Juno News - October 26, 2021


Former PM Jean Chrétien stares down the woke mob


Episode Stats

Length

23 minutes

Words per Minute

194.05743

Word Count

4,550

Sentence Count

292

Misogynist Sentences

2

Hate Speech Sentences

6


Summary


Transcript

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,
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.
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
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
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
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,
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
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
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.