Juno News - Former PM Jean Chrétien stares down the woke mob

00:00:00.040 Former Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chrétien goes against the woke mob when it comes to reconciliation,

00:00:05.360 but because he's a liberal, he lives to tell about it.

00:00:07.760 I'm Candace Malcolm and this is the Candace Malcolm Show.

00:00:14.560 Hi everyone, thank you so much for tuning in.

00:00:16.660 Today I want to do a bit of a deep dive on former Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chrétien

00:00:20.780 and the comments that he made on residential schools, how he's coming under fire.

00:00:25.820 But first, if you enjoy the Candace Malcolm Show, if you like what we do here at True North,

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00:01:07.500 So I want to talk a little bit today about Jean Chrétien,

00:01:10.080 who was the Liberal Prime Minister.

00:01:11.780 He was the Prime Minister from November 1993

00:01:14.280 all the way until December 2003, over 10 years in office.

00:01:19.460 And before that, he was a high-ranked minister

00:01:21.480 in the government of Pierre Trudeau, Justin Trudeau's father.

00:01:24.820 So he is an old-school liberal.

00:01:26.800 He is 87 years old right now, the oldest living Canadian Prime Minister.

00:01:31.960 And so Chrétien has a new book out,

00:01:34.340 My Stories, My Time, Volume 2.

00:01:36.160 So this is the follow-up to his first memoir.

00:01:38.760 And he's out doing the rounds promoting it.

00:01:40.760 So on Sunday evening, he was on two major networks doing an interview.

00:01:45.220 So his English interview was over on CTV on the show Question Period with Evan Solomon.

00:01:50.000 And his French interview was on Radio Canada,

00:01:53.080 the very, very popular talk show called Tout Le Monde and Pearl.

00:01:57.320 And he made some comments.

00:01:58.840 Basically, his comments can be split into two,

00:02:00.820 and I'm going to go through both of them right now.

00:02:02.520 The first one was a critique of the Justin Trudeau government

00:02:05.980 and the way that Trudeau is running things from everything from foreign policy

00:02:09.640 to his spending, to his deficits, to his printing of money,

00:02:12.780 which is pretty remarkable in and of itself,

00:02:15.200 given that we have a sort of storied, very successful,

00:02:19.620 very revered liberal prime minister critiquing very openly

00:02:24.440 the current liberal prime minister,

00:02:26.760 saying that Trudeau doesn't listen to people like him

00:02:29.200 and unleashing a pretty serious criticism.

00:02:33.840 And the second thing, the one that the media is really, really picking up on,

00:02:37.140 is that Chrétien spoke his mind when it came to residential schools.

00:02:40.160 He said some things that would have not been controversial,

00:02:42.780 a couple of years ago.

00:02:43.860 He said some things that most Canadians,

00:02:45.580 probably on some level, agree with.

00:02:47.740 However, it goes against the media narrative

00:02:50.160 that the media has spent the last six months

00:02:51.820 building up, building up this hatred of Canada,

00:02:54.600 this idea that Canada is uniquely evil,

00:02:57.100 that we committed genocide,

00:02:58.720 that everything that we did in the past was just purely evil,

00:03:02.180 and even the intentions behind it were evil.

00:03:05.180 And you can't, there's no defending it whatsoever.

00:03:07.780 Chrétien, it's like he didn't get that memo.

00:03:10.100 It's like he didn't pay attention to the media

00:03:11.920 and their made-up narrative,

00:03:13.600 their over-the-top rhetoric,

00:03:15.060 their, you know, trying so hard to be woke,

00:03:18.060 and he just said what he believes.

00:03:20.260 And so it's pretty remarkable just in that,

00:03:23.620 in that here we have a liberal leader

00:03:25.520 who is not cowering to the woke mob,

00:03:28.120 not cowering to the legacy media

00:03:29.580 and their made-up narrative.

00:03:31.040 He's just speaking what he believes is the truth

00:03:33.680 and what happened.

00:03:34.340 And so we're going to go through his comments right now.

00:03:36.940 So first, when he was on Tutte Le Monde,

00:03:39.000 he was asked about the residential schools.

00:03:41.180 He was asked why he didn't act sooner to dismantle them,

00:03:44.780 even though the last one did close on his watch.

00:03:47.320 So they did close under his leadership as prime minister,

00:03:51.400 but not soon enough.

00:03:53.020 You know, they remained open for decades

00:03:54.780 while Chrétien was running the ship,

00:03:56.880 both as the minister of Indian affairs

00:03:58.580 and then later as prime minister.

00:04:01.020 And Chrétien said this, he said,

00:04:02.960 no one ever mentioned this problem when I was minister, never.

00:04:05.820 And so, you know, the media being the media,

00:04:08.620 run out and try to dispute this comment,

00:04:11.440 try to fact-check it,

00:04:12.340 try to find examples in the public record

00:04:15.120 of people raising this concern to him.

00:04:17.360 I believe Chrétien.

00:04:18.400 He said that it wasn't brought to his attention.

00:04:20.260 It was clearly not a major issue at the time.

00:04:22.620 Maybe someone wrote a letter,

00:04:24.000 but that doesn't mean that the minister read it.

00:04:25.820 The minister is dealing with, you know,

00:04:27.960 hundreds and hundreds of things every day.

00:04:29.780 And just the fact that someone wrote a letter

00:04:31.600 doesn't mean that he actually read it.

00:04:33.300 But then Chrétien goes on to compare

00:04:36.220 the ill treatment of children at residential schools

00:04:39.460 to the experience of boarding schools at the time.

00:04:42.820 And of course, the media is like taking this out of proportion again,

00:04:47.180 saying how dare he compare his own experiences

00:04:50.500 at boarding school to the horrors of residential school.

00:04:53.140 I just want to pause for a second

00:04:54.400 and say that the idea that there were abuses

00:04:57.200 that took place at residential schools,

00:04:59.200 that is obviously true, that's been documented.

00:05:01.640 But to take a step back, as Chrétien is doing,

00:05:04.520 it's like, you know, this is a different time.

00:05:06.640 There were different norms.

00:05:07.580 There were different standards.

00:05:08.640 The whole idea that there were abuses by the Catholic Church,

00:05:12.240 we all know those abuses were widespread.

00:05:14.120 They happened wherever there's a Catholic Church,

00:05:16.400 all over the world.

00:05:17.380 So the idea that someone could only have a bad experience

00:05:20.480 at a residential school,

00:05:21.500 and it was much, much different than someone

00:05:23.560 who could have also been abused

00:05:24.840 in a Catholic school situation

00:05:26.280 in a different boarding school is kind of silly.

00:05:28.840 But again, the media being the media,

00:05:30.980 try to, you know, make it seem like it's an outrageous story.

00:05:34.160 So they have this quote from Chrétien.

00:05:36.940 He was speaking in French, so this is a translation.

00:05:38.880 But he said,

00:05:39.720 I ate baked beans and oatmeal,

00:05:41.040 and to be sure it was hard living in a boarding school,

00:05:43.220 extremely hard here in Quebec.

00:05:44.980 We had to in order to get into university.

00:05:47.380 In Chewinigan, we didn't have a college.

00:05:48.900 I had to go to Travillers or Joulette.

00:05:51.580 He explained, I had no choice, but it was hard.

00:05:53.580 My parents insisted I go to university,

00:05:54.960 and I had to do it.

00:05:55.800 He went on to say, we can't rewrite history.

00:05:57.840 Terrible things happened.

00:05:59.180 I even adopted an indigenous son to lead by example.

00:06:02.420 This proves my investment in the issue.

00:06:04.600 So again, Chrétien has a pretty good record

00:06:07.800 when it comes to his life and his commitment to this issue,

00:06:11.140 but the media are trying to make it seem

00:06:12.700 like it is extremely different to go to boarding school

00:06:16.920 versus going to a residential school.

00:06:19.100 Look, I have a friend who went to boarding school,

00:06:21.640 and while he was in boarding school in high school,

00:06:23.900 his roommate committed suicide.

00:06:25.720 His roommate committed suicide,

00:06:26.740 and he was the one that found his roommate.

00:06:28.960 So this idea that residential schools

00:06:31.640 were so uniquely different and more awful

00:06:34.060 than regular boarding schools,

00:06:35.160 it's like, look, there are terrible things

00:06:37.060 that happen in this world.

00:06:38.000 There are terrible things that happen

00:06:39.080 in all sorts of situations.

00:06:41.240 Boarding schools, much like residential schools, 0.99

00:06:43.380 can be incredibly lonely places.

00:06:45.640 And so again, this idea that you can't compare

00:06:48.180 a bad experience that someone had at a boarding school

00:06:50.880 to the bad experiences at residential schools

00:06:52.920 is just not true.

00:06:54.140 Like, there are bad experiences that people have

00:06:56.880 in many different scenarios.

00:06:58.740 And so we should fully reject this idea

00:07:01.200 that the media have created.

00:07:02.440 But again, the media have created this scenario

00:07:04.620 where you can't compare,

00:07:06.800 that comparing is just sort of whataboutism,

00:07:09.220 and it diminishes the experiences of First Nations,

00:07:12.160 even though, again, lots of people

00:07:13.780 had bad experiences growing up.

00:07:15.880 Next, as I mentioned, Chrétien was also over on CTV

00:07:18.560 on the show Question Period with Evan Solomon.

00:07:20.580 I want to play you a clip of Evan and Jean Chrétien

00:07:23.300 just to show you the part, again,

00:07:25.300 where they're talking about residential schools.

00:07:27.060 The things that Jean Chrétien says are obvious to him.

00:07:30.140 They probably would have been obvious in common sense

00:07:32.000 to many, many Canadians not too long ago

00:07:34.460 before this media narrative came up

00:07:37.200 that Canada has committed all kinds of terrible,

00:07:39.520 unspeakable crimes,

00:07:40.360 and that every aspect of residential schools

00:07:42.240 is equated to genocide.

00:07:44.340 So here, I'll break it into two.

00:07:46.360 This is the first question that Evan Solomon asked Jean Chrétien

00:07:49.280 about whether or not he regrets

00:07:51.400 not shutting down the residential school system sooner.

00:07:54.840 Mr. Chrétien, we are living through a time of reconciliation.

00:07:59.560 You are the former Minister of Indian Affairs.

00:08:03.160 You talk about it, obviously, in your book.

00:08:06.880 Now there's the recovery of the unmarked graves

00:08:11.040 at the residential institutions.

00:08:12.580 As you know, I know that you were involved

00:08:15.460 in the white people.

00:08:16.120 This is a big part of your life.

00:08:18.540 A lot of folks say you and Pierre Trudeau

00:08:21.000 should have shut down the residential school system then. 0.93

00:08:25.760 Instead, it wasn't.

00:08:26.940 What's your view of it now,

00:08:28.380 and do you take any responsibility for that?

00:08:30.600 They were there since a long time.

00:08:33.560 And, you know, the last one was close by me

00:08:36.640 when I was Prime Minister.

00:08:38.260 We had to manage the problem at that time.

00:08:40.720 You know, education was a very important thing for Natives.

00:08:45.140 When I became the minister,

00:08:47.140 there was only a dozen, I think,

00:08:51.380 Indian people graduating from university.

00:08:55.540 Thousands and thousands are graduating every year now.

00:08:58.960 Education is the key.

00:09:00.780 And in those days, in the isolated area,

00:09:03.400 that was the system they had.

00:09:04.980 But they don't regard that as education.

00:09:07.300 They regard it as cultural genocide.

00:09:09.360 No, no.

00:09:09.660 But, you know, I'm telling you

00:09:10.800 what is the situation.

00:09:13.120 So, again, just amazing stuff here

00:09:14.880 because in that clip,

00:09:16.160 what you saw Jean-Claude Chen do

00:09:17.640 was defend residential schools.

00:09:19.620 Like, today, the divide that basically happens

00:09:22.880 is if you're on the woke-left mob,

00:09:24.700 you think that Canada is a terrible, awful country

00:09:27.120 that committed genocide.

00:09:28.520 Every terrible accusation against Canada is true.

00:09:31.240 Every historical leader must be cancelled and erased

00:09:33.540 because they were the people

00:09:34.800 who oversaw this genocidal system.

00:09:37.240 And the pushback to that

00:09:38.680 is people more on the right or centrists

00:09:41.420 or just sort of the people who reject the woke mob

00:09:43.760 who say, look, the residential school system was bad.

00:09:47.520 We're not defending it.

00:09:48.780 However, Canada didn't commit genocide.

00:09:51.060 You know, the intent wasn't there

00:09:52.160 to actually kill an entire race of people.

00:09:55.620 Whereas what Jean-Claude Chen is saying

00:09:57.560 is he's going one step further

00:09:59.140 and he's basically defending the idea

00:10:01.620 of these residential schools.

00:10:02.780 He's saying that the point was education.

00:10:05.260 Education is so important.

00:10:06.860 And he even touts the success

00:10:09.080 of these residential schools

00:10:10.080 in ensuring that many, many more First Nations people

00:10:12.860 go to university than they did.

00:10:14.500 So this is truly amazing, incredible stuff.

00:10:17.060 Not even a conservative politician today

00:10:19.260 would come out and defend residential schools in this way.

00:10:22.040 You would never hear something like this

00:10:23.480 from Erin O'Toole

00:10:25.020 or any of the other conservative leaders in this country.

00:10:27.560 So here we have a former liberal prime minister

00:10:29.660 going much further.

00:10:30.660 So then you have Evan Solomon

00:10:32.460 kind of in like a smarmy way

00:10:34.400 jumping in and saying,

00:10:35.620 well, no, they don't regard it as education.

00:10:37.500 They regard it as cultural genocide.

00:10:39.240 Well, that's not even the case.

00:10:40.320 You know, you have a very loud activist

00:10:41.820 who say it was cultural genocide.

00:10:43.540 You have the people who are the ones 0.87

00:10:46.160 pushing the woke narrative

00:10:47.540 that say it was cultural genocide.

00:10:48.780 But that's not the broad consensus

00:10:50.700 among First Nations.

00:10:51.860 So you have Evan Solomon

00:10:53.440 reiterating this woke narrative,

00:10:55.500 reiterating the worst accusations against Canada

00:10:57.780 as if they're facts,

00:10:59.160 as if that's the consensus now

00:11:00.660 and sort of shaming Jean Chrétien

00:11:02.520 for defending his record

00:11:04.120 and defending at least the idea

00:11:05.920 behind residential schools

00:11:06.980 was the education.

00:11:09.600 Let's play the rest of this clip

00:11:10.780 where Solomon and Jean Chrétien

00:11:12.800 talk about the legacy of residential schools.

00:11:15.460 And we were not in the form

00:11:17.920 of any abuse at that time.

00:11:20.280 So that was the situation.

00:11:22.800 And for me, you know,

00:11:26.460 I offer with my white paper

00:11:31.260 to abolish the Department of Indian Affairs,

00:11:35.200 to abolish my job.

00:11:38.620 And you need that?

00:11:40.200 Yes.

00:11:41.420 And now the people complain

00:11:42.680 we have Indian affairs.

00:11:43.520 They refuse that.

00:11:45.460 You know, I had to back down.

00:11:48.360 Don't you remember that?

00:11:49.800 I do.

00:11:50.200 After a consultation,

00:11:51.900 when people were arguing

00:11:53.160 that we had an apartheid system,

00:11:55.540 having reserved for them

00:11:57.160 an Indian Act

00:11:58.480 and a Department of Indian Affairs

00:12:01.400 and a Minister of Indian Affairs.

00:12:02.900 I said, you're right.

00:12:04.740 You know, it is an apartheid system.

00:12:06.660 I will abolish that.

00:12:07.820 And so pretty remarkable stuff there as well.

00:12:10.080 Chrétien brings back his idea

00:12:11.700 of the 1969 white paper,

00:12:13.420 which this idea was to abolish the entire system,

00:12:17.060 the entire two-tiered system

00:12:18.600 of different laws for First Nations people,

00:12:21.080 different rules for First Nations people.

00:12:22.440 He wanted to abolish it all

00:12:24.240 and more or less just assimilate the two groups together

00:12:27.420 instead of having a separate law for First Nations,

00:12:30.360 a separate one.

00:12:30.820 You heard him talking about

00:12:31.600 how it was sort of like apartheid.

00:12:33.640 Well, remember, he tried to champion this idea,

00:12:37.100 him and Pierre Trudeau,

00:12:38.700 but they were shot down by a few very loud,

00:12:41.120 very vocal activists

00:12:42.160 within the First Nations community,

00:12:43.620 probably not the consensus

00:12:44.700 of the First Nations community,

00:12:46.620 probably not the consensus

00:12:47.640 of the entire country.

00:12:49.720 But it's pretty remarkable, again,

00:12:51.640 that Jean Chrétien tried to eliminate

00:12:53.400 this entire system

00:12:54.580 and he was shut down.

00:12:56.060 Even just the idea of doing that today

00:12:58.260 is so outside of the realm

00:12:59.720 of the sort of things

00:13:01.000 that are okay to talk about,

00:13:01.920 what we call the Overton window of ideas.

00:13:04.380 You don't hear anybody proposing this anymore

00:13:07.080 and it's kind of a shame

00:13:07.880 because I think that Chrétien and Pierre Trudeau

00:13:10.300 were actually onto something

00:13:11.320 in this idea

00:13:12.100 that we shouldn't have this reserve systems,

00:13:13.960 we shouldn't have separate laws

00:13:15.240 and separate rules for First Nations.

00:13:16.760 But alas, there goes Jean Chrétien,

00:13:18.520 again, defending something

00:13:19.640 that you would never hear,

00:13:21.060 even a conservative,

00:13:22.180 even a radical,

00:13:23.300 even someone like Maxime Bernier,

00:13:24.820 you wouldn't hear these kind of comments about today.

00:13:27.480 So Chrétien does go pretty far

00:13:29.660 outside of the norm

00:13:30.700 of what we're allowed to talk about today.

00:13:32.760 And because of it,

00:13:33.520 Jean Chrétien is facing some pushback.

00:13:35.820 I will say it is pretty minor.

00:13:37.520 He is not getting cancelled.

00:13:38.960 He is not.

00:13:39.660 The woke mob isn't coming for his head

00:13:41.380 in the same way as, again,

00:13:43.120 if a conservative politician

00:13:44.220 had said any of this stuff.

00:13:45.320 But we did see some minor pushback.

00:13:46.900 So here is a CTV story.

00:13:49.000 Former PM Chrétien called out

00:13:50.920 over comments on residential schools.

00:13:53.420 This is just kind of silly,

00:13:54.680 but you notice at the top of the story here,

00:13:56.000 it says warning details in this story

00:13:58.500 may be disturbing for some.

00:14:00.100 So a little trigger warning on the CTV story.

00:14:02.440 Here it says,

00:14:03.220 former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien

00:14:04.220 is being called out

00:14:04.940 over his recent comments

00:14:05.940 on residential schools

00:14:06.980 after stating he was not aware

00:14:08.200 of any abuse happening

00:14:09.180 in these institutions

00:14:10.100 while he was Minister of then Indian Affairs.

00:14:12.740 Goes on to say,

00:14:13.520 Chrétien was Minister of Indian Affairs

00:14:14.880 between 1968 to 1974

00:14:17.440 under then Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau.

00:14:19.200 He went on to become Prime Minister

00:14:20.480 and saw the last operational residential school

00:14:22.700 closed while he was in office.

00:14:25.060 In the CTV interview,

00:14:26.320 Chrétien was asked

00:14:26.960 whether he takes some responsibility

00:14:28.560 in light of the continued discoveries

00:14:30.480 of unmarked graves

00:14:31.200 at former residential schools.

00:14:33.380 And then it just goes on

00:14:34.320 to quote what he says about education.

00:14:36.780 And then it goes on

00:14:37.980 to the critiques of him.

00:14:39.820 Responding to these assertions

00:14:40.800 on Monday morning,

00:14:41.540 NDP, MP, and Critic for Indigenous Youth,

00:14:43.720 Charlie Angus,

00:14:44.860 cited a handwritten letter

00:14:45.900 he'd read from a teacher

00:14:47.160 to then Minister Chrétien

00:14:48.280 that was from St. Anne's Residential School

00:14:50.480 in Fort Albany, Ontario.

00:14:52.100 It was dated 1968.

00:14:53.720 And again,

00:14:54.060 just because someone wrote a letter

00:14:55.440 to the minister

00:14:56.520 doesn't mean that the minister wrote it.

00:14:57.760 The minister is incredibly busy.

00:14:59.640 He's got so much going on

00:15:00.820 on any given day.

00:15:01.900 So just because they found a letter

00:15:03.460 that was addressed to him

00:15:04.580 doesn't prove anything.

00:15:06.160 But again,

00:15:06.460 the media are really digging deep here

00:15:07.880 to try to refute these comments

00:15:09.460 and embarrass Chrétien.

00:15:11.760 But again,

00:15:12.140 this is all kind of

00:15:12.900 water off a duck's back for Chrétien.

00:15:14.320 It doesn't really stick to him.

00:15:16.040 The next criticism

00:15:16.820 in the CTV piece,

00:15:17.700 it goes on,

00:15:18.100 it says in both interviews,

00:15:19.200 Chrétien also appeared

00:15:19.960 to be comparing

00:15:20.740 his personal experiences

00:15:22.020 to those of Indigenous people.

00:15:24.120 In the Radio Canada interview,

00:15:25.280 Chrétien appeared

00:15:25.840 to draw parallels

00:15:26.640 between the experiences

00:15:27.600 of Indigenous children

00:15:28.700 at residential schools

00:15:29.640 and those of young people

00:15:31.160 like himself

00:15:31.740 who attended boarding schools,

00:15:33.100 saying life was difficult

00:15:34.180 for all of them.

00:15:35.580 I was at boarding school

00:15:36.300 from age six to age 21,

00:15:37.960 Chrétien said.

00:15:38.640 I ate baked beans

00:15:39.700 and oatmeal.

00:15:40.220 It was difficult.

00:15:41.620 The life of a boarding school student,

00:15:43.240 very difficult.

00:15:44.660 And then they found

00:15:45.460 someone to refute that.

00:15:47.000 Again,

00:15:47.820 here is a First Nations person

00:15:50.320 saying,

00:15:50.780 I think Mr. Chrétien,

00:15:52.040 with all due respect,

00:15:52.980 doesn't exactly realize

00:15:53.940 what an Indigenous

00:15:54.760 residential school is.

00:15:56.360 It was called

00:15:57.000 a residential school,

00:15:57.980 but it wasn't a school.

00:15:59.460 He said that

00:16:00.100 eating certain foods

00:16:01.180 does not compare

00:16:01.840 to the experiences

00:16:02.540 of First Nations children.

00:16:05.080 So again,

00:16:05.780 saying that

00:16:06.340 just because you had

00:16:07.080 a bad experience,

00:16:07.680 you cannot compare it

00:16:08.780 to a bad experience

00:16:09.880 of someone else.

00:16:10.680 Again,

00:16:10.880 this is ridiculous.

00:16:12.000 Like I said,

00:16:12.660 life is incredibly hard.

00:16:13.880 A lot of people suffer.

00:16:14.700 A lot of people

00:16:15.320 have horrible experiences.

00:16:17.400 Boarding school,

00:16:18.000 in particular,

00:16:18.580 can be a very,

00:16:19.420 very awful place

00:16:20.180 like the experience

00:16:21.600 of my friend.

00:16:23.240 But again,

00:16:23.860 to the woke mob,

00:16:24.700 you're just not allowed

00:16:25.540 to compare one to another.

00:16:27.700 Then the story goes on

00:16:28.620 to talk about

00:16:29.440 the white paper,

00:16:30.120 that idea that

00:16:30.680 Jean Chrétien wanted

00:16:31.380 to just abolish

00:16:32.200 the entire system

00:16:33.140 of Indian affairs

00:16:34.000 and basically have

00:16:35.200 just one set of laws

00:16:36.300 for all Canadians,

00:16:37.280 which again,

00:16:37.740 I think that there's

00:16:38.280 a lot of validity

00:16:39.040 to that idea

00:16:40.180 and I wish more people

00:16:41.040 would still talk

00:16:41.720 about it today,

00:16:42.560 but this is how

00:16:43.140 the media frames

00:16:43.820 that idea.

00:16:44.660 CTV writes,

00:16:45.920 during his tenure

00:16:46.440 as minister,

00:16:47.240 Chrétien proposed

00:16:47.980 a highly controversial

00:16:49.520 and ultimately

00:16:50.220 withdrawn white paper

00:16:51.240 that was viewed

00:16:52.040 by Indigenous people

00:16:52.960 as assimilationist

00:16:54.640 as it proposed

00:16:55.500 among other things

00:16:56.280 to eliminate

00:16:56.860 Indian status.

00:16:58.140 He said he backed

00:16:58.700 away from that proposal

00:16:59.540 after hearing the concerns

00:17:00.520 from Indigenous groups,

00:17:01.600 though he seemed

00:17:02.480 to downplay the concerns

00:17:03.700 over assimilation

00:17:04.580 raised in regards

00:17:05.560 to his white paper proposal.

00:17:07.300 This part is pretty

00:17:08.300 incredible.

00:17:09.340 Chrétien says,

00:17:10.460 am I assimilated?

00:17:11.620 I'm French.

00:17:12.360 I'm in Ottawa.

00:17:13.120 I think I'm still French.

00:17:14.220 So what is assimilation?

00:17:15.540 Life changes, you know?

00:17:16.860 It's not the same life

00:17:17.860 that they were living

00:17:19.000 in those early days.

00:17:20.080 Everybody adjusts

00:17:20.860 to the new reality.

00:17:22.380 So again,

00:17:23.300 Chrétien is just

00:17:24.020 sort of downplaying it,

00:17:24.820 just talking about life

00:17:26.380 in a very clear way

00:17:28.420 without worrying

00:17:29.440 about all the loaded terms,

00:17:30.760 about all the woke ideology.

00:17:31.920 It's kind of refreshing

00:17:32.740 to just hear a politician say,

00:17:34.560 look, we're French,

00:17:35.640 we were assimilated,

00:17:36.700 the First Nations people,

00:17:37.900 you know,

00:17:38.160 they might be assimilated

00:17:39.140 to kind of like big deal.

00:17:41.300 But again,

00:17:41.760 the media just cannot handle it.

00:17:43.360 So if you think

00:17:43.780 this CTV report was bad,

00:17:45.620 I'm going to show you

00:17:46.780 a bit of this CBC report.

00:17:48.680 Actually,

00:17:48.840 I'm going to show you

00:17:49.420 the whole CBC report

00:17:50.860 because I want to show you

00:17:51.980 every element

00:17:52.900 of the way that they cover it,

00:17:54.320 the way that they frame it,

00:17:55.240 the clips that they choose.

00:17:56.300 This is just a total hit

00:17:57.880 and smear piece.

00:17:58.880 And you can see

00:17:59.500 how the CBC

00:18:00.380 doesn't even care

00:18:01.380 at this point

00:18:01.920 that Chrétien is a liberal.

00:18:03.180 They go after him

00:18:04.540 with everything they have.

00:18:05.960 This is one of the most

00:18:06.880 reckless pieces of journalism

00:18:08.200 that you can find

00:18:09.160 out there today

00:18:09.840 just in the one-sidedness

00:18:11.140 of it.

00:18:11.740 This is standard,

00:18:12.720 of course,

00:18:13.060 for the CBC,

00:18:13.860 but it is pretty remarkable

00:18:14.880 that it is a liberal.

00:18:16.020 So watch this clip.

00:18:16.940 This is how the CBC

00:18:17.680 is framing the entire issue.

00:18:19.020 That revelation

00:18:25.200 on the French-language talk show

00:18:27.060 Tout le Mans en Parle

00:18:28.320 sparked backlash.

00:18:29.700 I don't know how

00:18:31.140 he could not have heard

00:18:32.480 about the abuse

00:18:34.100 that was going on

00:18:35.140 in residential schools.

00:18:37.820 So it's...

00:18:39.040 I don't believe it myself personally.

00:18:43.260 Before he was prime minister,

00:18:45.200 Jean Crouchin served

00:18:46.200 as what was then called

00:18:47.360 Indian Affairs Minister.

00:18:49.020 From 1968 to 1974.

00:18:52.360 During that time,

00:18:53.600 Crouchin claims

00:18:54.420 no one ever told him

00:18:55.900 about the horrors

00:18:56.840 of residential schools.

00:18:58.460 At the time,

00:18:59.080 there was no support.

00:19:00.380 There was no validation

00:19:01.460 of the suffering.

00:19:03.000 Delia Alpikakue

00:19:04.320 says many residential school

00:19:05.980 survivors like her

00:19:07.280 weren't ready

00:19:08.220 to share their suffering

00:19:09.540 back then.

00:19:10.500 We were afraid

00:19:11.200 to talk about it.

00:19:12.840 And, of course,

00:19:13.460 there was a lot of shame

00:19:14.380 because of the...

00:19:17.360 As victims,

00:19:18.400 people were abused harshly.

00:19:20.340 It's hard to say

00:19:21.500 that it's hard to say

00:19:21.780 that it's hard to say.

00:19:22.660 It's extremely hard to say.

00:19:23.780 In his interview,

00:19:25.800 Crouchin also drew a comparison

00:19:27.620 between his own experience

00:19:29.500 attending boarding school

00:19:30.740 to that of Indigenous children

00:19:32.880 forced to attend

00:19:34.060 residential schools.

00:19:35.800 Maybe he wasn't listening.

00:19:37.660 This former Truth and Reconciliation

00:19:39.500 Commissioner

00:19:40.260 worries Crouchin's comments

00:19:42.200 could encourage others

00:19:43.540 to claim they didn't know.

00:19:45.460 And that really sets us back

00:19:47.440 and I am concerned about that.

00:19:49.800 So, again,

00:19:50.260 pretty incredible stuff there.

00:19:51.800 And Crouchin refuses

00:19:52.800 to back down.

00:19:53.760 He refuses to cower

00:19:54.520 to the media,

00:19:55.200 to the woke mob.

00:19:56.140 He says,

00:19:56.580 look, we can't rewrite our history.

00:19:58.060 Bad things happen to everyone.

00:19:59.480 Let's look forward.

00:20:00.720 And he also,

00:20:01.560 in his own book,

00:20:02.880 he chose to write about this,

00:20:04.280 that he advised Queen Elizabeth

00:20:05.620 not to apologize

00:20:06.880 to the Maori people

00:20:08.360 in New Zealand

00:20:09.080 because if she started

00:20:10.680 to apologize

00:20:11.200 to every Indigenous community

00:20:12.820 in all of the British Empire,

00:20:15.280 she would end up

00:20:15.780 spending two years in Canada

00:20:16.960 on her knees

00:20:17.840 apologizing to all the various

00:20:19.620 chiefs and tribe leaders.

00:20:22.540 So, again,

00:20:23.460 pretty remarkable stuff.

00:20:24.340 You would never hear

00:20:24.900 a politician say this.

00:20:26.380 I think it's refreshing.

00:20:27.400 I think that Canadians

00:20:28.180 should appreciate

00:20:29.300 that Crouchin is saying

00:20:30.280 the things that so many people

00:20:31.800 are afraid to say today.

00:20:33.960 And, again,

00:20:34.860 having the media turn on him.

00:20:36.740 So, I said that Crouchin

00:20:37.780 lives to tell about it

00:20:39.440 because despite this sort of

00:20:40.960 manufactured media firestorm

00:20:42.800 a story on CTV,

00:20:44.460 a story on CTV,

00:20:45.820 they found, you know,

00:20:46.520 five people to come out

00:20:47.400 and say how horrible Crouchin is

00:20:49.240 for these beliefs

00:20:50.380 and sort of try to

00:20:51.420 open old wounds again

00:20:53.600 and make us feel guilty

00:20:55.340 once again,

00:20:56.440 regardless of that attempt.

00:20:58.300 Crouchin walks away

00:20:59.040 from this looking pretty good.

00:21:00.140 You know,

00:21:00.300 he's trying to sell his book.

00:21:01.820 He wants the attention

00:21:03.620 of his comments.

00:21:05.200 He wants people to be interested

00:21:06.140 in what he has to say.

00:21:07.460 And I think that he accomplished

00:21:08.400 that at this point in his life.

00:21:09.780 Look, he's got nothing to prove.

00:21:10.900 He's got nothing to lose.

00:21:12.260 He just wants to tell his story.

00:21:14.040 He wants Canadians 1.00

00:21:14.740 to pay attention to him

00:21:16.300 once more.

00:21:17.360 It's really interesting

00:21:18.040 that he also used this

00:21:18.880 as an opportunity

00:21:19.560 to slap down Trudeau

00:21:20.820 to say that he's not really doing

00:21:21.960 a very good job.

00:21:23.840 But, again,

00:21:24.400 if this was a conservative politician,

00:21:26.120 we know they would have gotten cancelled.

00:21:27.420 We know that the reaction

00:21:28.300 would have been much, much worse.

00:21:29.840 This story has already moved

00:21:31.000 away from the headlines,

00:21:32.040 off social media.

00:21:33.280 Everyone's moved on

00:21:34.080 to talk about Trudeau's cabinet shuffle

00:21:36.120 and a couple of other things

00:21:37.320 in the news today.

00:21:38.320 So this story is sort of

00:21:39.960 no longer a controversy

00:21:41.560 despite the media's

00:21:42.780 best attempts there.

00:21:44.560 And, again, you know,

00:21:45.400 we know that Khecheng 1.00

00:21:46.220 would have been treated

00:21:46.760 much, much differently,

00:21:47.740 much, much worse

00:21:48.300 if he was a conservative.

00:21:49.360 Just remember,

00:21:49.920 it was a year ago.

00:21:51.180 Sarkwal Day compared

00:21:52.160 his own experiences

00:21:53.040 being bullied

00:21:53.800 for wearing glasses

00:21:54.760 to the negative experiences

00:21:56.980 that some Canadians

00:21:57.780 might have experienced

00:21:59.100 with racism

00:21:59.680 when they were growing up.

00:22:00.800 Sort of tried to make

00:22:01.580 that comparison.

00:22:02.180 And because of that,

00:22:03.620 he was the absolute target

00:22:05.100 of a firestorm

00:22:05.900 that led to him

00:22:06.900 getting removed

00:22:08.060 from CBC.

00:22:09.700 He's no longer

00:22:10.220 a guest over there.

00:22:11.320 He lost a position

00:22:12.440 that he had

00:22:12.840 with a law firm as well.

00:22:13.740 So he actually did have

00:22:14.600 a financial loss

00:22:15.760 and penalty

00:22:16.320 from comments

00:22:17.420 that are actually

00:22:17.860 pretty similar

00:22:18.520 to what Jean Chrétien said.

00:22:19.980 Of course,

00:22:20.400 Chrétien is non-apologetic.

00:22:22.600 He's not backing down.

00:22:23.760 He's not apologizing

00:22:24.640 the way that Sarkwal Day did, 0.96

00:22:25.700 which I think

00:22:26.080 is a good tip

00:22:27.800 for people out there.

00:22:28.640 You know,

00:22:28.820 if you are the center

00:22:29.940 of a firestorm,

00:22:31.060 don't apologize.

00:22:31.740 Just continue

00:22:32.600 like Chrétien did

00:22:33.720 to say what you believe,

00:22:35.740 to sort of

00:22:36.480 stand your ground.

00:22:37.800 And then the media

00:22:38.460 just sort of realize

00:22:39.340 that, okay,

00:22:39.780 we can't take you down.

00:22:40.800 And they move along

00:22:41.820 to the next story,

00:22:42.580 which they did

00:22:42.960 to Chrétien.

00:22:43.740 So Chrétien lives 0.66

00:22:44.760 to tell about it.

00:22:45.420 I hope that he will

00:22:46.160 inspire more Canadians

00:22:47.460 out there

00:22:48.100 to face back

00:22:49.960 against the woke mob,

00:22:51.040 push back against

00:22:51.720 this terrible narrative

00:22:52.620 that Canada

00:22:53.140 is this awful

00:22:54.040 genocidal country.

00:22:54.840 It's not true.

00:22:56.100 Yes, bad things

00:22:56.920 happened in the past.

00:22:57.820 Yes, residential schools

00:22:58.840 by and large

00:22:59.640 were terrible.

00:23:00.680 But the best thing

00:23:01.340 that we can do again

00:23:02.280 is to learn

00:23:03.760 from the past,

00:23:04.540 understand the history,

00:23:05.680 realize that it

00:23:06.140 wasn't perfect,

00:23:06.720 but that at the end

00:23:07.600 of the day,

00:23:08.080 Canada is a damn 0.82

00:23:08.840 good country.

00:23:09.500 We have a lot

00:23:09.900 to be proud about.

00:23:10.820 We have a lot

00:23:11.220 to be proud for.

00:23:12.120 We should be patriotic

00:23:13.300 and love our country

00:23:14.080 because we got

00:23:14.900 a lot of things right

00:23:15.620 and we continue

00:23:16.380 to get a lot of things

00:23:17.120 right as we try

00:23:18.060 to improve.

00:23:18.700 I hope that people

00:23:19.480 will draw inspiration

00:23:20.820 from Jean Chrétien

00:23:22.020 and his attitude

00:23:23.180 towards all this.

00:23:24.280 I'm Candice Malcolm

00:23:24.800 and this is

00:23:25.400 The Candice Malcolm Show.

00:23:26.080 Thank you.

00:23:26.360 Thank you.

00:23:26.580 Thank you.

Juno News - October 26, 2021

Former PM Jean Chrétien stares down the woke mob

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