Juno News - Ep. 8 ｜ Chris Tomlinson ｜ The rise of Antifa and when the left goes too far

00:00:00.000 Antifa sees that as validation of everything they do and so they say yes

00:00:04.880 we do confront real far-right people but we're also going to use all of the

00:00:09.880 credibility that you've given us to go after conservatives because really

00:00:12.820 they're just secret far-right people and so that becomes the thing and then you

00:00:17.200 hear constantly in the media oh well yeah they must be they're giving dog

00:00:20.680 whistles that's what they're doing they're not they're not admitting that

00:00:23.440 they're far right they're saying they're not and nothing in their past seems to

00:00:27.960 indicate that they are but they're giving dog whistles so they must secretly

00:00:31.860 be far right and then once you go into that I mean you're going into McCarthyism

00:00:35.460 really when does the left go too far Dr. Jordan Peterson makes the point that our

00:00:40.200 society needs a balance of left and right-wing ideas and the two sides can

00:00:43.980 balance each other out we also know that both sides can go too far according to

00:00:48.600 Peterson however it's very clear to us when the right goes too far but we as a

00:00:53.340 society don't know when the left has gone too far well we've kind of figured out

00:00:57.780 when the right-wingers go too far you know right-wing identity politics

00:01:01.920 devolves into claims of ethnic and racial superiority and moral justification on

00:01:06.340 the grounds of those for actions based on those categories when do the left-wingers

00:01:11.280 go too far oh we don't know well first of all we certainly know that they can go

00:01:16.740 too far if you don't read if you don't understand that the left has gone too far

00:01:21.840 then you're woefully ignorant or you're willfully blind in today's new political

00:01:27.300 landscape where social justice protests often devolve into rioting looting arson

00:01:32.100 assault and murder and when the mainstream left defends protects and endorses the

00:01:37.440 far-left including far-left violence and violent groups like Antifa it's clear

00:01:42.420 that our society does not know where to draw the line in saying the far-left has

00:01:46.740 gone too far my guest today knows better than anyone that the left is capable of

00:01:51.480 destroying our society and that today's far-left is getting more violent more

00:01:56.560 ideological more radical and all the while is being celebrated and promoted by

00:02:01.860 our leftist cultural and political leaders Chris Tomlinson is a British

00:02:06.120 Canadian journalist writing for Breitbart and covering international political

00:02:10.140 news around the world since 2016 he's focused his reporting on violent far-left

00:02:15.720 groups in Europe particularly the rise of Antifa and has watched how they brought

00:02:20.220 their tactics and their violence to North America he's written extensively and

00:02:24.720 understands who they are where they came from and what they want better than any

00:02:29.440 other journalists out there in our interview today Chris helps break down who

00:02:34.380 Antifa is what they're trying to achieve and how we can stop them

00:02:49.380 well Chris thank you so much for joining the true north speaker series it's a pleasure to

00:02:53.680 have you on thank you for joining us thank you for having me so you I I know about you

00:02:59.640 because I think you're one of the first journalists one of the most prominent

00:03:03.720 journalists that has been covering Antifa I think from day one I don't know how

00:03:07.760 long you've been doing it but maybe you can just give us a very brief

00:03:11.220 introduction to you and your journalism and how you started to cover the Antifa

00:03:16.440 beat sure so I started with Breitbart back in February or January of 2016 and

00:03:23.640 initially I was covering the biggest story right then which was the migrant

00:03:28.320 crisis but I noticed along with all the stuff that was going on with the migrant

00:03:32.400 crisis you also had a lot of people in places like Germany and UK working for

00:03:38.480 NGOs and a lot of these NGOs then were connected to left-wing groups who are then

00:03:42.960 connected to other people and there was this sort of this web that formed and one

00:03:48.120 part of this web was people like the Antifa which stands for anti-fascist action a lot of

00:03:56.580 people try and pass it off as just being anti-fascism in general but it is definitely

00:04:01.120 the action pass that is the more interesting part of their behavior and yeah it really

00:04:08.880 stemmed from the things from the migrant crisis during the 2016 obviously the height of

00:04:14.120 it was in 2015 this late summer and the autumn and winter of that year but so it

00:04:21.140 was still going on in 2016 and all these links that I'd seen with a thing that

00:04:25.460 really got me examining the different NGOs then all these anti-hate groups who

00:04:31.940 were also you know trumpeting the call of refugees welcome just as much as

00:04:37.580 everybody else and so that was really what got me down the rabbit hole that I've

00:04:41.780 been going down ever since it's funny that you call them the anti-hate groups

00:04:46.700 because my experience with those groups is that they're usually the most hateful

00:04:50.060 among among the groups but but they call themselves anti-hate just like

00:04:54.540 anti-fascist you know they brand themselves as doing good in the world and I

00:04:58.220 think that because they brand themselves that way they've sort of tricked some

00:05:02.180 journalists or maybe some journalists are just on board but they don't get the

00:05:06.700 same kind of scrutiny as say you know far-right groups or other radical groups that are

00:05:11.360 pushing violence so so so you were observing what was happening in Europe and

00:05:16.280 and did you see that activism sort of exploding into violence or when was the

00:05:21.020 first sort of instances of violence that you that you reported on and that you

00:05:25.280 observed it was probably when I started seeing people protest against against

00:05:31.400 them not the migrant crisis itself but the open border policies of people like

00:05:35.480 Angela Merkel you had these youth groups that were popping up all over Europe

00:05:40.280 generation identity tear and the various other identitarian movements you had

00:05:45.280 Pegida you had quite a few groups across Germany and France and other countries who

00:05:50.880 you know dropping banners and doing essentially the same type of protesting the

00:05:54.800 Greenpeace was doing and the people that were getting violent with them were the

00:05:58.620 Antifa they'd previously been known really just for fighting with people like far-right

00:06:04.660 groups for example in Germany the NPD the National Democratic Party as well as you

00:06:11.800 know the BNP British National Party in Britain so real real far-right groups but

00:06:16.420 then I saw that they were targeting these people who didn't appear to be far-right

00:06:20.620 groups but rather people that would just didn't want their borders to be open to

00:06:24.160 millions upon millions of people from other countries and so that was the first

00:06:28.300 instances I started seeing them actively on the street engaging in balance of people

00:06:32.660 and who you know was it was it organized like I know that the whole idea is that

00:06:37.940 they're they're anarchists and they're decentralized and that they claim to not

00:06:41.780 have any kind of organizational structure or any kind of leaders leadership is that

00:06:47.000 what you observed or are there sort of key players involved there are

00:06:50.960 definitely key players and as far as formal leadership structure there isn't one

00:06:55.140 really but there are informal leadership structures in the sense that people

00:06:59.880 who've been in those movements for a long time generally are looked up to by the

00:07:03.900 people who haven't been there are also people who are well connected into politics

00:07:09.120 well connected into the NGO sector well connected into the media and these

00:07:14.460 people are either looked up to within the milieu of Antifa and the far left in

00:07:21.240 general or they are the ones you know who they ask for advice so somebody has been to

00:07:28.200 let's say for example the 2017 G20 protests in Hamburg welcome to hell protests as they

00:07:34.020 were called people who were involved in that will be looked up to by the people who haven't been

00:07:39.080 involved in any sort of rioting and they'll ask them for advice to ask them should we

00:07:44.080 do this protest should we do this riot what should we do and so while there aren't any

00:07:48.780 formal leaders there are people within the movement who are more respected than others and

00:07:53.700 it could be called de facto a de facto leadership within the groups interesting and so I mean

00:08:00.120 there have been lots of incidents that have sort of propelled them into you know our our site here in

00:08:05.380 North America I think obviously when some of those anti-immigrant protests came to Canada I

00:08:10.520 remember there was a far-right group Lemaire in Quebec and they were protesting and they were sort of met with a

00:08:17.700 violent opposition Antifa obviously with Donald Trump I think during his inauguration and during

00:08:22.980 the sort of women's march that came after we saw sort of Antifa like black black block figures kind of

00:08:31.980 coming in and and rioting and creating some violence was it was that sort of the intro or

00:08:37.500 how did they how did they come over here to North America yeah so a lot of these people that have been

00:08:42.480 involved in what's branded as Antifa now have been in anarchist and far-left circles for many many

00:08:49.020 years or for decades even some of these people trace their lineage back to groups like the weather

00:08:54.720 underground and people like that the Antifa branding is relatively new the black block tactics we've seen

00:09:01.140 since you know various g7 and g20 protests either in Toronto Seattle and other places that tactic has been

00:09:08.880 around in North America for quite a few years but the actual Antifa branding didn't really come until

00:09:15.960 probably 2009 2010 which is when we started seeing the first Antifa groups form in the United States

00:09:24.760 which is we're talking people like the Rose City Antifa based out of Portland we're talking about the

00:09:31.440 Philly Antifa in Philadelphia and in Canada we see mostly Antifa anarchists centered around places like

00:09:40.800 Montreal where they have a very big influence there in Toronto in Hamilton and some in Vancouver but

00:09:49.500 that's really as far as Canada goes those are the main hubs when you see Antifa somewhere else it's

00:09:55.320 usually because they've been bussed in by people who you know who allies of them whether it's NGOs or

00:10:01.940 whether it's sometimes trade unionists and people like that it's interesting because you know you don't

00:10:08.880 really think of Portland Oregon as being a big you know center but but that seems to be where so many of

00:10:15.560 these Antifa figures are are based and obviously they go after journalists like yourself and and you know who

00:10:21.960 really gets harassed and I think assaulted by these people but I'm wondering in Canada why Hamilton I

00:10:29.140 I've noticed I've seen them at events out there I've seen I think that was where Maxime Bernier and Dave

00:10:35.980 Rubin were doing an event that they got protests I believe that was in Hamilton why is it that Hamilton

00:10:41.800 became sort of a center point for these these folks here in Ontario well I think partially because

00:10:49.060 it is very much sort of a working class town and has been a working class town for many many years

00:10:54.760 it's very much an industrial uh industrial town uh I think that's part of it so you have a traditional

00:11:01.020 leftist union uh scene there but I think another reason for it too is you have a lot of people from

00:11:07.960 I mean when we're talking about Antifa people the actual members a lot of them are middle class

00:11:12.920 bourgeois white uh sons and daughters of business owners of executives of academics of left-wing

00:11:22.820 politicians and people like that and when you see Hamilton especially has become really um I don't

00:11:29.720 want to say gentrified but in recent years it has definitely become a hub of places like you know

00:11:34.580 craft brewing and you know uh craft restaurants and all sorts of uh sort of middle class type things

00:11:42.140 so I think they were possibly attracted into that and then came in and got involved in the left-wing

00:11:48.780 scene and then it sort of has spiraled from there like one of the big meeting places in Hamilton is a

00:11:56.200 place I believe it's called Tower Books uh which is an anarchist bookshop which is one of the places

00:12:02.260 that Antifa likes to uh organize there in these various anarchist bookshops uh and so when you see

00:12:08.240 these places generally it's a good bet that Antifa either organizing there or the people that run it

00:12:13.380 are members or affiliates of the local Antifa cell that operates in that area right which is which is

00:12:21.540 why you expect to see Antifa in places like San Francisco and Vancouver and Toronto Montreal um but

00:12:27.140 it is interesting that they've they've uh co-opted a place like Hamilton which you know might you'd think

00:12:33.400 might have more uh sensible sensibility and in common sense than to jump on a an anarchist movement

00:12:39.120 although I'm sure 99% of the people in Hamilton oppose Antifa uh let's try to understand a little

00:12:45.900 bit Chris about what it is that Antifa wants like what are their goals what are they trying to achieve

00:12:51.860 here sure so a lot of their philosophy is really comes down to anarcho-communism and that is basically

00:13:00.400 based off of uh a Russian thinker called Peter Kropotkin uh and one of his books called The Conquest

00:13:06.620 of Bread and what they would like to see is a stateless society of no government uh no laws no

00:13:13.360 police um a classless society uh a society that you know doesn't believe in in anything except

00:13:20.840 equality um they don't believe well they'd like to abolish things like money they'd like to abolish

00:13:27.260 work so if somebody doesn't want to work they shouldn't have to but they should still I don't

00:13:31.960 know somehow be provided for uh and so that their end goal really is the destruction of civilization

00:13:37.980 itself and the replacing of civilization with what they call a cooperative society in the sense that

00:13:46.420 you know you see sort of groups on Facebook and places like that where somebody will say you know

00:13:51.900 if you paint my fence I'll uh do a favor for you and that's the sort of economy that they would like

00:13:58.220 to see across the entire world so you do something for me I do something for you but there's no money

00:14:04.300 or anything or property or anything exchanged in these transactions and that's kind of the end goal

00:14:10.060 it's very childish and very unrealistic uh and a lot of the people who are serious members of Antifa

00:14:17.100 probably don't believe in it and definitely the people who are using Antifa of their own political ends

00:14:21.980 don't believe in it either I very much doubt you're going to see the CEOs of McDonald's on

00:14:27.180 Nike or whoever else is supporting things like the Black Lives Matter movement or Antifa are going to

00:14:32.300 be really too interested in abolishing money and abolishing capitalism capitalism well it's interesting

00:14:40.220 because you know we know that Marxism has been tried over and over again and failed across

00:14:44.620 you know different times different cultures different demographics different societies um but

00:14:49.420 but the idea of just sort of destroying everything from the bottom um not having like a strong

00:14:54.700 government come in and impose the system but to to kind of unravel it from from the bottom I don't

00:15:00.940 know that's ever been tried and you can see the tactics sort of spreading not just from Antifa but

00:15:07.100 there's lots of left-wing organizations that are trying to destabilize or pull apart the traditions of

00:15:13.740 our society whether they know that they're doing it or not you know by erasing our history and trying

00:15:18.620 to you know the the recent movement to defund the police it it's sort of interesting I wish I wish that

00:15:24.380 they would try it on a on a smaller scale um you know rather than trying to just destabilize the entire

00:15:30.700 society I'll give an example I know a lot of libertarians that are sort of anarcho-capitalists and they

00:15:36.540 want to live in their little you know libertarian communes and you know what they do they they have a

00:15:41.660 festival every year called pork fest where they go off and they go camping I think it's in New

00:15:46.540 Hampshire and you know they get a couple hundred people out and they and they have this experiment

00:15:51.260 where there's no you know there's no money and there's no or there's no government and there's

00:15:56.540 no laws but everyone just sort of gets along and it kind of works but obviously it's not going to work

00:16:01.180 on a bigger scale um I I like to see Antifa try to maybe organize something like that instead of just

00:16:06.300 trying to you know destabilize our whole societies Chris do they have anything like that or or is it

00:16:12.060 usually just sort of a violent movement well there has been one thing that's tried uh back in I believe

00:16:17.500 it was 1918 1919 to about 1921 there was a stateless uh area in the Ukraine that was formed uh as a sort

00:16:27.820 of like an anarchist utopia uh that was soon crushed by the Bolsheviks in 1921 when Vladimir Lenin said uh he

00:16:35.500 didn't like that very much and so they didn't really have any defense when the Soviets came in

00:16:39.900 and crushed them um so that's really the only example I mean people might point to things like

00:16:45.900 the Paris Commune and and a couple of other smaller scale examples as well but uh whenever we see these

00:16:53.180 so-called autonomous zones that we've seen in Seattle pop up I've seen them all over in uh in Germany

00:17:01.180 in Italy in France and places like that what they usually are uh in Italy they're called social

00:17:06.460 centers and what they are usually the Antifa members will occupy a building that is either

00:17:13.260 uh under repair under construction or has been abandoned completely and they'll occupy it and use

00:17:19.660 it as sort of a base where police aren't allowed in and they'll attack police and they use these places

00:17:26.620 as sort of places that they can gather and that they can you know in France not too long ago in

00:17:32.220 Paris they discovered that they were making bombs in one of these places so they also use it to make

00:17:36.860 weapons for rioting ready-made Molotov cocktails that sort of thing um what happens in these areas

00:17:44.060 is most of the time they are facilitated by people from the outside so for example in Germany a lot of

00:17:49.820 them are associated by NGOs or by social democrats and uh politicians and left party and people like

00:17:57.580 that so they don't really survive on their own but the actual things that go on there are mostly drug

00:18:03.020 use um giving sorts of speeches uh reading various anarchist pamphlets and books and uh not a whole

00:18:12.940 lot of much else really right well I'm glad you brought up the example of CHOP or CHAS I was

00:18:19.660 called CHAS then I guess that that they that got made fun of too much so they changed it to CHOP but

00:18:23.900 it's the it was the Capitol Hill autonomous zone and now it's the Capitol Hill occupied territory which

00:18:29.660 is a small part of downtown Seattle the Capitol Hill neighborhood which is sort of a counterculture

00:18:36.460 hippie area in Seattle and in the midst of these sort of Black Lives Matter George Floyd protests that

00:18:43.180 devolved into violence and riots and anarchy a group of people somehow managed to take

00:18:49.500 over uh a a couple of city blocks in Seattle that the police department did not want to stand down

00:18:56.700 but the mayor I believe ordered them to and so they they were told to just you know let these people be

00:19:02.620 and allow them to occupy an area of downtown Seattle so I guess that would be an example of a smaller scale

00:19:09.100 um experiment we should say uh in in sort of self-governance by these Antifa groups I think it

00:19:14.940 it brought uh you know it caused a bit of surprise it brought uh came by storm to a lot of people

00:19:20.540 because they didn't really know much about these people and I think the media has been very dishonest

00:19:25.980 in the way they've covered it um I've seen clips of you know reporters in the mainstream media describing

00:19:31.260 it as like a block party or like a city camp out um but but really if you if you look at some of the

00:19:37.100 reporting and and and some of the crime statistics you know it seems like a pretty dangerous place to be

00:19:42.300 especially at night um you've been following this uh occupied protest uh in in Seattle

00:19:48.780 Chris what do you make of it yeah I think it's really interesting because people say that you know

00:19:54.860 look they're getting along and all this kind of thing they don't mention the fact that you know that

00:19:59.900 everything from their toiletries to the electricity that they're using to everything is really supplied by

00:20:05.100 other people um the government came in and and gave them a bunch of porta potties and you know people

00:20:11.820 are treating it more of the street festival in terms of uh how the local government's treating it

00:20:17.740 but the fact is you have armed uh people roaming around uh most notably the local warlord uh razz the

00:20:25.500 rapper who goes around and enforces selectively uh whatever order that he can sort of muster whether

00:20:34.060 it's beating up somebody for doing graffiti or whatever but there have already been i believe three shootings

00:20:40.140 um in the area uh at least one person that i know has died um and the police refuse to go in because

00:20:47.980 they know that if they do go in then they're going to get attacked and even the emergency services uh

00:20:53.660 can't go in because if they go in there's a potential they'll get attacked too so they'll say

00:20:57.900 okay well we'll go in with police well the police can't go in so what happens is somebody gets shot

00:21:03.180 somebody gets uh sexually assaulted which has also happened uh and there's nobody to come and help them

00:21:09.180 because they don't want the police there and all they have is a ragtag group of uh people armed with

00:21:16.220 small arms uh long guns and pistols who are they're trying to enforce some semblance of order but as

00:21:23.420 soon as night goes down i mean you know it's it's really a dream for criminals because they can go in

00:21:28.780 there and they can do more or less anything that they want uh it's a dream for sort of anybody who wants

00:21:35.100 to do something nefarious because it's very hard to for the police to get in there to investigate

00:21:41.740 even after things have happened uh to collect evidence or to do anything like that so i mean

00:21:48.540 anybody with a brain could have predicted that this would have been tragic from day one and i think a

00:21:52.780 lot of people in seattle especially in maybe not the local government but the local police force

00:21:57.660 are really starting to become aware that you know this isn't something that's going to end it's

00:22:02.860 going to keep happening people are going to keep shooting each other and if you let it continue

00:22:07.100 not only are people going to die but there's not going to be any justice for the people uh who their

00:22:12.060 families as well because there's not going to be able to be investigations into them either so i think

00:22:17.100 that that project is going to come to a close relatively soon well let's hope so but i mean just just

00:22:23.900 going back to the sort of ideology that drives this idea and and sort of the goals of antifa

00:22:29.260 like how how do they propose that they handle these kind of things i mean if they're calling for

00:22:35.580 defunding the police and they believe that they can live in a society without laws or without sort of

00:22:41.500 an authority an authority to enforce the laws i mean how how do they deal with crime how do they deal

00:22:47.900 with with shootings and and rapes and all the other things that are happening in chop uh basically they

00:22:54.460 it's mob rule so um the people accused will be you know tried by a mob and whoever you know seems to

00:23:03.180 be the most reasonable uh and wins the side of the mob uh wins and what happens to the other person well

00:23:10.380 it's up to the mob to decide i mean we've seen in the french revolution that it ended up with people

00:23:15.500 being beaten to death it ended up with people being guillotined all over um so i mean that's the sort

00:23:20.940 of justice that the only real sort of justice that they can give because they don't have any

00:23:25.420 sort of central authority uh or any um central uh judicial system to be able to dispense justice

00:23:34.540 well that is uh truly terrifying chris and hopefully uh we don't see any antifa takeovers

00:23:40.540 here in toronto because i don't i don't think i would be uh i would survive very long in that kind

00:23:45.020 of environment one of the things that i've noticed and i think is really standing out to more and more

00:23:49.580 people in the wake of these riots and the sort of looting that went on is that the mainstream media

00:23:56.540 is not telling it to us like it is i mean um most most people i think almost everyone uh agreed that

00:24:03.340 what happened to george floyd was a complete injustice and it was wrong and and police brutality is wrong

00:24:09.260 and police brutality targeted against the black community is wrong i think we all agreed on that

00:24:13.660 but then the the the the protests quickly turned into riots and you know the the issue was that

00:24:20.940 the mainstream media wasn't reporting it that way the mainstream media uh insisted on calling them

00:24:25.740 peaceful protest peaceful protest peaceful protest well why do you need to even use the word peaceful

00:24:31.660 a protest by definition is peaceful um it but but the idea was that what we're seeing with our eyes

00:24:36.940 showed us that it wasn't peaceful and the way that the uh media covers groups like antifa i mean

00:24:42.220 they either ignore them and pretend that they don't exist um or they go the other way like the cbc does

00:24:48.460 um by by actually promoting and defending them um cbc's ran a couple of uh interviews and documentaries

00:24:54.860 uh sort of purporting antifa like heroes like people who are coming in and saving us from this

00:25:00.380 evil nazi invasion that's supposedly happening all over the west so why is it do you think that the

00:25:06.300 mainstream media covers for these sort of what i would describe as left-wing thugs well i think there

00:25:14.380 are a couple of reasons i think the first reason being that a lot of people involved in the media are

00:25:20.060 connected either indirectly or directly to members of antifa um very very much so in germany um very much

00:25:28.860 so in the uk and in the united states um so those people have you know a motivation to defend who

00:25:36.860 are these people who are their friends essentially um as for other people i mean is there are there far

00:25:44.940 right people in the world who are dangerous yes there are definitely uh real far right people are they

00:25:52.700 as organized as let's say radical islamists like isis no are they as organized as left-wing extremists

00:26:02.620 no um but some of them are dangerous and we have seen for example the the christ church shooting we've

00:26:08.620 seen um synagogue shootings and in halla in germany uh so we have seen these lone wolf people that are

00:26:16.220 dangerous and so there is a temptation for the media then to say that anybody who's opposing these people

00:26:22.060 um must therefore be a good person and while that is true to an extent antifa sees that as validation

00:26:30.300 of everything they do and so they say yes we do confront real far right people but we're also going

00:26:36.940 to use all of the credibility that you've given us to go after conservatives because really they're just

00:26:41.580 secret far right people and so that becomes the thing and then you hear constantly in media oh well

00:26:47.020 yeah they must be they're giving dog whistles that's what they're doing they're not they're not

00:26:50.860 admitting that they're far right they're saying they're not and nothing in their past seems to

00:26:56.140 indicate that they are but they're giving dog whistles so they must secretly be far right and

00:27:00.700 then once you go into that i mean you're going into mccarthyism really this person's a secret communist

00:27:05.660 a crypto communist a crypto fascist uh and so how far can you go into that well you know you can go so

00:27:13.260 far as to say you know we had a thing a couple of years ago where you know pranksters on the internet

00:27:19.500 were saying that milk was uh a white uh nationalist drink or something and i mean once you get to that

00:27:27.820 level of absurdity and when the mainstream media goes oh yeah well that that could be the case

00:27:32.940 because these actual far right people are making you know jokes about milk so maybe milk is a secret

00:27:39.820 far white you know dog whistle or whatever and so that becomes really the problem especially because the

00:27:45.820 far right in general in most places especially in canada is electorally non-existent there is no far

00:27:54.380 right party like no openly fascist party uh and if there is they get maybe a couple of hundred votes in one

00:28:01.820 riding uh if they're lucky uh it's the same all over in europe too you have real groups like casser

00:28:08.780 pound in italy or the npd in germany uh who are real far right groups where they

00:28:14.460 barely register on the spectrum instead you see antifa going after the conservative party

00:28:19.980 you see antifa going after the populist parties because they use the legitimacy that they get

00:28:27.180 from fighting and opposing actual far right people and then they use it to boost their agenda in order

00:28:33.420 to attack the people who they really see as a threat which is conservatives and eventually it will

00:28:38.380 be liberals and then it will eventually be people who are just not as far left as they are and they'll

00:28:43.180 keep eliminating each opponent one by one by one it's it's remarkable though chris how well first of

00:28:49.820 all thank you for explaining it so clearly i think that was one of the best explanations i've heard

00:28:53.980 um and and you know it wasn't just the milk thing there was all kinds of things that were supposedly

00:28:59.660 dog whistles like even you know for as long as i can remember since i was a little kid you know going

00:29:04.700 like this means a-okay or that's sounds good you know and all of a sudden that was supposed to be a

00:29:10.780 secret handshake for the far-right alt-right and they even accused uh i think one of brett kavanaugh's

00:29:17.100 uh assistants who who who herself is jewish uh of of you know because she was she was sitting there

00:29:22.780 and somehow you know her her hand was showing that and they accused her of of trying to do a dog

00:29:28.060 whistle during his testimony uh which is patently absurd but for some reason they're successful i mean

00:29:35.020 you know you you painted it pretty clearly that they um you know because they go after these

00:29:40.220 violent extremisms you know there was another example in canada of a horrific shooting at a mosque

00:29:46.220 in january 2018 where several people were murdered by a person who was obviously just an extremist and i

00:29:52.780 think he was he in his case he was mentally ill as well but um you know they use that as an excuse to

00:29:58.540 go after all conservatives and i think we've all been painted with that brush from time to time um

00:30:04.300 you know us at true north occasionally we get called far right i usually try to fight it and get

00:30:09.020 corrections if if a mainstream media outlet calls us far right uh at least i'll get a correction and

00:30:14.060 they'll call call us right wing instead which is still sort of a pejorative term but it's not quite as

00:30:19.500 bad as far right i know and you're over at breitbart uh they constantly get called far right uh even

00:30:25.820 recently uh the federalist which is which is a pretty mainstream conservative news outlet in the

00:30:31.020 u.s was called far right by the uh by nbc news so you know they're they're taking more and more steps

00:30:37.100 towards painting all conservatives by this you know extremist label far right you know what what does

00:30:42.780 far right even mean other than like you said you know it conjures images of nazism and fascism um

00:30:50.140 conjures images of violence and authoritarianism um which is pretty far from what conservatives really

00:30:56.220 believe in um and so it's interesting where if you're far right you're painted and written off as

00:31:01.980 a violent extremist but if you're far left you're still kind of celebrated like the cbc calls antifa

00:31:07.820 far left and it's almost like a compliment like the need for far left activism in the trump era kind of

00:31:13.500 kind of thing so what you know again i i kind of i kind of just want to stick on this topic why is it

00:31:19.420 that they get so that they're so successful with these methods and that they get so much of a pass

00:31:25.100 in the mainstream media well i think they get a pass for a number of reasons i think there are people

00:31:30.620 in the establishment whether it's the media or corporations or wall street or uh politics for

00:31:38.140 example the mainstream liberal party uh here in canada who are afraid of populism and are afraid

00:31:47.420 of regular people they're afraid that all the things that they have done to our countries across

00:31:53.740 the west that there is a backlash against it whether that's mass migration whether that is the financial

00:32:00.380 crisis whether that is the fact that most millennials you know can't afford a house in somewhere like

00:32:06.140 toronto or for the house and to start a family in general um all of these things worry them and so

00:32:14.300 they see i think these people uh antifa who are going out and physically confronting or doxing people

00:32:21.420 online or doing all sorts of other uh things against these people who are you know leaders of populist

00:32:28.540 movements or people who are journalists uh such as myself and you who are you know talking to this

00:32:36.460 audience of people who really the electoral system and the media and whoever have even forgotten or they

00:32:44.380 they demonize i think they're very afraid of that and i think that a lot of this is really a marriage

00:32:49.580 of convenience i don't think that people in the media that the top of cbc really uh care too much

00:32:55.580 about what antifa wants to do with society i don't think that they're really that concerned about

00:33:00.620 them overthrowing society perhaps they should be but they're not i think they're more interested

00:33:06.140 in keeping their own uh cocktail parties going and keeping their own uh lifestyles going as many

00:33:13.100 people are uh concerned more about their careers than they are about any sort of political ideology

00:33:20.540 so i think it's really a marriage of convenience i think they're a dangerous precedence set

00:33:25.020 in the past for these types of marriage of convenience uh specifically when we look into the

00:33:30.220 1930s when we saw a lot of the german establishment looking for a way to quell what they saw as uh a

00:33:39.020 movement uh that was coming for them and coming for their uh luxuries and their uh lifestyles which was

00:33:46.300 the communist movement that was supported by the soviet union and so they saw and they looked for

00:33:51.500 somebody who was fighting against those people in the streets and who did they find well they found

00:33:55.900 the nazi party and the nazi party then promised them look we'll sort these communists out support us

00:34:02.220 industrialists bankers corporations and we'll make sure that they don't threaten you and then

00:34:09.100 you know they thought that they could control the the nazi party and obviously they couldn't

00:34:13.100 and i fear that a lot of the people nowadays in the mainstream are making a similar mistake

00:34:19.020 in the fact that they're supporting groups like black lives matter while they're smashing down statues

00:34:24.140 you know the other day they said they were going to uh sean king on twitter said he wanted to smash

00:34:28.460 down uh statues and uh stained glass windows of jesus because he was too uh too european i believe

00:34:35.660 and so i think they're playing a very dangerous game uh in supporting these people because i think if

00:34:40.300 they do give them enough uh enough of a rope it'll be uh they they will be the hangman that will be

00:34:47.660 coming for the establishment in the end when they've got rid of everybody else well one of the other

00:34:52.460 things i mean the the the antifa movement that you see i mean they're pretty open about their calls for

00:34:58.300 violence and their tactics uh they use the term direct action instead of actually calling for violence

00:35:03.020 but if you look into what they mean by direct action it's a pretty straightforward call uh to for

00:35:08.300 violence violence to combat the other side before supposed violence is going to take place and i

00:35:13.660 think there's been a lot of confusion chris around the the term violence and what it means

00:35:18.140 because people on the left will claim that speech is violence that if you if you don't identify

00:35:23.820 someone by the correct pronouns for instance that's violence or if you refuse to say black lives

00:35:28.780 matter uh or if you run a piece that that that doubts the narrative black lives matter it's because

00:35:33.500 you don't you're committing violence towards uh you know people of color um but but then when they

00:35:39.260 when they actually have violence when they're looting when they're smashing windows uh and when they're

00:35:43.900 calling for their direct action which really is is violence remember there was a meme a couple of

00:35:48.060 years ago about punching a nazi that you'd rather you know punch a nazi and and all this kind of stuff

00:35:53.420 actually calling for violence uh jordan peterson always raises a question um about you know when it comes

00:36:00.220 to the right and the far right we know where the line is when they've gone too far and it's usually

00:36:05.660 when they start talking about race and ethnic superiority that's that's sort of the line where

00:36:10.380 we say okay you're no longer welcome in polite society you've gone too far you're fringe you're gone

00:36:16.300 but on the left we don't have that line uh it seems like it pretty clearly could just be you know

00:36:21.660 the line could be violence if you call for violence that that that's crossing the line and yet

00:36:26.700 they've sort of blurred the the term we don't even really know what violence means anymore if if it

00:36:31.980 if it were up to you and you know you you know so well because you follow this issue so closely

00:36:37.020 where where would you draw that line of where we should start um sort of excommunicating the left and

00:36:42.540 saying you know you're too fringe you're too far to the left you're no longer part of the general

00:36:46.460 discourse yeah i think the line should be drawn uh at violence itself i don't think that violence has any

00:36:52.780 place in a democracy i think uh violence in the name of politics is a direct attack on democracy

00:36:59.740 because you're essentially saying that uh you know voting doesn't matter that only violence solves

00:37:06.220 things uh so you can't really believe in democracy and if you believe in violence against political

00:37:12.700 parties you certainly don't believe in democracy um so if we want to have a democracy then we can't

00:37:18.380 have any political violence and everybody should be condemning political violence regardless of where it's

00:37:22.460 coming from if it's coming from somebody on the left if it's coming from somebody on the right

00:37:26.460 that's coming from somebody that you politically agree with or somebody that you don't politically

00:37:30.140 agree with um any calls for violence in my mind uh are anti-democratic and they should be treated uh

00:37:39.100 under the under the law as anti-democratic and i think that we should have as we have you know we

00:37:44.940 have hate crime laws that are you know we give people a larger sentence for something when it's

00:37:52.220 classified as being uh motivated by hatred i think we should have similar laws for people who attack

00:37:58.540 democracy that crimes and assault is one thing but a politically motivated assault should be considered

00:38:05.020 an attack on democracy and you should get a more severe sentence just as you do with a hate crime

00:38:10.620 that's an interesting uh proposition i've never i've never heard it before but you know the example

00:38:14.940 that you gave of sean king uh calling for violence he's obviously one of the early black lives matter

00:38:20.300 uh organizers calling for the destruction of christian churches and smashing of uh stained

00:38:26.300 glass windows tearing down jesus statues um you know by the left's own definition that that would

00:38:32.460 that would qualify as what they call cultural genocide and yet here he is calling for a direct attack

00:38:38.060 against christianity's core institutions and we do we do see uh other calls for for violence um you know i think

00:38:47.180 there's a pretty big difference between criticizing the the political movement black lives matter which

00:38:53.500 uh you know is directly run by people who are self self-described marxists um who call for the end

00:38:59.180 of the nuclear family who do things like calling for the destruction of christianity i mean those are

00:39:04.620 pretty extreme ideas chris but in in today's modern landscape it seems like you can't really criticize that

00:39:11.180 group they're they're they're seen as off limits and people who do dare to criticize them are written

00:39:15.980 off as as being you know terrible racists so how can we combat that sort of attack i would say it's an

00:39:23.260 attack on our democracy because it's an attack on free speech and free thought they trying to intimidate

00:39:28.060 us into not having conversations and not criticizing an organization that has very radical ideas and uh much

00:39:35.500 like antifa uh you know really call for the destruction of basic institutions in our civilization

00:39:42.220 yeah i think that you know a lot of these groups will use these uh things that a lot of people can

00:39:47.660 agree with so a lot of people can say you know are you against fascism and the average person on the

00:39:53.260 street would say yes does that mean then that people should be who say that they're against fascism should

00:39:59.900 be allowed to go and burn down the house of a politician they don't like no um and they use

00:40:07.100 this term and say well if you don't let me do that then you must be a fascist because i am an anti-fascist

00:40:12.300 so therefore i can do anything i like well no uh it doesn't work like that and it never will work like

00:40:17.260 that um the same thing with black lives matter people i i don't know anybody uh in my personal life

00:40:23.660 that i've ever met who would say that people black people's lives don't matter of course they matter

00:40:28.540 um everybody's life matters are people uh having difficulties in certain communities yes do we

00:40:37.660 need to address these uh in a sensible manner of course we do uh but the idea that you can use that

00:40:45.580 then to springboard and say okay well if you don't believe in smashing up a church or if you don't

00:40:51.900 believe in tearing down a statue of uh abraham lincoln or of johnny mcdonald or of uh you know

00:41:00.620 general cornwallis or you know somebody has nothing to do with uh slavery nothing to do with america

00:41:06.540 um i mean general cornwallis might have fought the americans once um but they have nothing to do with

00:41:12.940 that but they they use that as an excuse to say well if you don't support everything that i do then you

00:41:18.540 must be an evil person because you don't believe in this i mean rational people should be able to

00:41:23.420 say no you can still think that black people's lives matter without engaging in violence without

00:41:29.580 engaging in smashing up churches without engaging in defacing and vandalizing war memorials i think

00:41:37.340 that these two things are completely separate but we we live in such an age of uh hysteria among the left

00:41:43.820 especially but among people in general that's been whipped up by the media and by other people

00:41:49.740 that a lot of people just go along with it because they think well you know it's just a statue

00:41:54.780 well that shop has probably has insurance they don't think of the the consequences that these

00:42:00.860 letting these things go on uh what happens which is basically you know these neighborhoods where

00:42:06.700 everything's burnt down they say oh well target and walmart and these big corporations they have

00:42:12.780 insurance maybe they do but what if they don't come back what if they say okay well we'll take our

00:42:19.420 insurance money and we'll go somewhere else where our shop isn't going to get looted and burned down

00:42:24.780 what if you know the the people in those communities now are poorer they have less access to jobs even if

00:42:32.060 those jobs are only minimum wage they're still a job um and they have less access to uh a tax base

00:42:39.740 which gives them less access to educational funding it gives them less access to social services i mean

00:42:47.100 the impact of these things really should be considered but it isn't because people would

00:42:50.620 rather smash things and they would rather say i'm doing something uh i'm fighting oppression but they're

00:42:56.860 not really in in any measurable term they are doing harm both culturally physically and economically

00:43:05.340 well and allowing them to carry on this way i mean i think that there's two things happening there's

00:43:10.300 sort of a paralysis where people who would normally stand up against it people who would normally speak

00:43:15.580 out against it are being kind of marginalized or silenced either you know with the term far right

00:43:21.740 anyone who who criticizes a movement gets you know it gets written off as being far right or you know

00:43:28.700 cancelled uh that that kind of thing um and and because you don't have the sort of mainstream voices

00:43:34.940 criticizing it uh most people in their own lives even if they question you know i don't agree with

00:43:40.860 this but i'm not going to post about it on facebook because i don't want to potentially lose my job or i

00:43:45.020 don't want to uh have people who don't know me that well think that i must have like racist intentions

00:43:50.220 because i'm not going along with it and then i think it has a secondary impact where there's just a lot of

00:43:57.020 sort of young people out there who are ignorant to the facts that don't do the research and they truly

00:44:02.220 believe that uh police officers in canada and the us are out there sort of committing mass violence

00:44:11.260 against people of color intentionally that there's this mass uh you know pandemic of of of cops just

00:44:18.620 murdering people and you know the impression that they get really goes to undermine confidence in

00:44:25.900 police system the sort of underpinnings of the rule of law and law and order in our society and i

00:44:31.420 think i think it can be really dangerous i think we're starting to see a little bit of that i mean

00:44:35.180 there were certain nights during the protests where it felt like civilization was coming apart uh it felt

00:44:40.940 like we were living in dystopia novel looking at footage of new york city riots and thinking how

00:44:45.820 terrifying it would be to live there i can't imagine how terrifying it would be to live in the capitol hill

00:44:50.620 neighborhood in in seattle and have to worry about you know leaving home or getting groceries or or if

00:44:56.860 you work there you know getting to work um and it's sort of like it could potentially be what what's to

00:45:03.500 come if we continue to allow our society to go down that path so what what is the antidote how can we how

00:45:10.140 can we properly fight back against this this this movement really i think it just comes down to

00:45:16.140 people uh willing to put uh something on the line whether that is their job uh whether that is you

00:45:25.580 know simply standing outside in front of a statue of a non-controversial figure like you know sir

00:45:31.580 winston churchill who's suddenly become uh a controversial figure um just standing outside and saying to these

00:45:38.700 people no it's as simple as that no we can talk we can have discussions about um the role of the

00:45:48.060 police about actual police brutality and don't get me wrong there are cases of police brutality there

00:45:54.140 are cases of police uh abusing their office and abusing their station we've seen that uh in canada

00:46:01.420 we've seen it all all over it doesn't happen yes of course it happens does it happen anywhere near the

00:46:06.460 scale of you know an industrial killing machine of rcmp on horseback with rifles gunning people down

00:46:14.060 no and it never has uh any time in our history um so the reality is so much different from

00:46:24.140 what is being propagated by these activists and allowed to be propagated without any sort of critical

00:46:30.220 uh questioning from the media that the real pushback has to come in just recognizing what

00:46:36.140 reality is and getting people to accept what reality is and the fact is that reality in canada is not

00:46:43.580 the reality of the united states it is not the reality of britain it is not the reality of russia

00:46:48.620 it is not the reality of uh you know south sudan these are all different places that have their own

00:46:54.620 issues and they definitely do have issues and we should in our own countries work to fix those the

00:47:00.940 fact that there are people there are aboriginal people in ontario that don't have drinking uh proper

00:47:06.380 drinking water is a major issue and it should be solved it is definitely something that we can fix that

00:47:12.300 we should fix uh does it mean that we should start smashing up statues of people uh like johnny mcdonald's

00:47:19.580 will that get those people fresh water no of course it won't it might make some you know bourgeois

00:47:25.420 middle class student or antifa member feel better about themselves but doesn't help anybody and i

00:47:31.340 think that that's what people really need to do is they need to get around and they need to identify

00:47:35.100 the real issues and say how can we actually fix these without making everything worse or without

00:47:41.260 giving into a mob that really only wants to uh destroy our society and and really it shouldn't take

00:47:49.420 a uh instance of police brutality in the united states uh to enforce this kind of action in canada

00:47:55.660 it's interesting to see all of these lawmakers all of these politicians from across the spectrum

00:48:00.860 conservative liberal ndp uh you know stand up sanctimoniously and declare that canada is a

00:48:06.700 systemically racist country it's like well you guys are in charge you guys are the lawmakers if you

00:48:11.420 truly believe that canada is this rotten country that is full of racist racism uh why why did it take

00:48:18.300 a huge tragedy in the united states for you to get your act together to calling it out and deciding

00:48:22.940 that we should do something about it i mean they've been if that's what they believe uh then they they've

00:48:27.500 been complicit in it for years well you you said that the media is also complicit in it and i i really

00:48:32.940 want to talk about breitbart because i feel like you know obviously andrew breitbart was a brilliant man

00:48:38.940 and a great man and the his his legacy i mean i think that in the 2016 election campaign breitbart was

00:48:46.220 getting more page hits than cnn and i think it was the number one news website in america because

00:48:52.060 people just were fed up with the mainstream media they knew that they were being fed lies and the

00:48:56.460 things that they were being told about donald trump weren't necessarily true um i i just looked this up

00:49:02.220 a vice article about breitbart in december 2019 so about six months ago uh they said this with just

00:49:08.940 four million followers breitbart's page racked up more likes comments and shares at september uh 57.8 million

00:49:16.300 then the new york times washington post wall street journal and usa today combined who had 42.6

00:49:23.020 million so must be exciting chris to be part of such a successful you know rising media empire um

00:49:30.140 you know can you tell us a little bit about what what it's like over at breitbart and how you guys are

00:49:34.220 able to just you know massively uh punch above your weight and outperform the biggest media companies in

00:49:40.220 the world well i think it's just it really just comes down to the talent that we have on board i

00:49:45.980 mean we have great writers we have great uh researchers great journalists and people really

00:49:51.740 that aren't in it uh for their paycheck they're not people that go to work every day and just punch in

00:49:57.740 and say okay well look at the watch okay eight hours i'll just grind it out these are people who have

00:50:03.420 a passion who wake up in the morning you know go to bed late at night are willing to work whenever

00:50:09.340 they need to work to get the story we're willing to go wherever they need to go to get the story and

00:50:14.940 to really explain things on the level for people to understand to be able to really put context into

00:50:23.260 things that the media often doesn't um and really give other sides of the story that the media won't

00:50:30.620 say i mean for me personally i almost exclusively write about things that are going on in europe because

00:50:37.660 really the news that i read is in a different language uh so there are not too many people i know in

00:50:44.780 canada reading uh italian or uh swedish or german or french news instead they rely on someone like

00:50:54.460 bbc or cnn who will pick apart you know various sort of big stories but really a lot of the other

00:51:01.100 interesting stories they completely leave all together and so why what i do is i try and inform

00:51:06.860 people of what's really going on uh in in those countries and i think it's a valuable thing because i

00:51:12.780 think a lot of people really even on the right uh completely uh their world view is completely

00:51:20.700 beholden to whatever a liberal uh editor in toronto or new york or london is telling them that it is so

00:51:29.500 that i think is a problem but i think our company in general breitbart in general um you know we're just

00:51:35.660 willing to go that extra mile we're willing to uh to work very very hard and as i said people just

00:51:43.660 they're not in it for a cushy job that's going to be easy where they get you know giant trips paid for

00:51:51.660 them with five-star hotels and whatever we're muck rickers and we you know keep our nose to the ground

00:51:57.980 and we work extremely hard and i think that's the reason for our success is because we we are very very

00:52:04.300 passionate people well and and you have a much better sense of what's going on in the country

00:52:09.820 in the world uh than the sort of fancy journalists who refuse to tell the stories and you know you're

00:52:14.540 totally right about europe like you know we get the main news we get we get told when there's a

00:52:19.100 terrorist attack uh but but but not much else i mean sometimes you'll follow people on twitter

00:52:24.060 who will be talking about you know how there's constantly bombs going off in sweden and you would

00:52:28.540 never see anything like that written about in the economist or you know told on the bbc but but

00:52:34.220 there's all kinds of sort of violence that is happening as far as breitbart though i mean how how

00:52:40.780 how has breitbart managed to sort of maintain because there's been a really coordinated effort

00:52:45.500 we're talking about a little earlier on about the sort of slur uh that that that we get called far

00:52:51.340 right or that you get called far right um because because of your conservative editorial bend and i feel

00:52:55.980 like there's been a coordinated effort to try to you know get your advertisers to leave get your

00:53:01.660 uh platform get your platforms taken away from you um get the social media companies to crack down

00:53:07.340 on you because obviously uh they're threatened by what breitbart is able to do and how many people

00:53:12.700 you're able to reach so is that a big concern for for you guys or is that just sort of a distraction

00:53:18.860 uh i i really couldn't speak to the the sort of concern that we have editorially as i'm not an editor

00:53:27.900 so that sort of thing is a bit above my pay grade so to speak um for me personally i mean i look at

00:53:33.740 that stuff and i see you know the the old the old adage of uh when you get the flack it's when you're over

00:53:40.300 the target uh so to me it just means you know work harder uh go harder uh you know write more do more

00:53:48.620 um it doesn't uh it doesn't discourage me one bit in fact it encourages me because it just makes me

00:53:55.900 want to push that much harder because i know that the people who are our audience are common decent

00:54:02.300 hard-working people whether they're in america canada the uk or anywhere else and so the idea that you

00:54:09.020 know somebody is some big wig in new york or san francisco or la is gonna call them all far-right

00:54:16.860 extremists when all they want to do is have a good life for them and their children and their families

00:54:21.740 uh i i just think that's uh it's absurd and it would be a disservice to them if i let those people

00:54:29.260 get away with it and i let them uh try and dissuade me or anybody else from writing about what i want

00:54:35.820 to write about and uh getting to the truth of stories well that's that's great uh i know you

00:54:40.620 you're based in toronto but you write mainly about europe so does does breitbart have sort of plans to

00:54:46.060 come into canada do you guys have uh any kind of presence here i know you sometimes write about what's

00:54:51.020 going on sometimes comment on uh justin trudeau but not not too much so how come breitbart's uh ignoring

00:54:57.820 canada so much chris uh that's another question that uh would have to be put to uh through uh

00:55:04.060 editors through uh management um yeah i cover occasionally a couple of things that are going

00:55:09.660 on in canada there's some of the bigger stories obviously that are more uh international um but as

00:55:15.020 for any sort of uh expansion here uh i i couldn't say uh not really uh something that i've been informed

00:55:22.700 about or would have any sort of a handed fair enough well what is your what is your take on

00:55:27.500 the sort of uh media landscape here in canada i mean we have very very high trust still i mean

00:55:33.580 relative to our american friends uh canadians still have a high degree of trust in the mainstream media

00:55:38.220 but we're certainly seeing declining numbers especially over at the cbc where you know their

00:55:43.260 their television viewership rates are just plummeting their ad rate ad ad sales are down significantly

00:55:49.980 and you know what we see from the trudeau government is sort of more and more attempts to

00:55:55.100 uh centralize to to provide more government involvement in the media landscape be it the

00:56:00.060 the um media bailouts or increased government ads going to their you know favorite uh favored

00:56:06.700 newspapers and then also uh lots of money to the cbc what is what is your take on the media landscape and

00:56:13.100 do you think there's a need for more independent journalism i think there's definitely a need for more

00:56:17.580 more independent journalism i think the entire canadian media landscape uh the mainstream media

00:56:21.580 landscape is on the left of the far left there is no uh mainstream media really that i can think of

00:56:27.740 i mean the national post used to be conservative but i mean you you wouldn't think that reading it today

00:56:33.100 um so the i i think that there's not really much on the right currently on the conservative right in in

00:56:42.540 the sense that you know i i think the toronto sun would be one of the few uh newspapers but even then

00:56:48.540 i would say that it would be center right i wouldn't put it completely on the right wing um and you

00:56:54.460 compare it to places like you know i look at media from germany and italy and places like that there is

00:56:59.980 no equivalent of uh uh from italy and canada there's no real equivalent of uh something like um developed

00:57:10.940 or younger freiheit or uh some of these other papers i think canada really especially when it

00:57:17.260 comes to editorial um is completely either center left or far left uh i don't think that you get

00:57:23.820 other than maybe as i said the toronto sun which i know that you write for um and so i think that's

00:57:29.740 one of the few that does so i think that there's a lot of room really uh within the right in a number of

00:57:37.740 places um perhaps not as much there's maybe a little bit more right-wing uh mainstream media in

00:57:45.500 quebec um but quebec is almost media wise is pretty much a different country very few people outside of

00:57:54.380 the ottawa bubble who read french language news people in alberta generally don't uh well and that's

00:58:01.820 i think that's a shame because i feel like the french media are better than the english media

00:58:05.580 nationally there's there's so many times where something will have happened there'll be a scandal

00:58:09.980 uh or or something that trudeau should have something to explain to and his friends in the

00:58:13.980 english media the parliamentary press gallery are completely silent uh one example was he broke his

00:58:18.860 own um social distancing rules by going to his holiday home his cottage over easter uh there wasn't

00:58:25.340 a single english question about that even though you know he had said on record as as recently as the

00:58:30.780 friday before easter that you shouldn't travel um and and the border was closed the quebec ottawa

00:58:36.060 border was closed um and then the second one after trudeau lost his u.n security council seat that he

00:58:41.260 had been campaigning for for half a decade uh the french media asked him about it but there was not

00:58:46.460 a single question from the english media so so we see that the the french language media are better

00:58:52.540 at least at holding justin trudeau to account i don't know how conservative they are but at least

00:58:56.140 they're willing to ask tough questions sometimes yeah absolutely uh there's been many times that i've

00:59:02.300 found more interesting stories on even radio canada uh than you know on the cbc or a completely different

00:59:09.980 spin on a english language story in french that had you know details that were more interesting uh from

00:59:18.460 from my point of view as a conservative so i think that uh yeah there's a lot of room within the media

00:59:24.860 landscape but it is the problem being is that the traditional media is really dying off in the

00:59:32.060 sense that you know if you wanted to start a newspaper today you might as well just throw your

00:59:36.540 money in a fire because it's not really probably going to go anywhere in in a major level you're not

00:59:42.380 going to be able to reach global mail or national post or toronto sun levels anymore for a small company

00:59:49.420 that just isn't really possible because everybody's switching to getting their news from social

00:59:54.540 media or getting it from websites uh like ours um so really you have to look at it through the

01:00:02.860 way that andrew breitbart did it which is that you have to be very talented you have to go for stories

01:00:08.460 that people want and then you have to you know just work and work and work and work and work uh as

01:00:14.540 hard as you can in order to do it and get out there and get out to people that's one of the things that

01:00:19.580 really the media misses nowadays is that they're not getting out to people in general they're going

01:00:24.060 out maybe a cbc reporter will pop out of uh their office on front street in toronto and walk around

01:00:31.420 the block and go ask somebody their opinion but they're not going to a small town in rural uh northern

01:00:36.460 ontario they're not going to uh a small town in the maritimes and if they are it's local news and

01:00:42.460 it's not published uh globally these people then justly feel that their opinion doesn't matter uh

01:00:50.220 and so that's really a big problem and if you had people on the ground uh doing citizen style journalism

01:00:56.460 and really getting that out there and using the power of the internet to do it i think that there

01:01:01.260 is a huge appetite for that well i think i think we're seeing that even with you know true north the

01:01:06.460 post-millennial the rebel uh getting way more views and shares on social media than the big big guys with

01:01:11.980 the huge budgets because i think exactly what you're what you're identifying there well chris you

01:01:17.020 know there there isn't really a right-wing presence or a right uh conservative presence in the mainstream

01:01:22.380 media uh but what about the political landscape in canada because i sometimes feel that the conservative

01:01:27.500 party isn't very conservative and depending on who they're going to choose as their leader um in in

01:01:32.780 the next uh leadership race uh you know potentially the the party could be run by someone who's more of a

01:01:38.540 centrist or even someone who's center left uh what is your take on on the sort of political landscape

01:01:44.380 and uh specifically the conservative party of canada i think the problem of conservatism across the west

01:01:51.500 is that everything that economics is the prime motivation so everything is based around economics first

01:01:59.660 so it doesn't matter the social policies as long as you know we can cut taxes by a couple of points and

01:02:07.420 that becomes really you know they ignore everything the left is doing uh in social in the social realm

01:02:14.700 and focus solely on winning votes through through economics i think that's the big problem with

01:02:19.740 conservative parties not just in canada but in in the western world in general is that they

01:02:24.460 completely ignore uh social conservatism and that's why you see the rise of populist parties uh that

01:02:31.340 seem to sort of defy the right left paradigm as we would see it in north america or in britain where

01:02:37.740 you have somebody like uh the rassemblement national with marine le pen who is somewhat left on economics

01:02:44.940 but very right on social issues um and so we don't really have anybody that's very right on social

01:02:51.900 issues because it's not acceptable for anybody to be right on social issues and when they are they get

01:02:56.540 generally hounded by the press hounded by uh all sorts of people even though they might uh represent

01:03:03.580 quite a few people uh not just people who are traditional conservative voters but former left-wing

01:03:10.940 voters who just might be socially conservative i mean i come from a working-class family in britain

01:03:15.980 and my family has always been my grandfather uh was a solid labor supporter but he was also very

01:03:22.300 socially conservative and so now in britain boris learned that lesson and he said look there are

01:03:29.180 people who want brexit who are socially conservative who we could get to vote for us because the labor

01:03:36.140 party has become a very socially progressive party when it used to be more about it used to be more

01:03:40.860 about economics that's the interesting thing perhaps is that the left is focused now on social issues

01:03:47.020 and less on economic issues while the rights focuses mostly on economic issues and

01:03:52.140 very seldom on social issues uh so i think in canada we have perhaps a better chance than place some

01:04:02.140 other places for example in the uk um we still have conservatives that believe in god ownership we still

01:04:09.100 have conservatives that believe in uh you know the right uh to uh you know uh pro-life we still have

01:04:19.100 conservatives that believe in traditional marriage uh we still have conservatives that believe in a lot

01:04:23.500 of social conservative things they may be more on the fringes than they've ever been in the conservative

01:04:28.540 party but they still exist in the uk they really don't um and if they do then they're forced out quite

01:04:35.820 quite quickly well and i feel like in the uk it's more of sort of a class divide i i noticed that i was in

01:04:41.660 london about a year and a half ago covering one of uh tommy robinson's trials and it seemed like the

01:04:47.500 people who were supporting tommy were sort of more of an underclass and the way that the you know i was

01:04:52.940 sort of chatting a little bit here and there with fellow journalists and the way that they

01:04:56.780 sort of described the people at the protests and kind of turned their nose about them they

01:05:00.940 really had a disdain for working people and also just very anecdotally i was in a a taxi cab in london

01:05:07.580 and i got talking to the driver coming back from the airport and you know he started telling me about

01:05:12.940 how he was a lifelong labor supporter but he wasn't going to vote for jeremy corbyn because

01:05:17.900 he didn't agree with him and that he was pro brexit and that he was actually pro tommy robinson so

01:05:23.820 kind of exactly what you were describing there like i would say more of a socially conservative

01:05:28.060 uh person who who was opposed to open borders uh but still had the sort of economic um background as

01:05:35.180 being sort of more of a i guess pro welfare state and big government and we didn't get into all that

01:05:40.300 but that's what i assume he meant by you know a labor um background well in you know in canada we

01:05:46.460 we have sort of a a break-off party with the people's party of canada but even they are are

01:05:53.340 fiscally libertarian and i think not not very socially conservative i think maxim bernie really

01:05:58.700 understands the cultural issues at play and he's very good at communicating that but but still not

01:06:03.580 really what what you're describing in terms of populism you describe yourself as a high tory populist so

01:06:10.060 can you can you explain what what you mean by that sure so uh a high tory is somebody who

01:06:16.460 recognizes that uh you know the the crown is the most important uh institution uh next to god in

01:06:25.180 in our country um that all legitimacy comes from the crown itself that the constitutional monarchy is the

01:06:32.700 best system ever invented by man and that uh in a populist sense uh i believe that people regular

01:06:42.780 people should have more influence in the political system i think that the middle class bourgeois elites

01:06:51.020 that uh you know university educated people uh from well-off families or decently well-off upper

01:06:58.940 middle class type people bourgeois i would describe them um these people have essentially all the power

01:07:05.660 in most western countries uh the people have very little uh the monarchs certainly barely has any um and

01:07:14.220 i think that the the people really should have more of an influence um whether we're talking something

01:07:19.900 like the uh the yellow vests in in france proposed uh a system in which the public could use referenda

01:07:29.900 in order to propose new laws and in order to get rid of ones that the general public thought were no

01:07:37.340 longer in the interest of the public i'd like to see something like that uh implemented in our countries

01:07:43.420 where referendums are things that the parliament can use to advise itself or that the monarch can use

01:07:51.740 to advise the monarch and the crown before they sign laws into laws so that the people have much more

01:07:59.020 of a say and that not just the representatives in these parties that are completely controlled by

01:08:05.500 uh by one class by this you know upper middle class intelligentsia um and so you would have things

01:08:12.860 like brexit you would have things like uh you know the electoral college system in the united states

01:08:19.740 which really uh gives more people more regular people a voice in politics and i think that that

01:08:27.900 would be a much better thing a much healthier thing for our society as far as the the monarchy goes

01:08:34.300 i'm generally in agreement and i think it's a good sort of stabilizer in case you ever have a truly

01:08:39.420 uh you know terrible elected government um that that they could dispose of but uh

01:08:46.940 would you be at all concerned i mean in the uk um queen elizabeth is aging and her son charles has

01:08:52.860 shown sort of more an affinity towards politics i mean he's taken political stances which is something

01:08:57.740 the queen has never done um and i i think probably um prince william's a bit better in terms of staying

01:09:04.220 apolitical uh i would have been more worried about harry who is also very vocal um in his politics

01:09:10.540 from time to time what would do you think that that is a threat to the monarchy if you have

01:09:15.260 sort of an activist king um i i don't think it's a threat to the monarchy itself no um some of the things

01:09:25.820 that prince charles champions are things that i would agree with him on um whether that is his stance

01:09:32.380 on architecture whether that is his stance on uh localism uh on supporting uh you know local farmers

01:09:40.700 local produce local communities that kind of thing um but when we talk about things like climate change

01:09:47.740 i might be a little bit more in disagreement with him but i think that uh the king or queen's voice

01:09:54.460 in matters as long as it's used sparingly is very powerful uh when the queen uh came out to talk about

01:10:02.380 the coronavirus that was very powerful for a lot of uh for a lot of us monarchists and a lot of uh

01:10:09.420 subjects of her majesty in general and so i think used sparingly in the right moment that can be very

01:10:16.140 important and it can be more important than any presidential address or any uh address from any politician

01:10:22.380 i agree that when uh queen elizabeth speaks it's it's very powerful just because she does it so

01:10:27.180 rarely and she just happens to be a terrific speaker who uh you know really says the thing that's uh

01:10:33.660 needed to to be said so so as far as sort of um taking your world view and bringing it back home to

01:10:39.740 canada uh what what would you like to see in the next leader how do you think do you think any of the

01:10:45.740 current uh you know for uh people who are running for leadership of the conservative party of canada

01:10:50.940 sort of embody that are you leaning towards any of them and uh you know what what would you like to

01:10:55.980 see uh for someone running up against justin trudeau in the next election uh i mean on the base level

01:11:02.860 i'd like to see somebody who can beat him um well having said that um i don't really see anybody uh

01:11:13.180 with any sort of you know revolutionary zeal in them in any shape or form i don't think any of the

01:11:20.940 current candidates are beyond you know what we've seen from conservatives for the past 20 years

01:11:29.500 so i don't think there's going to be a massive change regardless of who wins

01:11:32.780 um really conservatism has become uh not trying to counter what the liberals and the left are doing

01:11:44.540 but rather trying to slow them down uh you know and so maybe there's one candidate that can slow

01:11:52.460 them down a bit better than another but i don't think there's any candidate that's going to get in

01:11:57.180 front of them and start pushing them backwards uh so i'm fairly pessimistic when it comes to

01:12:04.300 politics in canada which is you know one reason i would like to see referendums because i think that

01:12:09.980 politics in general um unless somebody unknown comes to the fore uh i think the people are better

01:12:17.820 at deciding things than than the politicians often that run for office well i think it was bill buckley

01:12:24.620 his famous line about the purpose of conservatism is to stand to thwart history yelling stop so just

01:12:30.140 trying to stop the momentum of the progressives in their crusade towards you know a cliff um yeah i think

01:12:36.540 the intro the idea is is really interesting of having more referendum because i know that there's

01:12:40.620 so many issues we do some polling over at true north and you know we had a recent poll that found

01:12:45.260 that three quarters of canadians wanted uh a total moratorium a total ban on immigration

01:12:51.180 until the coronavirus ends it's obviously not happening canada's so welcoming hundreds of thousands

01:12:56.140 of people uh this year in 2020 um and you know other other issues be it taxes or you know social issues i think

01:13:03.660 even on issues like abortion where you think that most canadians are now pro uh choice uh when it

01:13:10.780 comes to specifics about you know laws around late-term abortion or sex selective abortion the polling

01:13:16.380 is is quite different and most canadians would be on the other side would you be would you be worried

01:13:21.340 although i mean i i lived in california for a few years and they do this sort of direct democracy thing

01:13:26.300 and the problem that they ran into was that people usually vote yes for new spending initiatives

01:13:32.780 and they vote no for new taxing initiatives so eventually you go bankrupt yeah of course that's

01:13:39.500 a problem um but i mean there are ways that you can uh you can have checks and bounces on uh the

01:13:47.740 implementation of uh of referendums and how uh they could be done um you know if a referendum simply

01:13:56.140 isn't possible uh you know then or it's illegal uh then you know the courts should be able to uh to

01:14:04.540 rule on that and decide um you know explain to people why this isn't possible uh or whatever the

01:14:11.500 case may be um that's why i think that uh in a better system we would have referenda really as a

01:14:19.100 not as a legally binding thing necessarily but as an advisory um to uh whether it's the party in power

01:14:26.860 whether it's the monarch or the governor general or whoever uh to say to them like how popular is

01:14:32.860 this law that these mps want to pass do people actually want this you know where let's say that

01:14:39.180 the trio government said we're going to have a million immigrants a year now uh and the governor

01:14:43.660 general was like well i don't know about that how about we put it to a referendum the people

01:14:48.460 then can decide do you actually want this and as the people say no then the governor general says

01:14:53.020 sorry no so so you'd want to see a more kind of activist role because the governor general in

01:14:58.620 canada doesn't really do anything i mean the the only time you ever really hear about her is if you

01:15:03.820 know there's the media is doing some kind of puff piece about her or i i think the last time that

01:15:08.940 the governor general played a vital role was when the harper government uh tried to prorogue parliament

01:15:13.580 i think that was back in 2008 um or maybe it was 2010 when the other parties were trying to do a

01:15:21.580 um coalition and uh then and so harvard tried to probe parliament and did and that was sort of the

01:15:29.180 only time that the governor general ever did anything active but you you would like to see a

01:15:32.940 more a more active role there yeah absolutely because i think that you know the otherwise what's the

01:15:38.300 reason for it you know a lot of people talk about abolishing the senate and saying that doesn't do

01:15:42.860 enough well okay well if it doesn't do enough then either make it do something or get rid of it

01:15:48.220 um because really there needs to be more checks and balances in the political system that's one

01:15:53.340 thing the americans got right was that they have a lot of checks and balances within their system

01:15:58.220 and unfortunately in other english-speaking countries we have hauled out a lot of those checks and

01:16:04.300 balances because either we felt they were outdated for example the house of lords we got rid of the

01:16:08.860 hereditary loads because we thought they were outdated but we replaced it with something that

01:16:13.100 wasn't as good uh and didn't have the same checks and balances so we either need to figure out new

01:16:19.820 checks and balances or we need to some find some way of restoring the old ones interesting yeah those

01:16:25.420 are good points i hadn't really thought too much about that but i'll give that some thought chris so

01:16:29.260 you know we we cover some pretty depressing issues and especially you you know constantly looking at

01:16:34.140 these violent left-wing anarchists is there anything that makes you feel uh optimistic or anything

01:16:39.820 positive that you that you see going on that you think is is a you know pointing us in the right

01:16:43.740 direction yeah i think that just seeing people speak out about things and seeing people really realize

01:16:51.100 what a lot of these left uh we extremists actually believe and what they actually want to do because i

01:16:58.780 think a lot of people thought that these people were either you know just bluffing and that they were just

01:17:02.620 talking good game but really they wanted the same thing and the same you know american dream house

01:17:09.580 with a white picket fence kind of thing that everybody else does but now they realize that these

01:17:13.500 people are actually serious so i'm hoping that they're going to see that and say okay well maybe

01:17:18.300 we have to get a little bit more serious too and maybe we have to vote for people that are going to

01:17:23.100 actually counter this and where are we as a society and where do we need to be going as a society

01:17:29.580 in order to be a healthy society i think these are big questions that are being raised and i think

01:17:33.980 that it's important that they are because they've been under the surface for a very very long time

01:17:38.700 and they haven't been addressed and instead the left has been allowed to have a monopoly

01:17:42.780 on everything to do with all of these ideas and now that we know where the revolution will go

01:17:49.660 uh perhaps conservatives can start looking at the same problems and producing their own solutions to

01:17:55.020 them well absolutely i think that's a great note uh to end on chris thank you so much for taking the

01:18:00.780 time to join us in our speaker series really appreciate it chris tomlinson from breitbart news

01:18:05.980 have a great night thank you

Juno News - June 25, 2020

Ep. 8 ｜ Chris Tomlinson ｜ The rise of Antifa and when the left goes too far

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