Juno News - June 15, 2022


Freeland gets grilled for relying on false CBC story for invoking the Emergencies Act

Topics
terrorism funding and money laundering
Mentioned
Freeland Braug McKellop Brock
Poilievre Derangement Syndrome reaches a new high Trudeau's online censorship bill charges ahead

Episode Stats


Length

4 minutes

Words per minute

140.88

Word count

672

Sentence count

59


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In 2002, the CBC retracted a false story about foreign funding for the protest against the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States of America. The government of Canada and the Minister of Finance, Chrystia Freeland, responded to this false report.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 Minister Freeland, you'll agree with me that the state-owned, taxpayer-funded Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
00:00:08.080 reported on February the 10th, 2022, that the GoFundMe donations to the convoy protest
00:00:15.180 came from donors located outside of Canada.
00:00:19.140 Do you agree with that?
00:00:21.020 I don't have the report in front of me, and I haven't memorized all CBC reports,
00:00:26.320 but I'm prepared to believe you.
00:00:30.000 In fact, they stated that the donations came from America, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, and the Netherlands.
00:00:38.320 You'd also accept that as fact?
00:00:41.160 I don't see the article before me, but you say that's what it says.
00:00:44.440 They even claim that the convoy might be Russian-funded. Do you recall that?
00:00:51.400 Again, you're reading from the article.
00:00:53.580 Yes.
00:00:53.820 On March 21st, 2002, the CBC, without any explanation, without apology, without any clarity,
00:01:04.000 retracted their story regarding the funding of the protest.
00:01:08.040 You were aware of that?
00:01:09.920 Again, I'm not speaking for the CBC.
00:01:12.360 I'm speaking for the Ministry of Finance.
00:01:13.160 I'm not asking you to speak for the CBC.
00:01:15.160 I'm asking, were you informed that the CBC retracted the story, the false story, about foreign funding donations to the convoy?
00:01:27.000 Again, Mr. Brock, I don't believe that the CBC is being interrogated here.
00:01:32.660 I believe it's the government of Canada.
00:01:34.000 Just answer the question, Minister Freeland.
00:01:35.800 Were you aware, yes or no?
00:01:38.300 It's a simple question.
00:01:39.480 I don't have the article before me, and I'm not here to answer questions about the CBC and its reporting.
00:01:43.740 The Deputy Prime Minister, the most senior Cabinet Minister, is not prepared to accept whether or not the CBC retracted a false story?
00:01:52.540 I don't speak for the CBC, sir.
00:01:55.160 You, as the most senior Cabinet Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister, relied upon that initial story from the CBC
00:02:02.080 and shared your concerns with Canadians regarding terrorism funding and money laundering.
00:02:08.200 Your words?
00:02:09.480 Correct?
00:02:12.700 Let me be very clear.
00:02:17.820 My principal concern when it comes to the illegal occupation and the illegal blockades is the economic harm that was done to Canada.
00:02:30.060 Let me be very clear, Minister Freeland.
00:02:32.340 Your words several times in the House refer to terrorism funding and money laundering.
00:02:38.900 Are you saying you didn't use those words?
00:02:44.120 I'm speaking here today, and I am talking about the central motivation of our very serious actions.
00:02:51.680 And I'm here to ask you questions, and I expect, unlike question period, I expect a response.
00:02:57.600 Yes.
00:02:58.600 So my response is, do you recall using the words terrorism funding and money laundering in the House and reporting outside the House?
00:03:08.820 Yes or no, Minister Freeland?
00:03:10.880 I believe if we were in a court of law where I think you once worked, that might be called badgering the witness, Mr. Braug.
00:03:18.220 Sure.
00:03:18.660 Yeah.
00:03:18.800 Can we allow the question to be answered?
00:03:23.420 Yes.
00:03:23.940 Thank you.
00:03:25.720 As I said, my core concern as Minister of Finance and my central justification for these very serious measures that we put in place, as was clear in my opening statement,
00:03:41.020 You're not answering the question.
00:03:42.160 I'm going to move on.
00:03:42.860 The witness may not like the questions, but she's not entitled to establish her own facts in responding to an answer that is non-responsive and not relevant to the question.
00:03:57.820 I'd actually just, we'll move back 20 seconds and allow you to ask your last question.
00:04:02.940 Do you agree with me that the Deputy Director of FinTrack, Mr. McKellop, confirmed at committee that the convoy funding did not come from terrorism funding or money laundering and the typical person who donated hundreds and thousands of dollars to the convoy came from their own resources and posed no security threat?
00:04:27.180 Do you accept that?
00:04:28.200 What I accept, Mr. Braug, is that the core threat was to the Canadian economy, to our reputation as a trading partner and investment destination.
00:04:39.400 Thank you for the non-response, Minister.
00:04:39.680 I made that clear in my opening remarks, and that is my view.
00:04:43.080 Thank you for the non-response, Minister.
00:04:45.000 Very helpful.
00:04:45.820 We'll move to...