Juno News - May 09, 2025


First North American Pope Leo XIV elected to lead the Catholic Church


Episode Stats

Length

16 minutes

Words per Minute

141.19412

Word Count

2,353

Sentence Count

106

Hate Speech Sentences

2


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 After a two-day conclave, the first-ever North American Pope, Leo XIV, has emerged as the
00:00:11.280 leader of the Roman Catholic Church. Experts in constitutional law have affirmed that First
00:00:16.800 Nations treaty rights would be respected if Alberta separated from Canada, but added that
00:00:21.540 they have no veto power over the province's decision. Elections Canada revealed that over
00:00:26.760 800 ballots went uncounted after a returning officer mistakenly left them behind in a Metro
00:00:33.160 Vancouver office. Hello candidates, Friday May 9th, and this is the True North Daily Brief. I'm
00:00:38.940 Kosman Jirja. And I'm Noah Jarvis. We've got you covered with all the news you need to know.
00:00:44.940 Let's discuss the top stories of the day and the True North exclusives you won't hear anywhere else.
00:00:50.160 In a historic occasion for the Catholic Church, Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost was named the
00:01:00.480 next Bishop of Rome after Cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church gathered for a two-day conclave.
00:01:07.520 Cardinal Robert Prevost took the papal name of Leo XIV. He served as Prefect of the Dicastery of Bishops
00:01:15.800 and has become the first U.S. and North American Pope in history. Prevost is 69 years old and was
00:01:23.360 born in Chicago, Illinois, who also served as president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin
00:01:29.840 America since 2023. The announcement of Pope Leo XIV was made from the Logia of Blessings of St. Peter's
00:01:38.480 Basilica by Cardinal Proto-Deacon Dominique Mamberti, who declared the Latin phrase,
00:01:45.020 quote, Habemus Papam, we have a Pope. The conclave featured 133 cardinal electors and concluded
00:01:53.420 swiftly with the College of Cardinals reaching the required two-thirds majority for a new Bishop of
00:01:59.340 Rome. The decision was confirmed as white smoke billowed from the chimney above the Sistine Chapel
00:02:05.300 in Vatican City on Thursday. Pope Leo XIV appeared through the window of St. Peter's Basilica to speak
00:02:13.180 to the faithful public and deliver his first apostolic blessing. Pope Leo XIV is a member
00:02:19.040 of the Order of St. Augustine. Pope Leo XIV will lead over 1.3 billion Catholics globally, including
00:02:27.380 nearly 11 million Catholics in Canada, according to the 2021 census. Catholic pilgrims and onlookers
00:02:35.400 gathered in St. Peter's Square, many of whom waited in anticipation and prayer since the conclave began.
00:02:41.640 The quick election of the new Pope follows two Popes in a row who have been elected on the second day
00:02:47.540 of the conclave, the previous Pope being Pope Francis and Pope Benedict XVI. Pope Francis was Pope for nearly
00:02:56.920 12 years and passed away on April 21, 2025. So the last few Popes have been elected in quick succession.
00:03:05.840 We saw only a two-day conclave before a new Pope was settled, and it truly is a momentous historical
00:03:15.740 occasion with the first Pope from North America and the United States ever being elected. But we also know
00:03:23.740 that Pope Leo XIV does have ties to Latin America, where, as we all know, Pope Francis originated from
00:03:32.760 as the first Pope from that continent. But Noah, what else do we know about Pope Leo XIV by this point?
00:03:40.940 Yeah, so as you said, Pope Leo XIV, formerly Robert Prevost, is an American who did a lot of work in Latin America,
00:03:50.320 specifically in Peru. And it seems as if, like Francis, who also did a lot of work in that area of the world,
00:03:57.280 Prevost is going to continue the legacy of Pope Francis. Pope Francis is really known for being a bit less
00:04:06.960 of a traditionalist Pope and more of a reforming type of Pope. He decided to show more deference toward
00:04:13.920 the LGBTQ community, inviting a group of transgender people to have lunch with him in the Vatican.
00:04:23.880 And he also decided that same-sex relationships could be blessed, so long as it was not within
00:04:32.060 a liturgical sense. And he also decided during his time as Pope that he would show greater deference,
00:04:40.800 greater respect to those who are migrating, and to criticize right-wing populist leaders
00:04:47.400 for their anti-migration policies. So it seems as if Robert Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV, will continue
00:04:57.180 on with this legacy. And it was speculated that certain other candidates for Pope might be chosen
00:05:04.160 who would take on a different direction with the papacy. For example, Peter Turkson, Ghanaian cardinal,
00:05:11.220 who would have been the first black pope, was considered to be much more on the conservative
00:05:17.220 side, especially with his views toward the LGBTQ community. And there was also a Canadian candidate
00:05:26.100 for the papacy named Mark Uwe, who was also considered to be more on the conservative side,
00:05:33.360 although he did have some more modern beliefs. So I think this is going to be a day that many Catholics
00:05:40.780 will remember for years. It is certainly one of the first selections of the pope that I will
00:05:46.500 remember. I think I kind of remember when Francis was chosen to be the next pope, although I was a
00:05:52.240 bit too young to understand the details and the inner workings of how that happened. But this is
00:05:57.740 definitely a momentous day and occasion for Catholics worldwide. And I think that Catholics are going to
00:06:05.080 be celebrating that a new pope has been chosen and that this thousand years long tradition and institution
00:06:13.720 remains to be as solid, as strong as it seems that it has been ever before.
00:06:23.080 Despite loud opposition from First Nations leaders and the Alberta NDP, legal experts say Indigenous
00:06:29.080 communities would not have the power to veto an Alberta independence referendum even if treaties
00:06:34.500 remain intact. Canadian Constitutional Foundation legal counsel Josh DeHaas told True North that while
00:06:40.360 Alberta cannot unilaterally secede from Canada, First Nations do not possess veto power over a
00:06:45.900 referendum or subsequent negotiations. DeHaas said, quote, there is nothing I'm aware of that would
00:06:51.780 suggest that First Nations people could prevent those discussions from taking place. Even where
00:06:56.320 treaties exist within Canada, the law is clear that it is the crown that is sovereign and holds
00:07:01.640 underlying title to all of the land. He said the crown acts through the Alberta and federal
00:07:06.680 governments, meaning those two parties would be the ones at the negotiating table. DeHaas cited
00:07:11.560 the Supreme Court of Canada's 1998 Quebec secession reference, noting that a successful referendum
00:07:17.580 on a clear question would trigger a constitutional obligation for Ottawa and the provinces to negotiate
00:07:23.020 the terms of separation. The legal clarity comes after an emergency meeting of Treaty 6, 7, and 8
00:07:29.060 chiefs on Tuesday where Indigenous leaders denounced Alberta Premier Daniel Smith and Bill 54,
00:07:34.420 the legislation that lowers the bar for citizen-initiated referendums, potentially enabling a 2026 vote
00:07:40.700 on Alberta's independence. Chief Kelsey Jocko of Cold Lake First Nations said, quote, she has no right
00:07:47.300 talking the way she is because we are treaty people. We're not going anywhere. Our treaties predate the
00:07:52.340 province. Other chiefs accused Smith of stoking separatist flames and ignoring Indigenous rights.
00:07:57.820 However, Smith said her government is still many steps away from any potential vote and would not
00:08:02.920 support any referendum question that infringes on treaty rights. Smith said, quote, you can't vote away
00:08:08.600 treaty rights. You can't vote away Indigenous rights. You can't have a referendum on things that are
00:08:13.900 enshrined in our various constitutional conventions and laws and court decisions. While Smith stated
00:08:18.980 that her government would not be responsible for bringing forward an independence vote, she emphasized
00:08:23.740 that she would respect a citizen-led initiative if it met the 177,000 signature threshold under the
00:08:30.240 new legislation. So, Cosmin, there's still a lot of legal questions that remain unanswered if Alberta were
00:08:37.880 to separate from Canada. But if it happens, how would Alberta nationhood affect First Nations? Would they
00:08:43.540 have to negotiate new treaties? Well, yeah, I think constitutional lawyer Keith Wilson laid it out
00:08:50.140 best, and he's been explaining this both on social media and various shows, including Juno News' Candace
00:08:56.600 Malcolm show. But essentially, First Nations do not have any legal authority to block Alberta from holding
00:09:05.280 a referendum on independence. And if that referendum succeeds and meets the legal threshold to initiate
00:09:13.340 a separation process, there are laws on the books which detail how separation would work, how a province
00:09:23.980 could separate from Confederation. Now, it is to be added that they must be included in any post-referendum
00:09:32.660 negotiations as a party that is participating in that, because First Nations, with their treaty rights,
00:09:41.540 do have to negotiate how the relationship with a new state would go, whether they decide to remain
00:09:49.580 a part of Canada. There's different avenues they could take. But despite that, they would not receive
00:09:56.720 special privileges in that negotiation. They would negotiate as individual bodies, as individual First
00:10:04.780 nations and treaty rights groups. So essentially, Wilson laid out three options, right? So the First
00:10:13.860 Nations in Alberta could either remain within Canada, join Alberta under existing treaties, or they have the
00:10:23.420 route of negotiating entirely new treaties with a sovereign Alberta, alongside with the existing ones they have
00:10:31.380 with the nation of Canada. So it's quite a complicated thing. And it would set a totally new precedent, because this has
00:10:41.000 never happened before. But of course, this only takes place if that happens. And first thing that needs to happen is
00:10:50.040 that a petition reaches the required amount of signatures before a referendum is even triggered. And then that referendum needs to
00:11:01.040 to get support from the population enough to pass another threshold before separation takes place.
00:11:12.660 Over 800 special ballots were left uncounted in an Elections Canada office in Metro Vancouver, raising questions about how the
00:11:20.460 independent agency handles ballots. On Wednesday, Elections Canada informed all registered political parties that 822 national special
00:11:29.300 ballots had mistakenly been left in the office of the returning officer of Coquitlam Port Coquitlam. The
00:11:36.320 collection of special ballots contain votes cast for 74 electoral districts across the country, primarily in the
00:11:43.980 riding of Port Moody Coquitlam, which accounted for 530 of the votes. Dozens of ballots were cast for races and
00:11:51.380 surrounding British Columbia ridings, including 33 ballots in New Westminster, Burnaby,
00:11:56.820 Maillardville, 26 in Pitt Meadows, Maple Ridge, 22 in Burnaby Central, and 12 ballots in both Burnaby North Seymour and
00:12:06.400 Vancouver Centre. While a significant number of voters were disenfranchised by this mistake, there were not
00:12:12.780 enough ballots cast in any given riding to affect the election outcomes. In Port Moody, Coquitlam, the liberal
00:12:19.740 candidate Zoe Royer won by a margin of 1,948 votes, while the liberal candidate in New Westminster, Burnaby,
00:12:28.760 Maillardville won by 1,973 votes. Elections Canada said that the ballots kept in the returning officer's
00:12:36.760 office should have been returned to the Elections Canada headquarters by 6 p.m. Eastern time on election
00:12:43.380 day in order to legally count the ballots. The independent agency says that human error and a
00:12:49.960 failure to comply with their policies caused the mishap. Chief Electoral Officer Stéphane Perrault
00:12:56.080 has ordered a complete review into the matter and the controls in place to ensure failures similar
00:13:02.120 to this do not happen in future elections. So Noah, looking back, what other issues did Elections
00:13:08.240 Canada encounter this last general election? So as you described, the Elections Canada office in
00:13:15.040 Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, definitely messed up in not delivering the special ballots to the Elections
00:13:21.480 Canada headquarters. However, this is not the only mishap that Elections Canada had made in this
00:13:27.820 election. For example, in the riding of Milton East, Halton Hills South, there was a riding in which the
00:13:35.680 Conservative candidate Parm Gill was declared the winner after election day and a few and in subsequent
00:13:41.940 days after election day. However, after Elections Canada conducted their validation process, they
00:13:49.140 realized that there were certain polling locations in which the polls gave wrong vote totals for the
00:13:56.760 candidates. And after retallying all of the correct vote totals, they found that the Liberal candidate,
00:14:03.360 Christina Tesser Dirksen, had actually won. So for several days, the Conservative candidate and
00:14:10.080 their team and, you know, his family thought that he was going to be sent to Ottawa to serve
00:14:16.360 his constituents when, in fact, the Liberal candidate had won. Elections Canada told me that in one of the
00:14:24.260 polling locations, the original polling location told the Elections Canada head office that the Liberal
00:14:32.220 candidate Dirksen had only received 193 votes at that location when, in fact, she had received 493 votes.
00:14:42.460 These are the sorts of mishaps that create distrust in our election system. We already have a poll showing
00:14:49.980 that a significant amount of Canadians, about 29 percent of Canadians, do not trust the 2025 Canadian election
00:14:58.220 results. And about 50 percent of those were Conservative voters who indicated that they do not trust the
00:15:05.100 election results. When there is a gap in trust in our institutions, especially our electoral institutions,
00:15:12.620 bodies like Elections Canada need to be on their A-game. They need to ensure that votes are Canada properly, that when
00:15:20.460 the Elections Canada head office asked the polling locations for their vote tallies, that those are
00:15:27.180 delivered accurately, and that any mistakes that need to be corrected are done so in a transparent manner,
00:15:34.140 that respect the voters and their enfranchisement. The fact that 800 ballots were just left in some office in
00:15:41.740 Metro Vancouver, disenfranchising the people that actually cast their ballot, is really a shame. It is a
00:15:49.260 mockery of our democracy, and those people who cast those ballots probably have no way of knowing
00:15:55.820 that they were disenfranchised. There need to be more vigorous checks to ensure that incidents like
00:16:01.900 this doesn't happen again, so that people can have greater trust in their democratic institutions,
00:16:07.660 greater trust in the outcome of elections, because we don't want to live in a country that is supposed
00:16:13.660 to be a democracy, but whose democratic exercises are not trusted by a great deal of the voting public.
00:16:23.260 That's it for today, folks. Thanks for tuning in. You can stay on top of new episodes every weekday by
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