its own relationship with China and with Hong Kong.

00:09:58.400 Um, similarly with Taiwan in the immediate near neighborhood, we have seen, uh, a vibrant

00:10:04.080 Chinese democracy in Taiwan be a great international partner, both in the context of the pandemic crisis,

00:10:10.560 but also as a, as a, as a, as a model across Asia for, um, how, uh, a democratic country,

00:10:18.400 a true partner of the West, um, can actually be a real ally and friend. Uh, so I think that it's high

00:10:26.080 time that we start moving toward recognizing the great people of Taiwan and their government

00:10:31.520 and inviting them around the table to be productive. Um, more, more largely,

00:10:36.560 more strategically at a, at a global level, um, China has been deploying their, they've developed

00:10:42.640 the China model as an alternative to the Western model. And what we're seeing is, uh, the rise of the

00:10:49.520 dragon. So, so to say where China has now moved beyond its own domestic development and established

00:10:55.920 through what they've called the belt and road initiative, uh, arteries into Asia and Africa.

00:11:02.240 Uh, these economic, political, and military arteries are designed to fuel the rise of a

00:11:08.800 China that creates a new model for the world, the China model. And the investments that they make

00:11:14.560 through this BRI in Africa and Asia are principally toward resources and infrastructure to get those

00:11:21.760 resources to China, where China can finish those raw materials and sell them to the West at discounted

00:11:27.360 rates. And second through data, through platforms and through surveillance in Canada, we're struggling

00:11:34.320 with one of those major, both of those issues, particularly platforms and surveillance, uh, more

00:11:38.400 focusedly, more, more acutely focused on the question of Huawei, uh, for which I think today Canadians,

00:11:43.760 Canada and the Canadian cabinet should make the decision that Huawei and China is not

00:11:48.160 acting in the interests of being a good trade partner, but rather to extend their hegemony based

00:11:52.800 on the experience of their global effort. Um, finally, um, one of the most important things that

00:11:59.280 Canada can do is revisit the entire trading partnership and the global trading architecture

00:12:04.720 with respect to China. Um, the supply chains that China now occupies strategic positions are ones in

00:12:12.000 which are proving to be deeply unreliable. And while it may come at great cost, what I would propose as

00:12:19.120 an alternative is to deepen partnerships with other countries that have the capacity to, to replace the

00:12:25.280 China role in the global value chains. Uh, and we could talk more about that a little later, but I think

00:12:30.960 there are great opportunities for Canada to think beyond China, uh, in terms of where we do trade in Canadian

00:12:36.320 businesses, particularly medium ones, uh, to recruit the kind of capacity they need to engage in the

00:12:42.480 trading agreements that prime minister Harper and his government had established around the entire

00:12:47.920 world. Some 50 plus agreements in which we have, um, opportunity to, to build new partnerships.

00:12:54.160 Well, I think you covered a lot there and we'll get back to a lot of it specifically. We'll talk about

00:12:58.800 5g a little later on in the interview, but I'm glad you finished on trade because that was going to be my

00:13:03.360 next question. Anyway, I know you, you said that you had, uh, you made a meal cup or you make a meal

00:13:08.400 cup about, uh, your, your desire to push for, for more free trade with China in the last decade. I

00:13:15.200 think at that time, the idea was still that, you know, millions upon millions of people in China were

00:13:20.000 coming out of poverty for the first time. And I think just from sort of like a human flourishing

00:13:24.720 perspective, obviously it was a noble goal because so many people who had been living in poverty, uh,

00:13:30.000 can now afford, you know, basic things and, and people, you know, aren't starving in China like

00:13:34.640 they were a decade, a couple of decades earlier. So obviously there's, there's some good that has

00:13:39.680 come of it, but you know, I think, I think we're hitting this new crossroad, even among conservatives,

00:13:44.320 the idea that free trade has always been sort of sacrosanct in the conservative, uh, platform and in

00:13:51.280 what conservatives advocate for sort of libertarian perspective. But I think more and more people are

00:13:56.320 coming out and really questioning whether you can really have free trade with, with a country

00:14:02.080 that's so, uh, you know, authoritarian and communist led that it's involved in so many aspects of the

00:14:08.880 market. It's not a free market over there. So, so, so why do we classify it as free trade in a free

00:14:13.920 market system here? I think there's also a lot of skepticism. Uh, even, you know, we've been seeing

00:14:19.280 a lot of the stuff that's been sent to Canada in terms of PPE, uh, masks, personal protective

00:14:25.920 equipment, uh, that that's been contaminated or moldy, or that was supposed to come and didn't,

00:14:31.040 you know, there were those two jets that flew over and were supposed to come back with PPE and

00:14:35.040 they came back empty. So we, we see repeatedly how China reneges on its responsibility. It's, it's not

00:14:41.280 a transparent actor. So, you know, even, even if, if free trade over the decades have been good for, for

00:14:46.560 Chinese people, it's not necessarily good for the Canadian people or the American people. Um, some of the

00:14:51.840 consequences that have come from that, did you think there will be a big pushback after the

00:14:56.640 coronavirus to, to, to establish a totally new regime of China? I think more people are now seeing

00:15:02.560 more clearly what China is capable and how they operate, or, or do you think China will just sort

00:15:07.200 of get away with it all and be in a stronger position after this, uh, you know, given the new,

00:15:13.200 um, you know, there'll be a new demand for cheap products. They'll, there'll be,

00:15:18.080 China do just fine with the low, the new low price of oil or what, what do you think is going to

00:15:22.880 happen next year? Listen, I think in China, we're seeing an unprecedented amount of propaganda coming

00:15:29.840 from China with language that is frankly beyond irresponsible. Um, and I think many Chinese

00:15:35.120 diplomats around the world, whether it's in Canada or in Sweden or in Australia and New Zealand,

00:15:40.160 where they've been particularly, um, uh, pointed and harsh and rude. Uh, I think that what,

00:15:46.800 what we're seeing there is, uh, an attempt by these diplomats to reflect back to Beijing,

00:15:52.080 their loyalty. Uh, and what, what it tells me is that president, she is increasingly paranoid.

00:15:58.800 His economy is in shambles and, uh, opaque in terms of being able to measure from the outside,

00:16:05.120 any discernible progress. Um, and I think there might be competition within the Chinese communist

00:16:10.640 party for power, uh, in the aftermath of this crisis, because I think a lot of Chinese companies

00:16:15.040 and individuals, I would say adults are, are deeply concerned and worried about the direction

00:16:20.080 of their own government. Um, the thing about president Xi is that he's done a very efficient

00:16:25.520 job at putting all of his opponents into prison. Uh, and so there is no immediately apparent rival.

00:16:32.240 Uh, Chinese politics is probably divided into seven or eight regions. Um, and I could see those regions

00:16:38.800 with their level, varying levels of competence, uh, struggling to try and establish better and

00:16:43.920 trusted trade relationships, uh, to fulfill exactly what you've described, the continuity of the

00:16:49.200 connectivity of Chinese economy to global markets. However, um, more importantly, I think what we are

00:16:56.400 going to see is this idea and imagine this Candace, that the idea that, uh, putting the nations,

00:17:02.800 putting a national interest first is somehow compromising our greater ideals. Like we, we forget that the

00:17:09.920 entire post-war order, the United nations, the military alliances, everything that the G7, everything

00:17:16.800 that market-based democracies had built, uh, the ticket to the party to participate in those

00:17:23.040 institutions was to subscribe to the normative idea of our freedoms. Um, and even China subscribes to the

00:17:29.600 UN charter. What's happened is that they've made a lie of their commitment, uh, as have autocracies around

00:17:35.120 the world and manipulated these systems and the best intentions of bureaucrats to, uh, leverage toward

00:17:41.760 the success of a, of a, of a limited cabal and use the resources that that trade has created to suppress

00:17:49.040 their people even further, rather than aim to modernize or democratize or establish a more rules-based

00:17:53.840 system in their own economy. So what that might mean is that countries will reassert the idea of a

00:17:59.920 national interest that they would want to trade with trusted partners that say what they do and abide

00:18:06.560 by the rules. And what I think we are about to start seeing in this global economic reorder is a gated

00:18:14.320 globalization in which you have economies that have learned and have confidence to trust each other.

00:18:21.440 Um, starting to organize in their national interests as they should, uh, more cooperatively and, uh,

00:18:29.120 no longer be deceived by countries as opaque as China, uh, and others, uh, and their proposition

00:18:35.760 for partnership. So that's a, that's a really good point, Shuv. I just, uh, to cut you off, I just,

00:18:40.320 I want to say that, yeah, we have seen sort of a resurgence of, of the kind of, um, I don't know if

00:18:47.040 you want to call it nationalism or at least looking out for the national best interest and move away from

00:18:51.760 the sort of global citizen international institutions push just by some basic necessities. You know,

00:18:57.360 everyone had to close their borders. Um, did, did you ever think we'd see that happening? Um,

00:19:02.480 you know, a Trudeau government closing, closing Canada's borders. Um, and, and, and I think that,

00:19:07.920 that just to pick up on what you said, that the sort of consensus after the war, um, about all these

00:19:13.760 international institutions was based on some shared values. And I think that, that, that idea

00:19:19.920 has slipped away. Just, just given that, you know, China is such an undue influence over a lot of

00:19:24.640 these international institutions as do other corrupt, uh, authoritarian regimes like, you know,

00:19:29.760 Iran or, or, or, or, or other countries. Um, do you think that these institutions have been a fail,

00:19:35.440 a failure, or, or, or do you think that they're going to, like you said, um, see a reshuffling

00:19:40.160 and, and, and sort of a new way of organizing after this pandemic?

00:19:43.840 Yeah, I wish it were binary because I think that the, in some ways, many of these institutions

00:19:48.640 have been successful for the West. Um, like I had mentioned, I think that we have seen the greatest

00:19:53.440 period of human prosperity ever. Um, and, and that is because of the rules-based international

00:20:00.560 system that the post-war order had benefited from. What has happened primarily over the nineties

00:20:05.760 and into contemporary times is that they have been seized by socialism, um, in which the idea of a

00:20:12.880 national interest was diminished for the benefit of a global liberalism. Um, and I don't think that

00:20:18.560 there, there's anything to be concerned about because what we're seeing is a failure of the

00:20:22.960 idea that, you know, we're in a borderless world that, um, you know, there is no such thing as a

00:20:28.480 bad trade deal. All trade deals are good deals, uh, that, um, you know, communities of people that

00:20:34.560 are flying over, um, you know, productive States, uh, and, and, and the richer becoming richer,

00:20:40.080 the poor becoming poorer, the gap between rich and poor is widening, not, not shrinking generally,

00:20:43.920 globally. Um, what we're seeing is a reassertion of the idea of national interests. We've seen

00:20:49.840 the restoration of borders in the context of crisis. Um, and that is the natural state of

00:20:55.680 things that is okay. In my mind, what I think is important is that we guard against socialist schemes,

00:21:01.520 whether it is, um, collectivist ideas of cooperation globally that redistribute wealth and don't create

00:21:07.760 real enterprise, um, down to domestic agenda issues where, you know, the income tax is a remnant of

00:21:14.880 the world wars. The, uh, erosion of privacy is a remnant of the war on terror. I worry about the kind

00:21:21.280 of guaranteed income that's being supplied for people who are being displaced will be converted

00:21:26.320 into even grander socialist schemes that inhibit the prosperity of our people. So domestically globally,

00:21:33.440 I do think there will be a reordering around national interests. Uh, I, I think that's not a bad

00:21:38.240 thing. Uh, I think there would be more accountability around regimes that are, uh, that don't subscribe to

00:21:43.200 that. And I think we actually have to contend with an era of strategic competition with China and the

00:21:48.000 China model. Um, and that requires even greater cooperation between democracies, not just established

00:21:53.360 ones, but, but the new and prosperous ones that are emerging around the world. Yeah. I mean, just,

00:21:58.560 you raised some really good points and I hope we do see a bit of a reordering because, you know,

00:22:04.160 even just what you said about how socialism has sort of crept over as a priority in a lot of these

00:22:08.480 institutions, it's not, it's not like it's painted as socialism. It's always painted as some, some other,

00:22:14.080 uh, you know, issue that, that just looks a lot like socialism or the solution always looks like

00:22:19.520 socialism. And, you know, you, you see that as the, what, what many on the left and many in these

00:22:24.080 international institutions still believe is, is the biggest crisis of our time, climate change or

00:22:30.080 global warming and really kind of some of the things that they're calling for would be a society that

00:22:35.840 looks a lot like what our society under lockdown looks like, where people aren't driving, people

00:22:39.760 aren't flying. We have very restrictive rules and laws and, you know, huge out of control government

00:22:45.120 spending. I mean, they're not out now calling for socialism, but the solution to the problems that

00:22:50.720 they're identifying look a lot like socialism. I don't, I don't really see that going away.

00:22:55.760 Um, how can, how can we combat some of those, um, you know, issues that might on the surface seem

00:23:01.600 like noble or that people are acting in good faith because of something they believe in, but

00:23:06.240 the, the solutions that they're pushing for are things that will be entirely disastrous and

00:23:11.040 destructive to our, to our civilization. I think the left has, that's a great question. I think the left

00:23:17.120 has really, you know, updated the, the palatable, uh, branding around socialism by calling it social

00:23:25.120 justice in which, uh, groups, whether they be tribes or religions or whatever, but groups, uh,

00:23:31.760 identitarian politics of, uh, are, are broken into communities that are bereaved versus celebrating

00:23:39.360 individuals who, um, you know, have inherent worth. So social justice, I think on, on the left needs to

00:23:46.320 be contrasted on the right with the idea of social mobility in which the most disenfranchised in, um,

00:23:54.400 anywhere in the world. And we're talking about almost depression era levels of joblessness

00:23:59.840 happening across the world as a result of this pandemic. Um, but the solutions need to be about

00:24:05.520 social mobility and how do you get the most vulnerable empowered by getting access to opportunity

00:24:12.560 to see that through hard work, through being productive, through, um, contributing to their

00:24:18.960 society, through the income taxes that they would eventually pay, that creating that dignity that

00:24:23.520 comes with work, uh, gives them an opportunity to move up in, in the world and to offer their children

00:24:30.400 and their children's children better qualities of life in the long term. So I think that our antidote to

00:24:35.840 social justice should be social mobility. And, uh, what that really distills down to is more enterprise,

00:24:43.440 not less, um, less government, not more. And, um, you know, the reliance that, you know, we can perform

00:24:50.880 with the best. We are the 10th largest economy in the world in Canada. Uh, and we shouldn't be slaves to the

00:24:57.120 expectations of being a middle power. We should set clear, ambitious objectives of nation building and growing

00:25:04.160 our economy and connecting our people to the best prosperity, uh, that, that they could access in

00:25:09.360 the world. I really like that. I don't think I've ever heard that, uh, juxtaposition before to compare

00:25:14.720 social justice on the left, which, you know, is, is, is really a nice, it sounds nice on the surface,

00:25:19.520 but as soon as you kind of look into it and break it down, you really, uh, start to see how it's designed

00:25:24.640 to pull at the tradition and the underpinnings of our society, pull them apart and pit people

00:25:29.840 against each other, uh, for, for, for, for grievances that people didn't even think about,

00:25:34.560 uh, you know, a few decades ago. So I, I, I think that the conservatives would be, uh,

00:25:40.320 it would be wise to, to frame it that way and to think about it that way as well. You're so

00:25:45.200 knowledgeable about just about every international issue. And so I want to kind of go through a couple

00:25:50.800 of the big sort of international stories and how they affect, uh, Canada. So let's, let's start with

00:25:56.960 Iran. Um, we started, 2020 started out with, with a bang. Uh, there's just been so many wild news

00:26:03.760 stories that, that you kind of forget about the last one because each one is so overwhelming and

00:26:08.480 new, but you know, it wasn't too long ago that, um, President Donald Trump took out a top, um, Iranian,

00:26:16.160 uh, organizer of terrorist groups, uh, Qasam Soleimani, um, in reaction to, uh, an Iranian attack at a

00:26:24.400 Iraqi, um, military base that was housing American troops. Um, it sort of turned into a little bit of

00:26:30.560 a hot war, uh, for a few weeks there that were pretty alarming. And it culminated with the Iranian

00:26:36.720 regime shooting down a commercial airliner that was just about filled with, uh, Canadians, people

00:26:43.040 who are Canadian citizens, permanent residents, students, people coming to visit family in Canada,

00:26:47.760 an absolute horrific act. Um, I, I thought it was an act of war. Um, I thought that Trudeau let,

00:26:54.320 uh, Iran off the hook too easily by calling it a tragedy. Tragedy is, is something that happens

00:26:59.120 to you. Uh, this was something that was done to us, um, by an adversarial state, a malicious one.

00:27:06.160 Um, and, and, and then we saw a few weeks later, Iran, uh, uh, Trudeau meeting with Iranian officials

00:27:12.880 and even, even bowing to them, um, which I think really upset a lot of Iranian, uh, in people in the

00:27:19.520 diaspora community in Canada, Iranian dissidents and human rights activists. Um, so what, what is

00:27:25.600 the state of, of Canada's relationship with Iran? Do you think Iran will ever be held accountable

00:27:30.320 for downing that commercial airliner? You know, the prime minister is always seeking to make best

00:27:38.320 friends with the worst actors, whether it's with Beijing or the clerical military dictatorship of Iran.

00:27:43.280 Before the situation of soverse where you saw these innocent people get murdered by the, um,

00:27:50.000 actions of the Iranian military, um, the, um, the prime minister had directed his officials and his

00:27:57.680 cabinet members to try and normalize relations and indeed enhance relations with both of,

00:28:02.880 you know, China and now Iran. Um, the truth of the matter is that Iran over the last decade has done

00:28:10.560 a magnificent job at persuading the world that there is the concept of reformers, um, in their

00:28:16.080 cabinet. Uh, the fact is that you cannot put your name on a ballot unless, uh, the, the closest leadership

00:28:23.920 to the supreme leader authorizes your name to be on a ballot. That's not freedom. Uh, you cannot put

00:28:28.640 your name on a ballot if you're a woman. You cannot put your name on a ballot if you have, if you belong

00:28:33.120 to a minority community, uh, and are actually representing their interests rather than just being

00:28:38.480 a subservient parrot for the regime to those communities.

00:28:41.680 Well, and there's hardly any minority communities left in Iran. Iran used to be a multi-cultural

00:28:47.680 society or a multi-pluralistic society, and now it's, I think, 99.9 percent, uh, Shia Muslims,

00:28:54.560 so they, they don't really have any tolerance whatsoever for minorities.

00:28:57.760 More. Occupied, uh, in the halls of power by a clerical military dictatorship that has acted

00:29:04.800 against the interests of the West, not in favor of it. Um, I were, I don't see that this new envoy

00:29:11.760 that they've dispatched, the former public safety minister, Ralph Goodell, uh, I think he'll be

00:29:16.640 thoughtful about investigating the circumstances of how these people were murdered. Um, and I think

00:29:22.640 that there's a lot of symbolism about that, that might be, um, might be important to pursue on a level,

00:29:28.160 but the genuine accountability you seek, uh, and the justice that I think these families demand,

00:29:34.480 rightly so, would only come when, uh, the clerical military dictatorship is confronted for the evil

00:29:40.240 that it is, um, for its continued campaign against human rights, against its own people,

00:29:46.400 as you said, draining its country of any diversity, uh, for its sponsorship and export of terror in

00:29:53.040 Lebanon and Iraq and Yemen and globally, uh, and for its continued, uh, ambitions in,

00:30:00.640 as a nuclear weapons power, not a nuclear power, but a nuclear weapons power. I mean,

00:30:04.880 just this last week, they, they, they launched a, a, a rocket that could go up to space. The subtext

00:30:11.280 being that if you can launch a rocket into space, then you can also create intercontinental ballistic

00:30:16.320 missiles. Um, and you know, this is a country, this is a regime, not a country. This is a regime

00:30:21.520 that is not interested in being a good international partner. They're, they're focused purely on their

00:30:27.520 own survival. They are obsessed with the idea of lifetime rule. And the only thing that would

00:30:33.760 result in something meaningful for the victims of, uh, the people on the plane, for their families,

00:30:39.120 for the Iranian people, indeed, uh, is when you see, uh, a change in the regime and its behavior

00:30:44.880 and its conduct around the world. Well, one of the things that the former Harper administration did,

00:30:49.680 Shuvan, I think you're probably, uh, involved in this, was they created legislation that would

00:30:54.000 allow Canadians to sue, uh, in, in court, um, regimes that had sponsored terrorism or that

00:31:02.000 to hold the groups responsible. And I remember at the time, I think they seized about $10 million of

00:31:07.680 Iran's assets in Canada so that people who had been, uh, families of members whose family members have

00:31:13.600 been killed by Hezbollah or any number of terrorist group that Iran sponsors, they could actually sue

00:31:18.640 them for damages. Is that something that the, that these airline families, uh, could potentially

00:31:23.600 do is, is that infrastructure still in place? Are there assets that they could access or, or do you

00:31:28.720 think that the only way to really have any kind of justice or closure for them would, would be

00:31:33.760 regime change in Iran? Listen, I think that, yes, you know what, and, and the justice for victims of

00:31:39.120 terrorism act still ha still exists. And, and thank God that it does. Um, the assets that the

00:31:45.120 government of Canada seized, uh, include a couple of categories. The first are the Iranian government's

00:31:50.960 assets. So irrespective of who's in power, that belongs to the Iranian state. Um, and at one point

00:31:56.880 Iran will be free of its, of this regime, uh, and those assets belong to the people and the government

00:32:02.800 that they're in. Uh, those are not ones that can be accessed through the justice of victims of

00:32:06.960 terrorism act. However, there are, um, other assets that were owned by the, by the, uh, embassy,

00:32:13.360 uh, which if they, if they were sold could produce, uh, some modest means of, of justice for these

00:32:20.000 families. Um, I think that, uh, you know, true justice, uh, happens when you have a spirit of

00:32:27.200 reconciliation and the sense that the people who murdered these families, um, loved ones are tried

00:32:34.000 in court, um, and receive sentencing. Uh, we cannot expect that to happen in this regime in Iran. Um,

00:32:41.520 and we cannot expect that this regime in Iran is interested in pursuing genuine reform, um,

00:32:46.880 toward that end. What we can expect is that the longstanding protests of the Iranian people who

00:32:53.440 are upset and furious with their government for spending scant resources on global adventurism,

00:32:58.560 um, uh, and their aspirations are ones that ought to be reflected in what happens next. Um, and so I do

00:33:06.640 think that, um, much of what will be essential for victims of, um, the, the, the bombing of the,

00:33:15.280 the, the, the rocket attacks and the flights for victims of, uh, Iran's repressive regime inside the

00:33:21.040 country. The only path is, is, um, regime change and the fastest way toward it is to continue, uh, this

00:33:28.560 campaign of maximum pressure that we've seen implemented from Washington.

00:33:32.240 I, I, I completely agree. And I think, I think just to reiterate that, I mean, they recently had

00:33:37.920 elections about, I think two months ago and the voter turnout was an all time low. And this was even

00:33:43.280 before the pandemic, after the airline was shot down, we saw huge protests of Iranian dissidents,

00:33:49.920 especially here in Canada. I went down to one in Mel Aswin square in Toronto. And I, I just was sort

00:33:55.600 of overwhelmed by all the different groups. You know, there's a lot of different differences within

00:33:59.920 the Iranian diaspora community. There are, uh, people on the left, people on the right, people

00:34:04.000 who are, what, what they're all united by though, is their, their hatred of the regime. And to see

00:34:08.160 them all kind of all these different groups come together to protest together. One, one of the

00:34:12.160 things I kept hearing though, from activists that I spoke to was their deep concern with the liberal

00:34:18.000 party, specifically, um, liberal MP Majid Jawari and his ties, uh, his alleged ties to the Iranian regime.

00:34:27.120 Uh, people, uh, people, people were telling me, you know, you, you need to expose this. We need

00:34:31.840 to look into it. There's something not right there between that relationship. What do you,

00:34:36.880 what do you think? I know you said that, uh, Trudeau came in with this idea of reconciliation

00:34:41.840 and creating a new relationships, but do you think, do you think it's, it's based on naivety that,

00:34:47.440 that Trudeau is willing to cozy up with this regime or do you think there's something darker going on here?

00:34:52.240 I wish it were naivety. It seems to be, uh, a perception of the world that just isn't rooted

00:34:58.720 in reality. Interestingly, Majid Jawari is also a prominent member of the Canada-China, uh,

00:35:05.440 legislative, uh, association, which defies logic because I can't think of a credible legislature in

00:35:11.680 China. Um, you know, the politics of the prime minister in these really important geographies that

00:35:19.440 decide majority governments or minority governments, uh, is to cozy up with people who can bank votes,

00:35:25.600 um, in the most effective way. And we have long known that the Iranian regime has had their, um,

00:35:33.040 agents inside the country. Uh, former national security advisor, Dick Fadden has been, um, very

00:35:39.280 articulate on this point. Uh, I'm, I'm saying that because of nonpartisan professionals. Uh, it is,

00:35:44.640 it is clear that, uh, Iran has a presence in Canadian politics. They know they're trying to

00:35:50.560 through their proxies, um, attempt normalization for business regions that benefit the IRGC and not

00:35:57.360 the Iranian people. Um, they are looking for their foils in parliament, uh, to lobby for, um, normalization

00:36:05.840 with a regime that is, uh, extremist. Um, and they have been very successful at, you know, interfering

00:36:14.000 in our, in our democratic life. Um, I think that, uh, you know, the prime minister and their cabinet

00:36:21.680 have the benefit of the best advice of very talented officials. You know, I'm not somebody

00:36:25.920 who goes off and says that every bureaucrat in the government of Canada is a bad person. They're not.

00:36:29.680 There's some very, very talented people, uh, who understand Iran for the threat it is.

00:36:33.920 But when the political level defies the advice of their seasoned officials,

00:36:38.560 then it tells you that there's something much more either ideological or sinister at play. Um,

00:36:43.760 what I can tell you is this, the, this government, this government has not been acting in the interest

00:36:48.400 of Canada when it comes to Iran. It's really interesting. I, I wish that there was the same

00:36:52.960 level of accountability and, and pushback against this liberal government because things like that

00:36:57.920 deserve to be out in the open. They deserve to be aired. And you just know that back when the Harper

00:37:02.480 government was in power, if the, if the, if the Harper, the Harper minister was deliberately

00:37:08.160 going against the recommendations of bureaucrats, you know, you'd hear about it in the pages of the

00:37:12.160 Globe and Mail or, or the CBC. Unfortunately, there's just not that much coming out, um, in,

00:37:17.760 in terms of, of what's, what's happening behind the scenes. So, you know, hopefully, uh,

00:37:22.800 you know, some, someone will speak out and, and, and talk about, because I think you're right.

00:37:26.400 There's a lot going on there and it's not in the best interest of Canadians. Let's move on. I want

00:37:31.040 to talk about India because I know you spend a lot of time in India and I, I want to specifically

00:37:36.560 talk about prime minister, uh, Indian prime minister Modi's. He, he introduced a new citizenship law

00:37:42.480 aimed at helping refugees from neighboring countries sort of get fast tracked citizens. So,

00:37:47.680 so these refugees who were members of persecuted religious minorities living in countries like

00:37:52.960 Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, uh, they're offered almost immediate citizenship when they get

00:37:59.520 to, um, when they get to India. But, but this law became controversial because it focused on religious

00:38:06.560 minorities. So, so people who were Christian or Hindu or Buddhist or Sikh, um, or even smaller religions

00:38:13.840 like Parsis and, and members of the Jain religion who were being persecuted by the Islamist governments

00:38:19.760 in those neighboring countries, but it didn't include Muslims from, uh, from other countries. So,

00:38:25.760 so, so, so the laws is specifically for religious minorities and not Muslims. I, I mean, that's,

00:38:31.520 that's controversial. I could never see something like that happening in Canada, but at the same time,

00:38:35.760 you know, part of the big problem with the refugee crisis a couple of years ago was that we didn't

00:38:39.520 really know who was a refugee and who wasn't because everyone was saying that they were a refugee.

00:38:43.600 Refugee used to have a very specific meaning and it, it kind of doesn't anymore. It's sort of

00:38:48.160 anyone who's a migrant who wants, who wants a better life. Uh, what, what do you think of,

00:38:52.240 of Modi's new law? And, uh, do you think it's, do you think it's a good step or do you think it's,

00:38:56.640 it's a mistake? You know, first of all, let me congratulate you on, on your thought leadership

00:39:00.880 on the space of refugee policy. You are actually at that intersection where identitarian warriors,

00:39:06.880 socialists, collectivists, um, conflate the legitimate questions around citizenship, the rule of law,

00:39:13.200 the concept of the individual with identitarian politics, and you have the battle scars to prove

00:39:17.840 it. So let me start with that compliment because, um, that is exactly the kind of issues that India

00:39:23.920 has been wrestling with. We're talking about, I lament because we often talk about these crises,

00:39:29.680 these issues, um, on the terms of somebody else's frame rather than our own. And so if I might, I mean,

00:39:36.880 I think India is not a story that started in 2019. It's a story that started 3000 years ago,

00:39:43.760 which, uh, were the origins of the Hindu society, uh, that has informed so much of the vast Indo-Pacific

00:39:49.680 region and is the underpinning behind, you know, civilizational life for billions of people in India

00:39:55.360 and beyond. Um, India, contemporary India is a product of current colonial legacies. Uh, one would

00:40:03.680 have been India in the Persianate age in which, um, Islam had powerful influences on Indian politics

00:40:10.560 and organization and Indian Hinduism informed much of that as well. That intersection between Persia

00:40:17.360 and old Hindu and Indian identity is actually in Afghanistan. It's a fascinating place to see that

00:40:23.280 intermix. Um, and then of course, current contemporary colonial issues and pressures are from, uh, the

00:40:29.200 British Raj, the British colonial period. Um, why do I start with that? I start with that because

00:40:35.600 these issues that prime minister Narendra Modi has been dealing with, um, after he expanded his

00:40:41.600 majority mandate last year, uh, are all part of an important narrative about the Indian state overcoming

00:40:48.320 its colonial heritage. Um, the first would have been article 170 and the reassertion of Indian

00:40:54.960 sovereignty and Kashmir. Uh, the second is the national, the NRC, the, the, the head count

00:41:00.640 essentially, um, uh, that is largely dealing with the pressures of the 1971 partition of East Pakistan,

00:41:08.240 um, which was bloody and horrific because you had a Pakistani military acting in a sectarian fashion

00:41:14.800 against the Hindu populations of Bangladesh that migrated into India informally. Um, and then the,

00:41:21.360 the citizenship amendment act, which is what we're talking about now, which is documenting, um, these,

00:41:26.960 this legacy of refugees, you can imagine in the last some 50 years of Indian independence, these issues

00:41:34.080 of, uh, religious and ethnic identity woven into the colonial history. Uh, they were violent issues.

00:41:42.240 India's had mass scale pogroms over the last 40 years, uh, between religious communities, um, and, um,

00:41:49.840 grievances that were unresolved because of generally weak Indian institutions and a fair bit of corruption.

00:41:55.520 Uh, it is a democracy that was, it's a bit of a miracle that it continues to be a democracy.

00:42:00.560 So what I see in what prime minister Modi is doing is reconciling these legacy issues so that Indians

00:42:09.760 can be documented for their identity as citizens. Um, and that means that they can then access the benefits

00:42:19.120 of, uh, participating as citizens, uh, whether it's the education system, the social welfare system,

00:42:25.520 the economic opportunity of a rising India and its importance for the world in the age to come.

00:42:32.160 Uh, these are all essential, uh, issues that if they were unresolved would continue to tie India to its

00:42:39.360 colonial legacy rather than its democratic future. So I, I support this in a, in a, in a big way,

00:42:46.480 because I think that most of the coverage on these issues, uh, is, uh, an alignment between

00:42:53.120 socialists and leftists in international press that don't want to see India succeed, that

00:42:58.880 inaccurately portray Narendra Modi as some sort of ideological Hindu, uh, fundamentalist. Um,

00:43:06.160 and, uh, and there are huge gaps in facts and analysis that, uh, that we all have to overcome

00:43:11.760 when thinking about the Indian opportunity. That's it. Yeah. You raised some really good

00:43:15.520 points. I think a dead giveaway for me when I'm reading an article, cause I, I like to go out and

00:43:19.280 read whatever the, the wall street or sorry, the New York times or Washington post or the

00:43:23.600 Globe and Mail or Toronto Star is saying, just, just to try to understand the arguments they're making.

00:43:27.600 And yeah, a dead giveaway is when they describe the government, not as, as an Islamist force, um,

00:43:33.920 but as just a Muslim majority country, uh, making it seem, I mean, they did this with Trump

00:43:38.160 and his travel bans. What they do is they make it seem like the government hasn't done anything

00:43:42.960 wrong. That the only fault that's being looked at, uh, is the fact that the society happens to be

00:43:48.880 majority Muslim, even though that's completely irrelevant to the classification. I mean,

00:43:53.760 Trump's travel ban was designated towards countries that, that, that were sponsoring terrorism or were

00:43:59.920 aiding and abetting terrorist groups. Um, this, this, this law, which again, it was described,

00:44:04.880 you know, by the New York times is saying, you know, the, it specifically targets Muslim majority

00:44:08.720 countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan, completely glossing over the idea that these societies,

00:44:14.320 you know, it's not just that they're Muslim majority, it's that they're run by Islamists

00:44:18.400 in accordance with the most draconian types of, uh, of Sharia law, which mean that, you know,

00:44:24.800 ethnic minorities, religious minorities are, are, are just by virtue of that persecuted, uh, you know,

00:44:30.080 all these kinds of blasphemy laws that, that unfairly target Christians and other groups. So

00:44:35.520 I think, I think we should definitely be weary of that. You, you mentioned the pogrom,

00:44:39.920 pogroms that happened in India. And I think one of the ones that we hear a lot about because Canada

00:44:44.800 has such a, a large, uh, Sikh population. Um, and we heard about this a lot when Prime Minister Justin

00:44:50.480 Trudeau was in India a few years ago, um, embarrassing himself on the world stage by dressing up

00:44:55.440 and dancing and it turns out that he had, uh, an extremist as part of his, his own entourage over

00:45:00.640 in India. But, uh, there's a group of people, you know, I think pretty much makes up a small,

00:45:05.680 small minority of, of Sikhs in Canada, but they're part of an organization that wants to carve out

00:45:11.520 a Sikh ethnostate out of India, um, called Khalistan, Khalistani. And, um, I, I know that this caused a lot of,

00:45:19.600 uh, embarrassment for Trudeau because he had one of these Khalistani extremists on his,

00:45:23.920 on his, you know, trip with him. But what, what I learned a lot through that and through a sort

00:45:29.040 of investigating afterwards was the presence of Khalistani extremists in Canada. They're,

00:45:33.440 they have a pretty large presence. You see their flags at parades. You see, you see their presence.

00:45:37.840 And even just online, you know, when I was reporting on it, I would get just a barrage of hatred from

00:45:43.360 these activists who were so brazen. They threatened your life and your family.

00:45:48.000 Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's, it's, it's crazy and bizarre. And you know,

00:45:51.920 the only Canadian journalists to ever be assassinated was, uh, at the hands of this group,

00:45:56.800 um, back in the, I think it was the 1980s. Um, so, so I, I mean, this is a group that in some ways

00:46:04.000 they're completely irrelevant because they're small and a minority and most people agree, uh, disregard

00:46:08.320 them. Uh, but, but they're also, I mean, I don't know how, how large they are, what percentage of

00:46:13.920 the Sikh community in Canada, but they definitely seem vocal and adamant and aggressive, um, in, in my

00:46:19.680 interactions with them. So do you, do you consider this calcium, the Kalistani extremism or radicals

00:46:25.920 or terrorists, whatever you want to call them? Do you consider them a threat to public safety

00:46:29.200 here in Canada?

00:46:29.840 I think they threaten not just one democracy, but two. Um, I think that, you know, outside of India,

00:46:36.960 the, um, the extremism that this ethnic and religious chauvinism represents has been

00:46:43.600 prospering in Canada, disproportionately, perhaps in the UK second. And then in the,

00:46:48.480 in the United States, um, these are the children of people who fled, uh, a horrible period of time

00:46:55.360 in the early eighties in India. Uh, and you know, what's interesting to me is that their organization,

00:47:01.440 uh, is what their organization does not pronounce on. They only have a singular obsession about the

00:47:07.120 treatment of Sikhs in India, uh, which in the eighties was a horrible period for them as it was

00:47:13.920 for Hindus and Christians and almost every religious denomination in the country. Um, and they are right

00:47:19.840 to seek justice, uh, justice, which had been slow to come until incidentally Narendra Modi came into

00:47:25.680 power and actually moved forward convictions and reparations in ways that were meaningful to a,

00:47:31.440 uh, a healing, a healing in India that has happened and not anywhere else. Um, what,

00:47:38.640 what is troubling is that they do not pronounce on the draining of Sikhs from Pakistan's Punjab.

00:47:45.200 They do not pronounce on, uh, like I visited the Gurdwara in Kabul back when I used to live in

00:47:51.120 Afghanistan. They do not pronounce on the draining of Afghan Sikhs. They talk about the plight, uh, that

00:47:57.520 these individuals are encountering, but for some logic defying act, they go and pronounce on India

00:48:04.960 as being the source of this. Uh, why is that? I would argue that, you know, in Canada, um, you have

00:48:12.960 the political hustlers and thugs who with money and propaganda have persuaded, um, an entire community

00:48:22.080 to feel that they are amongst the most persecuted in the world. Now I'm not one to speak about their

00:48:26.480 experience of persecution. I think that some of that is, is legitimate, but I don't think that

00:48:30.960 the way in which they're abused, they're, they're, they're channeling that anger toward, um, a Khalistan

00:48:37.040 state that defies any democratic or economic logic, um, is an appropriate or responsible use of the pain

00:48:45.120 and suffering that people feel. I think that if these communities were genuinely interested in

00:48:49.520 reconciliation, uh, and in helping deepen the integration that Sikhs contribute to Canadian life,

00:48:56.480 because there are many successful Sikhs who do that, uh, they should be focused more on a journey

00:49:02.560 of, uh, understanding the history of where this came from, uh, and looking at it for the big picture

00:49:08.800 context that it has across the subcontinent. And we're not seeing any of that happen with this

00:49:12.800 community. Instead, we're seeing political hustlers and thugs politicize this, vote bank people in local

00:49:17.840 elections, go after pay anybody who threatens the idea, uh, that the source of this fear and grievance

00:49:23.120 they draw on, go after anybody, um, with absolute ruthless and rude and, uh, violent intentions.

00:49:30.800 Um, and, and, and again, they only start the story at the 1984, uh, the 1980s and the storming of the

00:49:38.160 Golden Temple, but they don't talk about the full picture and the, and the bigger story that, that

00:49:42.640 these communities have had to wrestle with, which is frankly irresponsible.

00:49:45.760 Well, it's really interesting, Shu, because when you look at the Sikh diaspora in Canada, I mean,

00:49:51.040 they were incredibly successful. We're talking about highly educated, very intelligent people

00:49:55.440 who have done very well and built a great life for the next generation. So it almost just seems like

00:50:00.640 something's off in their grievance and why they're so, um, worked up about this issue that seems so

00:50:06.000 relevant, um, here in Canada. One of the things that I found just through talking to people in India,

00:50:11.520 uh, during this whole escalation around the calisthenic extremism was that the issue from

00:50:17.520 my understanding, the issue in Punjab in India is almost dead and gone. Like it's an idea of the

00:50:24.000 past and, and the people who left India at that time in the eighties held on to that idea. They

00:50:29.200 brought it to Canada and in some ways that, that idea has been able to prosper and grow and it was

00:50:35.120 fostered in Canada. Whereas, you know, if they go back and talk to their family members who stayed in,

00:50:40.720 in India, they don't have the same groups as they've moved on, they've moved past it,

00:50:44.640 and, and they've learned to, to, to get along with their, their neighbors and they're happy in India.

00:50:48.880 So there's almost this disconnect between the diaspora community here and the Sikh community

00:50:54.960 over there. And, and, and then again, just, yeah, that the, the use of, of violence and propaganda

00:51:01.200 that, you know, there's a Calistani rapper, a musician out in Suri, British Columbia, and his music

00:51:06.720 videos are just wildly violent and, and using historic footage and panning to modern day

00:51:12.400 pictures with all these, you know, restricted guns and they're wearing Vancouver Canuck jerseys

00:51:17.120 and waving Calistani flags. It's, it's almost like unbelievable that this is happening in our own

00:51:22.640 backyards. What, what, what do you think the, the, do you think that the Trudeau government has

00:51:27.600 culpability? Because I know that they've been really working with people who are, are sort of leading

00:51:34.880 members of this movement, um, for Calistani independence and, and, and even, you know,

00:51:40.320 opening, opening up their party to some of these people. That's the accusation I kept hearing about

00:51:44.560 back when I was covering this issue that, that, that again, just like with the Iranians, that the,

00:51:50.080 the, the liberals are more than happy to appease a group, um, even though it's not really in the best

00:51:54.960 interest of Canadians. You know, Canadian communities are under attack by autocratic governments

00:52:00.800 around the world. Um, and they're under attack through information and through exploiting old

00:52:05.280 grievances. We see it with the governments of China that have tried to set up cultural councils

00:52:10.240 to affect and impose, uh, their authority into the lives of Chinese Canadians. We've seen it with

00:52:16.000 the Iranian community. We've discussed, uh, how the regime deploys agents and money into Canada to try

00:52:21.600 and, um, affect our, our outcome. And they also leverage risks and threats against, uh, Iranian families

00:52:28.640 in Iran, Iranian Canadian families in Iran. Uh, the same is true for Pakistan's, uh, sophisticated

00:52:34.240 information campaigns inside Canada, particularly with these communities in Vancouver and in Toronto.

00:52:39.280 Um, the government, the political leadership of the country has to come to a consensus that

00:52:45.920 it will not pander to these foreign elements, that it will not allow these foreign elements to subvert

00:52:51.440 our democratic life. Um, but what we've seen from two major Canadian political parties, the NDP

00:52:57.600 and the liberal party is that they are more than happy to make the short-term deal, um, with these

00:53:04.080 vote bank communities because they're more organized, they're more, uh, aggressive, they're very

00:53:09.440 communicative, um, than the vast majority of Canadians who want nothing to do with this and would rather

00:53:16.320 just, you know, get on with their lives and be productive and successful. Um, and, uh, I think that,

00:53:22.640 you know, this government has done some very deeply troubling things. I mean, we forget that the Air

00:53:26.880 Canada, uh, their, their India, um, bombing, uh, was the largest terrorist attack in North America prior to

00:53:33.840 9-11. Um, but only two years ago, the same public safety minister that's now responsible for

00:53:41.040 investigating the crimes in Iran, uh, the murders in Iran, um, was responsible for deleting, uh,

00:53:48.320 national, the idea of Calistan from national security documents,

00:53:52.080 using his political pen to delete the actual advice of national security professions, uh,

00:53:59.840 professionals, um, and, and deploying, I think, um, these types of tactics into the civil service,

00:54:08.800 into the bureaucracy, into our security agencies is one of the most dangerous and indictable things

00:54:14.000 that Prime Minister Trudeau and his government has allowed to happen.

00:54:16.640 Well, they bowed to political pressure their shoe because originally the, it did say, it did say

00:54:21.440 Calistani extremism was a threat in that national security briefing. And then after some pushback,

00:54:27.440 again, from the same well-organized vote banks, uh, they, they, they cowered and they, and they removed

00:54:32.240 that because somehow, um, it's, it's a similar tactic to what China is doing now that they say,

00:54:38.400 if, if you talk about Calistani extremism, you're being racist towards Sikhs, which, which sort of

00:54:44.640 defies logic because Calisthenes are a small radical group within Sikhs. So it's not like

00:54:49.440 you're saying Sikh terrorism. You're actually being very specific about the subgroup and the ideology.

00:54:54.560 Um, but, but even using that that, you know, the, the, the, the liberals cowered to that

00:54:59.280 and, and just about immediately removed that reference. I remember that.

00:55:03.360 Well, this is the problem of, of the, the, the social justice that we described in the past,

00:55:08.800 because this is what happens when you, when you threaten the, the substantive idea of a foreign

00:55:15.760 supported terrorist organization and network that is trying to undermine not just one democracy, but

00:55:21.360 two, um, then you get decried to be a racist. When you, when you attack the Chinese communist party

00:55:28.560 for covering up the Wuhan virus and acting belligerently in the world stage, then you get

00:55:32.400 attacked for being a racist. When you go after the Iranian clerical military dictatorship regime,

00:55:37.280 um, then you get attacked for being a racist. When everything's racism, nothing's racism.

00:55:42.080 But also this is the actual tool in the toolkit of social identitarians, collectivists, tyrants,

00:55:49.040 um, and, uh, and they get a lot of airplay with their allies in the mainstream press.

00:55:53.520 Absolutely. Well, it's a very good point, Shuv. We have some questions that come from our club

00:55:58.480 members. So over at True North, if you want to be able to ask questions during these, uh, interviews,

00:56:03.440 all you have to do is join one of our clubs and then you can go ahead and submit a question at a

00:56:07.920 future interview. So we've got a couple to go through. And the first one is related exactly

00:56:12.240 to what we're talking about. A few weeks ago, we saw the CBC release a news report

00:56:17.680 attacking the Epoch times for a cover story that they did looking into the Chinese communist party's

00:56:24.160 coverup of the Wuhan coronavirus. Uh, how do we find ourselves in a place where the CBC is repeating

00:56:32.240 Chinese propaganda by attacking a newspaper run by Chinese dissidents and Chinese religious

00:56:39.280 minorities? CBC is calling them racist. How do we get to that point, Shuv? And is this just an example

00:56:46.400 of the Canadian institutions being corrupted by foreign powers?

00:56:50.800 Yeah. They had three journalists from the state broadcaster go after a community and,

00:56:58.720 uh, a community news outlet that aspires to do some factual reporting, uh, and does a pretty good job

00:57:04.480 of it for what it's worth. Um, and they had like this made like this, this, this offered up news story

00:57:11.040 with the right kind of, you know, quotes from individual people that, I mean, I don't know how Kelowna

00:57:16.960 had so much activity in the last, you know, decade or so in terms of national life, but I, it is, um,

00:57:23.120 it is deeply distressing that the state broadcaster would go and do something like this. I know,

00:57:27.520 I saw, I think it was today that they, they provided a correction that this is something

00:57:31.600 that should not have happened, but the damage had already been done. And for propaganda purposes,

00:57:35.200 uh, the Chinese state, uh, and the communist party now has what they need to go after the Epoch

00:57:40.480 Times and the journalists in those ranks. Right. So, um, it's obviously, uh, a corrosion and a

00:57:47.840 corruption of how the state broadcaster does its editorial coverage. Um, and it's something that

00:57:53.760 has to be corrected because, um, it's denying our country, the kind of debate it deserves.

00:58:00.320 Absolutely. It's so embarrassing, not just for the CBC, but for all Canadians that, that this is what we

00:58:04.720 get from our state broadcaster. Okay. The next question comes from Jim and Dawn. They say,

00:58:09.760 I wonder if Shuv could share his opinion on the 5G security issues and how it will impact our

00:58:15.600 relationship with the United States. So I think that's, uh, referring to the, um, Ming extradition

00:58:22.560 and, um, the greater question of Huawei, uh, operating here.

00:58:26.640 By jailing Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, the Chinese communist party and state confirmed that

00:58:34.080 Huawei is a state corporation, even if it pretends to be a private corporate, it is a state corporation.

00:58:40.320 Huawei has, uh, established, um, surveillance relationships across Africa and Asia with

00:58:47.120 authoritarian regimes. Um, it is not interested in providing fast data for Canadians. It is

00:58:53.040 interested in gaining a strategic part of the Canadian economy. Um, and with all the products

00:58:58.560 that come with the internet of things, like beyond your cell phone, your refrigerator, your toaster,

00:59:02.480 your car, everything is internet connected. So the 5G technology is really important to our economic

00:59:07.760 development and the Chinese are not interested in using that as a trusted partner of Canada,

00:59:11.760 but rather to, to try and find ways to control Canada. Um, the decision before the Canadian cabinet

00:59:19.360 on 5G has been, um, uh, just, just hanging there for months and months and months, despite the facts

00:59:26.480 for why they should reject it. Uh, even yesterday, uh, we saw that the United States, uh, had indicated

00:59:32.880 that they're going to have to consider how to downgrade, um, their intelligence partnership with

00:59:38.240 the United Kingdom because the United Kingdom is trying to engage, embrace a partnership with 5G.

00:59:43.840 I think that, you know, if the Canadian cabinet wanted to make a decision to reject 5G, they could do so

00:59:48.640 today. Um, I think they should do so today. And I don't think that they should allow the Chinese

00:59:54.080 Communist Party to string Canada around by the nose, um, by abusing our justified outrage over

01:00:01.200 the detention of our two Canadians. It's, it's, it's just wild that these, these Canadians have

01:00:06.080 been held for so long, Shuv, and it doesn't feel like, it doesn't feel like the government's doing

01:00:11.440 enough to, to, to help them. I mean, I, I don't really know what else they could do aside from halting

01:00:16.720 trade or, or, or, or, you know, demanding that the United States jump in to help, but, uh, pretty,

01:00:23.280 pretty sad to see that situation with, with Canadian, two Canadians that by best accounts

01:00:28.080 haven't, haven't done anything wrong, um, are being held in horrific, uh, conditions where there

01:00:33.360 are reports of just horrible mistreatment, including, you know, keeping lights on all night,

01:00:38.160 taking away glasses so that they can't read. I mean, it's just, it's just horrific that's happening.

01:00:43.520 And it's such a disgrace for the Trudeau, Trudeau government. Uh, next question, uh, this is from

01:00:48.720 Bill. He asks, is Shuv considered the, what does Shuv considered to be the biggest foreign threat

01:00:53.840 to Canada? Is it China? Is it Russia? Maybe Iran, North Korea, or Venezuela?

01:00:58.720 Great questions. Well, Russia basically is China's gas station, so we can clump those together.

01:01:07.120 Uh, I would say the biggest geopolitical threat to Canada is, is China and the China model. I would

01:01:13.200 say the biggest security threat to Canada is the Iranian regime and the instability they foment

01:01:18.880 through exporting terrorism around the world. Um, issues like North Korea and Venezuela are ones that

01:01:26.000 you see the confluence of sometimes all three, Russia, Iran, and China. Um, and, uh, and are proxy

01:01:33.600 issues that ultimately come from, from China and then from Iran. And it's interesting just to note the

01:01:39.280 difference in, in warfare over the, over the decades, you know, we used to be worried of an

01:01:44.000 actual bombing threat from, from our adversaries. And now it comes to China and Iran. It's, it's more

01:01:49.920 a threat of people within our own country who have split loyalties or, or, or, or loyal to a foreign

01:01:56.640 regime that are here trying to, you know, subvert, um, Canadian institutions to, to benefit another

01:02:03.360 country and a government that's just playing along and not, not doing anything to stop them, Shuv.

01:02:08.320 It's, uh, it's, it's, it's a, it's a different kind of threat than what we've seen in the past.

01:02:12.000 And I don't know that we're equipped as a society to, to deal with the ramifications of that,

01:02:16.960 of that fact. What do you think?

01:02:19.200 Well, look, you know, Canadians, conservatives, Canadians are right to,

01:02:22.880 to be deeply concerned about the presence of foreign regimes in Canada.

01:02:26.880 What I would caution against is to say that somehow, um, um, having less of a presence of a diverse

01:02:36.240 Canada is the response to that because the asymmetric threat that you've described is largely

01:02:40.800 created because of technology. We are, our world is closer and woven more closely together because

01:02:45.600 of technology, uh, where before, you know, we could count on the Arctic in the United States,

01:02:50.880 the Pacific and Atlantic oceans to distance ourselves from odious regimes, uh, that no longer

01:02:56.800 works because, um, the threat comes through the internet or it comes through information on the

01:03:02.880 internet, um, or it comes through, um, you know, things that are not necessarily, uh, confronted by

01:03:10.320 militaries, but by the strength of our own society. And so what I would encourage, um, Canadians to

01:03:16.720 really think about is how do we really continue the success of Canada as a country on the basis of

01:03:23.200 our values, um, of the equality of every citizen, of the fact that we can all be productive and, and

01:03:30.080 meaningfully contributing to our rise as a country, uh, rather than fall into the traps of, uh, cultural

01:03:36.720 warfare and identitarian politics. That's a really good point. One of the things that sometimes I get stuck

01:03:41.920 with is that, you know, I have friends who are from so many of these diaspora communities

01:03:46.480 and, you know, they're the largest, the most vocal opponents to, you know, the Chinese regime,

01:03:52.000 people from Hong Kong or people from Taiwan who are here in Canada are the most articulate,

01:03:56.160 most vocal, uh, critics, same with, you know, Iranians and many other countries. Um, but often,

01:04:01.440 you know, if, if I try to jump in and critique those groups, I get thrown with accusations of

01:04:06.880 sewing, uh, you know, racial animosity or being racist. And, you know, it's, it's interesting how,

01:04:12.880 um, you know, people are, are almost silenced and, and, and threatened if they do speak out about some

01:04:19.360 of these threats. And even again, if you're not criticizing the people, not, not, you know,

01:04:23.920 quite the opposite, you're, you're criticizing the regime that oppresses those people. And I feel like

01:04:28.880 they, they, they really use identity politics, like you said, and, and this sort of cultural war,

01:04:33.440 um, to try to, to try to silence, uh, opposition, which is, which is really damaging to, to our

01:04:38.880 democracy. A hundred percent. That's why, that's why you and True North and the rest of us in, in

01:04:44.720 support of your cause need to make sure we fight for the culture that made Canada work, which is that

01:04:49.040 of a free democratic rule of law society. Absolutely. All right. Let's move on. I've got two more

01:04:54.320 questions here, Shu. This one comes from Karen. She says, Justin Trudeau has embarrassed us on so many

01:04:59.280 occasions on the world stage, whether it was in India or now his constant need to appease and

01:05:05.440 impress the United Nations. Uh, what do you think is the biggest failure of the Trudeau government?

01:05:09.920 And I'll add my own follow up. What, why is Trudeau so obsessed with getting a seat on the United

01:05:16.000 Nations, uh, security council? And do you think that will actually do anything for Canada if he's successful?

01:05:23.520 You know, um, the kind of resources that this government has committed as a project

01:05:28.480 to attain a seat at the security council have yet has yet to be revealed. Like we don't know how

01:05:32.800 much money has gone into authoritarian governments around the world. We don't know what kind of deals

01:05:37.120 have been made. And we are unlikely to see that until they're all announced over the course of

01:05:41.360 several years. Like there's no obligation for them to produce a balance sheet to Canadians saying,

01:05:45.520 here's how much we've spent. Here's the deals that we made. Here are the values that we sold out

01:05:49.360 on key votes or key opportunities to advocate for people when it mattered. Um, you know, as a, as a

01:05:55.360 singular obsession of the entire government, I think it has completely wasted, um, the, the necessary

01:06:03.360 work that Canada should have been doing to safeguard our interests, our security interests, our prosperity

01:06:08.000 interests, our values around the world, uh, because you cannot have a seat at the security council and

01:06:12.640 be principled at the same time. Um, and so, uh, you know, as a, as a project and an obsession,

01:06:19.840 I think it has been a complete waste of time because it will not result in any meaningful influence

01:06:24.640 anywhere. Um, now in terms of what the success is of the, of the, like, what have they actually

01:06:30.720 accomplished? Um, I know there is a tendency to say that the USMCA and the update to trade between

01:06:39.360 Canada, the United States and Mexico, uh, is an accomplishment. I don't see how it was an

01:06:45.680 accomplishment when what happened in fact was that the Americans and the Mexicans made a deal

01:06:50.640 and then put the gun to Canada's head to come on board or be left out into the wilderness.

01:06:54.720 Like, think about it. Donald Trump's America made a deal with his, you know, rival Mexico,

01:07:00.960 uh, before their partner and ally in Canada. That's how badly I think the federal government

01:07:06.800 screwed up that negotiation. So I have a very difficult time at pointing to anything that

01:07:11.600 I would characterize as, as, as a success. Well, what, what do you think has been his biggest,

01:07:15.920 uh, failure or an embarrassment on, on the world stage? Today, I think it is, uh, to not,

01:07:24.960 to, to have not seen China for the threat it is, and even stubbornly refuse to admit that Canada's

01:07:32.880 interests, Canadians are best benefited by understanding that the world is, uh, made worse

01:07:38.560 by the communist party of China and that we need to partner with the democratic friends and allies.

01:07:42.800 I think his failure to understand that is coming at great cost for our country's potential.

01:07:48.960 That's a really interesting point. Okay. Our final question should, it comes from,

01:07:52.640 uh, the staff here at true north. So should we know that you work for the non, uh, partisan

01:07:58.400 McDonnell Laurier Institute. And so we're not talking about big C conservative. We're talking about the,

01:08:03.280 the concept of being a small C conservative. So what, what does it mean to be a conservative in 2020?

01:08:10.240 And how can conservatives paint a picture of our worldview that is more appealing to more Canadians?

01:08:18.320 I appreciate that question a great deal. Um, and I'm fascinated anybody would want to know my views

01:08:22.640 on this, so thank you for the opportunity. Um, I think, uh, first, first and foremost to answer social

01:08:30.400 justice with social mobility. Uh, I think we, we as conservatives in Canada have the opportunity to be

01:08:36.960 the model for the world because we have been the model for the world. Um, and to really reconnect

01:08:43.120 with that idea and reapply it to contemporary times. Um, the second is, I think in this country,

01:08:49.840 we have an opportunity now to reimagine Canada beyond the low expectations of middle power. Um,

01:08:56.960 I think that we should be setting forth the projects of true nation building on the basis of outcomes,

01:09:03.600 not on the basis of, um, nice metrics, uh, meaning how do we as a country focus on doubling our economy?

01:09:12.960 And if that is an objective of our country to be, uh, engaged in the world and successful as such,

01:09:20.000 and to offer our model for others to participate with, um, what does that mean for how we conceive

01:09:25.680 of our security interests in the world? What does that mean for how we pursue partnerships on the

01:09:30.000 basis of our values for cooperation in the world? I think that that idea of what we expect Canada to

01:09:36.800 be beyond the middle power, um, is probably one of the more interesting projects that conservatives

01:09:41.680 could undertake. So I'll, I'll leave it at that. Um, but I think that those could be some interesting

01:09:46.080 contributions for conservatism in our country. I think, uh, conservatives would be wise to, uh,

01:09:50.960 pick up on those, on those themes and topics. Well, thank you so much for joining us, Shruv. I

01:09:55.120 know we took up a bunch of your time today, but I think the conversation has been really helpful,

01:09:58.800 really interesting. So thank you for shedding light on some of the world's most complicated

01:10:03.520 issues and most complicated issues of our time. We really appreciate it. And we hope to,

01:10:08.960 uh, we hope to do another interview with you again, hopefully in person once this whole,

01:10:13.120 uh, lockdown thing is, is over and we, we get some of our freedoms back.

01:10:17.520 I can't wait. Thank you for everything you do, your staff, your colleagues. Uh,

01:10:21.600 I'm a big fan and will continue to be in the important fights we have ahead. Thank you.

01:10:26.160 Great. All right. Great. Thank you, Shruv.

Juno News - May 14, 2020

Ep. 3 ｜ Shuv Majumdar ｜ Dealing with China, Iran & global terrorism

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