Juno News - Guilbeault tries to be hip and cool

00:00:00.000 You guys, my computer died in the last show that I was doing.

00:00:02.480 So hopefully that doesn't happen this time.

00:00:04.000 But Noah, you're in charge if I disappear.

00:00:08.260 I'm in charge.

00:00:09.080 Am I like the senior member?

00:00:10.140 No, it's you, Noah.

00:00:11.200 I'll just be in the background.

00:00:13.080 You're just my DEI pick.

00:00:17.380 Ouch.

00:00:18.360 That would hurt, you know.

00:00:19.600 But, you know, I don't know why.

00:00:21.180 But Kamala Harris is so shameless about that. 1.00

00:00:23.320 That one really hurt.

00:00:24.480 I can't do that ever again.

00:00:25.720 I'm glad I'm not a lib.

00:00:27.180 Jesus Christ.

00:00:28.220 What really hurt?

00:00:28.840 That was awful.

00:00:31.000 Being a DEI pick, I mean, that one hurt the soul, Rachel.

00:00:36.560 I think, you know, you might be a DEI pick.

00:00:38.280 You got the woman's status. 0.95

00:00:39.180 I don't know.

00:00:40.200 What's higher on the intersectional hierarchy?

00:00:42.240 Being a man or being a woman or being black? 0.81

00:00:45.300 Being a person of color is definitely higher. 0.99

00:00:47.440 It is.

00:00:47.920 It is.

00:00:49.900 I would know, you know.

00:00:52.200 Yeah, you would know.

00:00:53.780 You've probably dealt with some of that.

00:00:58.420 Being a person of color?

00:01:00.000 Yeah.

00:01:03.860 I'm on the lowest ranking of the DEI list as a single white male.

00:01:08.040 Oh, well, we got to boost those numbers up.

00:01:12.320 Let's get you into a wig and get you some brass and you'll be good to go. 1.00

00:01:17.260 You'll shoot right up the rankings.

00:01:19.640 Yeah.

00:01:20.380 You probably can get it paid for by the government too, Isaac.

00:01:22.880 So it seems like a good idea.

00:01:25.680 Yeah, I'm not going to go down that road.

00:01:27.880 Okay, guys, let's get it started.

00:01:30.440 Hey, everyone.

00:01:39.540 Welcome to Off the Record, our Friday fun show.

00:01:43.280 Before we get started, I have some bittersweet news for all of you.

00:01:46.660 If you haven't already heard, our colleague and usual host of the show, Andrew Lawton,

00:01:51.220 has left us all.

00:01:52.180 He's taken a leave of absence from Trudorth as he is seeking a conservative nomination.

00:01:56.660 So we are very excited for him.

00:01:58.900 We wish him the best on his campaign and his hopeful candidacy.

00:02:02.500 However, he will be deeply missed here at Trudorth.

00:02:04.920 And I guess for the time being, you are stuck with us.

00:02:07.500 Joining me today are my colleagues, Noah Jarvis and Isaac Lamoureux.

00:02:11.220 Thank you so much for being here, guys.

00:02:13.940 Great to be here.

00:02:14.880 And hopefully I'm not a drag on the show now that Andrew's gone.

00:02:19.220 You're not a drag on the show that Andrew's gone.

00:02:20.960 You're just a drag on the show because you're a DEI.

00:02:23.120 Good to be here as well.

00:02:26.980 Maybe I'll be a more common entity of Off the Record now that Andrew's gone.

00:02:32.260 Who knows?

00:02:33.320 So it's been sort of an exciting week over at True North.

00:02:36.540 I know that we sometimes struggle to find funny stories to talk about on this show,

00:02:40.980 but I think today we had no shortage of them.

00:02:43.040 Starting off, I feel like our colleague Harrison just sort of lit X on fire this week.

00:02:47.580 I don't know if he was the first person to post this image,

00:02:49.600 but he was definitely one of the first.

00:02:51.020 Basically, I'm sure you guys have heard the drama of some immigrants pooping in places 1.00

00:02:57.480 that you shouldn't poop, like parking lots and beaches has been one of the other commonly

00:03:01.760 one.

00:03:01.980 I also saw today a video of a man pooping on someone's lawn in Niagara Falls, Ontario.

00:03:07.340 So that's been sort of just a trending story.

00:03:09.520 So of course, naturally, when Harrison posted a photo of a man pooping outside of a gas station

00:03:15.440 in a Tim Hortons, he had like a Tim Hortons cup in his hand.

00:03:17.980 I don't really know what was going on.

00:03:19.800 I'm not sure if the man was like hoping to like poop into the cup or if like based on

00:03:25.300 the photo, it appears that's what's happening.

00:03:27.520 So Harrison posted this photo online.

00:03:30.240 He wrote, Brampton man just couldn't walk the 15 yards to the bathroom.

00:03:33.900 Mass immigration is totally working.

00:03:36.160 This tweet blew up.

00:03:37.780 And I think part of the reason it blew up is just because it's such a hot topic right

00:03:40.900 now.

00:03:41.400 Considering we just recently had the story of, you know, Indians, Indian immigrants are 0.94

00:03:45.360 pooping on beaches.

00:03:46.040 And then the city came out and said that wasn't true.

00:03:48.040 And all the people who live in the city were like, no, this is true.

00:03:50.420 I think that was at Wasaga Beach in Ontario.

00:03:52.740 So then a former Liberal MP commented, he quote tweeted on Harrison's post and he said,

00:03:56.760 I own this property and this did not happen.

00:04:00.200 It's photoshopped.

00:04:01.380 Do better.

00:04:02.120 And then his rebuttal of Harrison's post also got like a ton of traction online.

00:04:06.540 And then a whole bunch of people chimed in saying this is totally fake. 0.97

00:04:10.760 You know, Harrison, you're a racist. 0.90

00:04:12.540 And a lot of other people had posted this image as well. 0.97

00:04:14.600 And I think some people were even being threatened with a lawsuit.

00:04:17.440 So everyone who was kind of like watching on the sidelines, like waiting to see what was

00:04:20.800 happened.

00:04:21.140 But the thing that everyone kept pointing to is you can see this man's reflection in

00:04:25.380 the car and it would be extremely difficult to Photoshop that.

00:04:28.720 I mean, I know Photoshop has gotten pretty good, but I would say the average social media

00:04:32.920 user is not very good at it.

00:04:35.060 And so it seemed very unlikely that the image was Photoshopped.

00:04:37.680 But then Harrison had the receipts and he actually had sort of a little video.

00:04:42.280 It was actually just basically the live version of the photo.

00:04:46.700 So if you have an iPhone, I don't know if it's the same for Android users, you can actually

00:04:49.940 take like a live photo and it takes like a little video and then you can choose where

00:04:53.720 in the photo you want to stop.

00:04:54.660 So Harrison was able to post that live photo, which is essentially a small video, which

00:04:59.840 proved that the photo is in fact real and that it was not Photoshopped.

00:05:04.400 So the thing that I think is most interesting is the people who are still claiming that the

00:05:09.140 photo is Photoshopped.

00:05:09.960 They're not backing down.

00:05:10.820 They're not retracting their tweets or issuing apologies.

00:05:12.960 They're just doubling down.

00:05:14.380 And it seems like it's just sort of a war of you're going to believe what you want to

00:05:18.300 believe at this point.

00:05:19.120 It doesn't matter what the truth is.

00:05:20.620 What did you make of this whole situation unfolding on Exus Week, Noah?

00:05:23.960 Well, I thought that, you know, you're exactly right, that it is kind of inexcusable that

00:05:30.640 you especially have a liberal MP who won't retract the statement that, you know, is proven

00:05:35.100 to be false.

00:05:35.700 And this is because Harrison is sort of on the wrong side.

00:05:38.680 He's, you know, a conservative.

00:05:41.140 He talks about mass immigration and he talks about things that, you know, is really a big 0.72

00:05:47.060 thorn in the side of the liberal party.

00:05:48.680 And so, you know, just spreading misinformation on the Internet, and you could even call it

00:05:53.540 disinformation if you think that Raj Graywell purposefully spread this falsehood, you know,

00:06:00.920 spreading these sorts of falsehoods, it's fine, you know, if it's against a conservative

00:06:04.960 or it helps to disprove a conservative's argument.

00:06:08.760 But, you know, users on Exx did provide the receipts.

00:06:12.140 And it's a great thing that, you know, we have a greater understanding of what the truth

00:06:16.940 is and what is not, because under this liberal MP's just sort of pronunciations, just sort

00:06:24.100 of, you know, anything he says, it's not going to be really accurate.

00:06:29.740 I think it's really concerning that this liberal just sort of dismissed Harrison's pretty, you

00:06:37.080 know, fair concerns without, you know, trying to, you know, investigate why, you know, someone

00:06:43.840 might be mad about this, because the liberal government, they've created this immigration 1.00

00:06:48.060 problem in which, you know, we have people coming into the country that don't share Canadian 0.97

00:06:52.460 values, don't share the same sort of values of sanitation and hygiene.

00:06:56.640 I think that's a really basic Canadian value. 0.99

00:06:59.240 Go to the washroom if you're going to take a crap. 0.98

00:07:00.980 But, you know, I think that, you know, it's complicated stuff. 0.99

00:07:07.220 It's really complicated.

00:07:08.260 I really, you know, took a while to learn that.

00:07:11.540 But I think that if you just dismiss these concerns out of hand, you're going to create

00:07:18.840 resentment among the Canadian populace and you're going to create a more anti-immigrant

00:07:24.320 sort of environment in Canada.

00:07:26.340 So Raj Graywall, he's actually, what he's done is actually pretty counterproductive for

00:07:31.620 his cause.

00:07:32.580 So I think that if you are a, you know, pro-immigration liberal, just dismissing, you know, immigration

00:07:39.220 critics' concerns about people crapping in public is not going to, it's not going to bring

00:07:45.440 people onto your side.

00:07:46.360 It's actually going to, you know, create people who are more anti-immigrant.

00:07:50.100 You're going to have neutral observers who see this interaction on Twitter and say,

00:07:53.720 hey, you know, maybe the pro-immigrant people are, you know, just crazy misinformation spreaders

00:07:59.560 and, you know, the type of people who just seek to deny the truth, you know, for their

00:08:04.360 own political purposes.

00:08:06.100 Yeah.

00:08:06.320 No, I think you raise a really good point when you talk about the fact that just dismissing

00:08:10.860 concerns about mass immigration and some of the problem that it brings, like different

00:08:15.160 understanding of what sanitation is and different understanding of what is appropriate in a given

00:08:18.980 country versus the country where you might have originated from.

00:08:21.780 Just dismissing those concerns outright is going to cause resentment among the Canadian

00:08:25.440 people.

00:08:25.820 I think we're already at that point.

00:08:27.520 I think that Canadian people, by and large, are feeling resentful.

00:08:30.360 And this is like a very typical playbook that we see from the left.

00:08:32.620 Oh, you can't talk about that. 0.98

00:08:33.580 You're racist.

00:08:34.360 Just dismissing concerns outright and instead throwing a label, sort of like a band-aid fix

00:08:39.120 on someone so they won't talk about these things.

00:08:41.520 Um, but the one thing like that I just can't get past is just that there's so many people

00:08:47.140 who still believe that this image was fake because of how loud it's being voiced.

00:08:50.560 And I think we're seeing something very similar playing out in the American election right

00:08:54.340 now.

00:08:54.700 I covered this on my show on Wednesday, Rachel and the Republic, which you should absolutely

00:08:58.660 go and watch if you haven't seen it yet.

00:09:00.980 But essentially there's been so many things that have happened in the past that now people

00:09:04.880 are trying to rewrite.

00:09:05.400 So for example, Kamala Harris being named the borders are as vice president because the 1.00

00:09:10.340 border is such an issue.

00:09:11.680 Now people are trying to say, oh, she was never the borders are.

00:09:13.660 And in some cases this is being done quite successfully.

00:09:16.260 And I think it has the ability to, to change the election if it goes unchecked.

00:09:20.800 So when we talk about this disinformation, Isaac, do you think that X is really a place

00:09:25.320 to, for people to go and to disseminate what truth is?

00:09:28.100 Or do you think a lot of the times people leave with more confusion, more questions than answers?

00:09:33.800 Yeah, that's a good question.

00:09:35.400 And obviously Elon Musk who owns X has been very vocal in purchasing X that he was doing

00:09:42.420 it to protect freedom of speech.

00:09:44.260 Many people have touted him as the savior, if you will, of a freedom of speech because

00:09:49.340 of all the, we've seen all the other social medias like Facebook and other meta owned social

00:10:01.020 medias.

00:10:02.020 And we know that they have stopped certain information from getting out there intentionally.

00:10:08.040 The Hunter Biden laptop story, of course, is one that most people like to cite and remember.

00:10:13.120 But yeah, I mean, X is also where I remember seeing a study years ago that at the time Twitter was the most where the social media where the most politics were discussed.

00:10:28.060 So obviously freedom of speech in that sense is very important, especially when we're talking about election integrity and the like.

00:10:36.220 So obviously people are discussing primarily politics on X.

00:10:40.480 Yeah, and just going back to the photo quickly, I mean, the fact that people are still trying to say that's photoshopped when there is a live photo, literally a video version that your iPhone automatically takes.

00:10:52.580 I mean, it's a ridiculous defense to hang on to.

00:10:57.000 And I also wanted to say that I read True North's article on that story.

00:11:00.580 And we obviously we tried to reach out to the gas station who the employee said he didn't know what was going on.

00:11:06.000 And then they wouldn't provide the CCTV, which I found odd, because obviously, if you wanted to prove what happened, you could just provide the unedited raw video from the CCTV.

00:11:17.620 So I don't know why there's any secrecy remaining around that.

00:11:22.540 But yeah, I know. I mean, oh, sorry, you could just go.

00:11:25.420 Yeah, it was just absolutely like, again, I think we really saw the people who posted this image initially.

00:11:30.200 They came with the receipts and I think it was fairly obvious to everyone that it would have been difficult to Photoshop that given.

00:11:35.700 But, you know, just another day, some more drama on X.

00:11:38.120 Another kind of funny thing that happened was a video that Stephen Guibault posted, you know, very unpopular environment minister of Canada right now.

00:11:44.680 And he's trying to sort of catch on the bandwagon of some trends that we're seeing in the states.

00:11:48.640 You know, why don't you take the lead on this one?

00:11:50.280 I'm just I'm just too frustrated with it at this point.

00:11:52.800 Go ahead and explain what happened here.

00:11:55.580 Well, you know, just for some context, in the United States, Joe Biden has dropped out.

00:12:02.100 And Kamala Harris is the presumptive nominee for president for the Democratic Party.

00:12:07.420 And pretty soon after, Kamala Harris, you know, stepped forward and basically claimed the Democratic nomination. 1.00

00:12:15.600 This social media trend, I would say it was a little manufactured.

00:12:20.240 But the social media trend emerged, basically saying that Kamala is brat. 1.00

00:12:25.840 Now, it is this like this stupid Gen Z thing. 0.99

00:12:29.580 I'm part of Gen Z, so it's like, you know, self-generational criticism. 0.99

00:12:33.200 But, you know, there's this stupid Gen Z thing where, you know, there's this artist, pop artist named Charlie XCX. 0.96

00:12:40.020 She has this album coming out and, you know, she has this, I guess, clever marketing scheme where she's like, you know, XCX is brat or whatever. 1.00

00:12:47.700 I don't understand it too much because I don't listen to Charlie XCX.

00:12:51.500 I'm not on those corners of the Internet.

00:12:53.940 But basically, Kamala Harris and her team, they took this Charlie XCX trend and they basically, you know, repurposed it for their own campaign purposes.

00:13:04.180 They are trying to say that Kamala Harris is brat. 1.00

00:13:06.760 What does brat mean?

00:13:08.320 You know, it means anything to anyone. 0.99

00:13:10.480 You know, it means what you wish brat to mean, you know, which in and of itself just makes the whole concept stupid. 0.90

00:13:18.280 But, you know, they've branded their campaign HQ around it, you know, the sort of online campaign war room. 0.95

00:13:24.960 And it seems as if this has caught in the attention of Canadian politicians.

00:13:29.440 So, notorious Trudeau cabinet minister, Trudeau's environment minister, Stephen Giebeau, he decided that it would be a good idea to basically repurpose Kamala's, you know, you see it there on screen.

00:13:42.340 You repurpose Kamala Harris' branding and say that, you know, this is a brat summer and that affordable housing is brat.

00:13:50.320 You know, what is that supposed to mean?

00:13:52.540 I have no idea.

00:13:53.600 And I thought it was really cringe.

00:13:55.300 I advised Stephen Giebeau to delete the post because that's what any, you know, good person.

00:14:01.280 Anyone who wanted the best for Stephen Giebeau's life, you know, they would tell him to take that post down.

00:14:06.080 You know, I don't know what his communications people, his communications staff was telling him, but, you know, they should be fired immediately.

00:14:13.520 It is horrible.

00:14:14.620 It's the worst if I was to, you know, persuade Trump.

00:14:17.100 But, you know, I think it really just goes to show that politics, especially in Canada and the United States, it's become sort of, you know, vapid.

00:14:27.200 And, you know, sort of hollow.

00:14:28.580 And that, you know, it's a joke.

00:14:30.060 Exactly.

00:14:30.740 You know, we don't really discuss, you know, really, you know, substantive issues.

00:14:34.500 We just say that housing affordability is brat.

00:14:37.120 You know, just put that out in the air.

00:14:39.000 It's not like I saw housing prices come down anytime soon.

00:14:42.620 Actually, housing starts, starts on homes being built have gone down in recent months.

00:14:49.740 You know, compared to last year, housing starts at down, I think, 50%.

00:14:53.040 So it's not like they're doing anything to make housing affordable.

00:14:56.400 Well, they just declare the housing affordability is brat and boom, housing prices shoot down 50% in the next week.

00:15:02.380 What do you guys think of this thing that Stephen Keebo did?

00:15:07.840 Well, I had looked into this trend a little bit in my coverage of the American election.

00:15:12.360 And I was like looking into this trend of brat because I didn't really understand it either.

00:15:15.560 I might be a Gen Z, but I actually, you know, tend to fit in more with like 60-year-olds and that demographic.

00:15:21.680 So I was lost as to what this trend was.

00:15:23.300 So I was looking it up.

00:15:23.980 So apparently the trend of being brat means to be being bold and uncomfortable and it's to be the unexpected.

00:15:31.340 And that's why they pick sort of that odd green color that you don't see too much because it was unexpected.

00:15:36.180 I think it's funny that essentially Stephen Keebo was saying that affordable housing is unexpected, which it certainly is in Canada.

00:15:43.780 We definitely don't expect that anymore.

00:15:46.640 What's the average median home price in Ontario is like something around half a million dollars.

00:15:50.980 And then the Atlantic also described it and they said that brat is a collection of nightclub bangers celebrating female hedonism.

00:15:59.720 So, no, I thought it was interesting when you said, well, it's kind of whatever you want it to be, because it doesn't seem like there's really a clear definition of what brat is.

00:16:07.040 But whatever it is, Stephen Keebo definitely didn't know what it was when he made that post.

00:16:11.880 Like they have no idea what they're talking about.

00:16:13.920 They're trying to fit into a trend that it obviously, you know, sure, you could repurpose this trend if you wanted to.

00:16:19.140 But in terms and, you know, here we should really just be accusing the Americans of we should be accusing Keebo of importing American style politics into Canada.

00:16:27.120 Like he's so clearly taken this trend from the Kamala Harris campaign.

00:16:30.600 He isn't even fully aware of what it is.

00:16:32.500 They might have been able to repurpose it for something, but I don't think they would have been able to repurpose it for affordable housing.

00:16:37.960 And I think this is sort of falling on flat.

00:16:39.260 I don't think it's causing any clarification on the policy methods that you're actually trying to get forward.

00:16:43.620 Isaac, what's your take on this whole thing?

00:16:45.180 Yeah, so obviously I didn't know as much background information about the Gen Z brat thing as you know, and maybe you, Rachel.

00:16:53.160 But first thing I did when I saw this video, I thought I knew what a brat was. 0.97

00:16:56.600 But just to be sure, I looked up the definition, which read a child, typically a badly behaved one, which is, I might think, is how some people would describe Stephen Keebo.

00:17:08.200 And, you know, I mean, you're the environment minister of Canada.

00:17:12.700 Why are you even talking about housing in the first place, especially, especially in light of what just happened in Jasper?

00:17:18.140 I really think you'd have bigger concerns on your plate.

00:17:21.920 And then just touching briefly on housing, a July survey from the Angus Reid Institute showed that newcomers to Canada were more likely to leave than Canadian-born citizens.

00:17:33.240 But even 3 in 10 Canadian-born citizens were considering leaving their province and their country due to housing affordability concerns, whereas 39% of newcomers were considering leaving.

00:17:45.060 And we'll remember Canada's housing affordability reached an all-time low back in April.

00:17:50.940 And then Trudeau promised to build 4 million homes by 2031, which would equate to 1.096 houses per minute, which would require Canada to double its housing starts.

00:18:01.880 And as you said, Noah, they have not been going up but down, let alone double for seven years straight.

00:18:07.340 At this point, it's more than that because obviously the housing starts have been falling, not rising.

00:18:11.420 And then the recent news that came out and came into effect on Thursday, which is the promise made by the Liberals in the 2024 budget to offer 30-year mortgage amortizations.

00:18:24.880 And I talked at length about this with various mortgage brokers and economists, kind of went down into the calculations to see, hey, is this actually a good thing?

00:18:35.220 And sorry, the part that came into effect on Thursday was only for first-time homebuyers purchasing new builds, so it's a very limited demographic.

00:18:45.600 But anyways, in June 2024, the average house in Canada cost $696,179.

00:18:51.920 So after accounting for the minimum possible down payment, which equates to 5% on the first $500,000 and 10% on the remaining sum, or a minimum of 20% if the house exceeds $1,000,000, a 25-year mortgage would result in monthly payments of $3,789.

00:19:08.340 And for a 30-year mortgage, this would fall to $3,477.

00:19:13.640 Wow, that sounds great.

00:19:14.960 However, this drop in price would cost Canadians almost $115,000 over the full realization of that mortgage.

00:19:22.180 So for a 25-year mortgage on that $696,000 home, Canadians would pay a total of $1,136,853.

00:19:34.400 That would be $651,561 in principal cost after removing the down payment, and then $485,292 in interest.

00:19:44.980 And a 30-year mortgage would see obviously the same principal, but the interest would rise to $600,274.

00:19:50.380 So yes, an increase of $115,000 in interest just by increasing your mortgage over five years to bring down the monthly cost, which I talked to economist and McDonald-Daurier Institute fellow Jack Mintz, who is a very renowned economist.

00:20:07.140 And he told me that prospective buyers should only consider this if they have absolutely no other choice and that it's really not a great option.

00:20:14.240 And surprise, he offered a different solution that the Fed should explore, which he said, quote, build baby build and control immigration that is pushing population growth and demand for housing.

00:20:27.080 So yeah, I mean, look, all these issues always come down to the same issue of immigration.

00:20:30.800 Yeah, like I think you raise a really good point that why is, I mean, Guibo talking about this when we just had the fires in Jasper, maybe he's trying to distract a little bit.

00:20:39.800 But also, you know, this gimmicky sort of announcement, this gimmicky advertising and marketing, it doesn't do anything to abate the concerns and honestly just the sadness and anger that Canadians are feeling about not being able to own a home.

00:20:52.780 And what was that number that you said three in 10 people who were born in Canada are considering leaving because of the cost of living?

00:20:59.280 Like those are shocking numbers. I mean, I'm Canadian born.

00:21:01.400 I've definitely considered at times maybe that maybe leaving to live somewhere that's more affordable.

00:21:05.960 Have either of you ever, you know, actually had those considerations?

00:21:10.060 Well, in the pandemic, I was especially thinking like, hey, you know, this is, you know, pretty, it was pretty tragic, you know, price, I think, peaked during the pandemic.

00:21:18.540 And around those times, I was thinking like, you know, I don't have, you know, I do have, you know, roots in Canada.

00:21:26.400 But at the end of the day, if I, you know, need to be able to buy a home, you know, I can probably get a home that's worth half of a Canadian home in the United States for about the same size home while making a bit more money because your average American makes more money.

00:21:41.480 Like what? That's a pretty good deal.

00:21:43.480 Wouldn't want, you know, that sort of opportunity, you know.

00:21:45.900 And while, you know, I think I'm going to stay in Canada for the rest of my life, you know, because I do really love this country.

00:21:52.040 I want to also, you know, be able to live in a country where we don't have to, you know, deal with these significant concerns.

00:21:59.180 I think that, you know, the roadmap in Canada now for a young person is to, you know, try and, you know, do as well in school, get a good job, you know, save up as much money as possible for several years.

00:22:10.380 You know, maybe when you're in your 40s, you get to buy a home and instead of taking out a 25-year mortgage, now you take out a 30-year mortgage so that you pay it off instead of when you're 65, you pay it off when you're 70.

00:22:21.240 So you can't really retire until you're 70 or even, you know, older.

00:22:25.120 So that's sort of like, you know, the ideal roadmap for a Canadian in Trudeau's Canada.

00:22:30.560 And I think, you know, all Canadians want to, you know, bring back the Canadian dream because it is lost, especially for a lot of young Canadians who, you know, just, you know, try to do what, you know, their parents had done.

00:22:43.260 And are experiencing significant difficulties in trying to establish their lives.

00:22:49.800 So definitely, you know, Steve and Gabo talking about BRAT housing affordability or housing affordability being BRAT.

00:22:59.100 I don't think that's really helping a lot with the problems we're facing.

00:23:03.540 There you have it.

00:23:04.700 You know, two out of three Gen Z, mostly talented Canadians, you know, we're thinking about leaving. 0.80

00:23:09.540 I'm not sure about you, Isaac, or we've thought about it before. 0.96

00:23:11.700 They're just chasing away talent, chasing away talent with these dumb policies. 0.72

00:23:16.360 The States, I think a lot of people think about the States as an option. 0.69

00:23:18.620 Then they realize how difficult it would actually be to get a visa and to live there permanently.

00:23:23.040 I think people kind of reconsider.

00:23:24.760 But at least for the time being, you know, we can sit back here in Canada and we can enjoy all the drama unfolding in the States, mostly on X.

00:23:32.180 I know Elon Musk got himself in a little hot water.

00:23:34.200 I think maybe Pierre Polyev should take a note out of Elon's books and have a new strategy for attacking Trudeau or whoever replaces Trudeau more accurately.

00:23:44.760 But Isaac, why don't you explain what happened here?

00:23:46.240 What did Elon do that got people's panties so wound in a knot?

00:23:50.300 Yeah, so Elon Musk shared a parody with real photos and videos of her on the campaign trail.

00:23:57.260 And then the 40th governor of California, Gavin Newsom, said that manipulating a voice in a, quote, ad like this one should be illegal.

00:24:06.900 Newsom went on to say that he'd be signing a bill in a matter of weeks to make sure it is.

00:24:11.260 However, something interesting I found in the comments and then looked into was that the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously agreed 8 to 0 in Hustler v. Falwell that a parody, which no reasonable person expected to be true, was protected free speech.

00:24:26.260 And in fact, it was more than that.

00:24:27.800 It was protected by the 1st and the 14th Amendments in the U.S. Constitution.

00:24:31.480 So sharing parody videos like this is a constitutional right.

00:24:36.800 And I mean, Elon Musk is a pretty smart guy.

00:24:39.840 I'm sure he might have had some knowledge of that, which is why he took such a lackadaisical approach, let's call it, in these replies.

00:24:48.140 What do you guys think?

00:24:49.500 Yeah, I think.

00:24:50.140 Do we have a copy of that video?

00:24:51.220 Let's just play it now so people can get a sense of exactly what the parody was.

00:24:55.000 I, Kamal Harris, senior Democrat candidate for president, because Joe Biden finally exposed his senility of the debate.

00:25:02.020 Thanks, Joe.

00:25:02.820 I was selected because I am the ultimate diversity hire.

00:25:05.820 I'm both a woman and a person of color.

00:25:07.540 So if you criticize anything I say, you're both sexist and racist.

00:25:12.160 I may not know the first thing about running the country, but remember, that's a good thing if you're a deep state puppet.

00:25:19.260 I had four years under the tutelage of the ultimate deep state puppet, a wonderful mentor, Joe Biden.

00:25:25.280 Joe taught me rule number one, carefully hide your total incompetence.

00:25:29.400 So basically, she's just saying what every sane person in the American public is thinking right now.

00:25:36.860 I know Isaac talked a little bit about how the right for parody was protected.

00:25:40.900 But, you know, I think we've seen a lot of people's charter protected rights here in Canada and constitutional protected rights in the States have been trampled on in the past number of years.

00:25:49.600 Do you think that there's actually going to be a problem?

00:25:51.860 Do you think the individual who made this video and those who've been sharing it, do you think they might actually find themselves in any legal problems, Noah?

00:26:00.260 Well, I would hope not.

00:26:01.660 I mean, if someone really does get arrested over this or, you know, gets sued or whatever, I think that there's going to be a massive backlash.

00:26:08.480 And it's going to have that sort of the Streisand effect.

00:26:12.260 If you guys are not familiar with the Streisand effect, it basically refers to the phenomena where someone or a company tries to, you know, get rid of something, sort of scrub something from public existence.

00:26:24.900 And, you know, it has the opposite effect.

00:26:26.500 It has the effect of amplifying the thing that they are trying to censor.

00:26:30.000 So in this case, if, you know, someone, you know, the Paris campaign or some Democrat PAC, they want to, you know, try and sue the gentleman who made this video and try and get the video taken down, I think it's just going to result in a mass proliferation of the video around the Internet.

00:26:48.720 And it really should be because censorship should be viewed with scorn.

00:26:53.120 I mean, there isn't really many legitimate reasons why you should be censoring a government or, you know, the massive corporations should be censoring anything because, you know, it is something that free speech is a value that we're supposed to take very seriously, especially in the Anglosphere, in the United States, in Canada.

00:27:12.040 It is a value that should be protected.

00:27:14.820 And, you know, parity is part of free speech.

00:27:16.920 You should be able to make mockery of Kamala Harris for serving under a president that is more than likely senile and whose, you know, cognitive abilities are declining. 0.93

00:27:27.440 You should be able to mock Kamala Harris for being a sort of DEI hire, for getting picked by Joe Biden because she's a black woman and, you know, and she's the Democratic nominee unopposed because the optics would look bad about deposing a black woman. 0.99

00:27:43.500 You know, you should be able to mock someone about that like that.

00:27:45.920 Now, when you bring AI and you have this sort of impersonation of Kamala Harris's voice, I think, you know, there are certain cases in which you can have a video that is, you know, meant to deceive, that is blatantly manipulative and makes, you know, Kamala Harris or even Donald Trump or Joe Biden or whatever politician you want to name, it makes them look bad in a way that, you know, is meant to deceive the audience.

00:28:10.120 However, I think this video is clearly a parody video.

00:28:12.840 I mean, Kamala Harris is obviously not going to refer to the president that she's serving as, as I forget the, I forget the word, but basically as being, being senile.

00:28:22.180 I think that's the word.

00:28:23.380 Yeah.

00:28:24.380 She's not going to refer to Joe Biden as senile, realistically.

00:28:27.500 She, she's not going to, you know, be nearly as cynical as that.

00:28:32.620 And I think any observer should be able to tell that difference.

00:28:36.840 So, you know, I think the outrage, especially the CBC's outrage about this really, you know, has no basis.

00:28:44.860 And why Canada's public broadcaster is getting involved in this debate out of, you know, out of all the other debates that we could be talking about in Canadian politics, it's really beyond me.

00:28:55.300 I don't see why that's within the CBC's mandate.

00:28:58.400 I mean, CBC shouldn't even be covering American politics.

00:29:01.260 That seems pretty straightforward to me.

00:29:02.600 Their mandate is the Canadian public broadcaster fine.

00:29:05.460 You know, they can cover some Canadian heritage moments or some important news happening here in Canada.

00:29:09.280 I don't even disagree.

00:29:10.360 I don't even agree with their mandate.

00:29:11.480 I think, you know, they've sort of sold themselves out and the Canadian public has no interest in them, but there certainly is, is no argument to be made for them covering American news.

00:29:19.520 So obviously they shouldn't be wading into this debate, but it is an interesting one to have because I'm not sure if you guys remember this happening back in 2016.

00:29:26.140 There was a man who was making memes about Hillary Clinton during the election, Douglas Mackey.

00:29:30.940 And he was actually found guilty.

00:29:32.960 I think he was charged federally for making memes, which essentially told people to stay home and vote and just to text a certain number to vote.

00:29:39.620 And he was found guilty of a crime for that.

00:29:41.440 So it'll be interesting to see if the left kind of just threatens and says this is illegal or if they actually pursue it, because we've seen them time and time again pursue legal action where they feel that they are losing.

00:29:51.920 I mean, that's essentially what we saw with Donald Trump.

00:29:53.620 They threw everything they could in the book at him because, you know, they understood his popularity and they understood the threat that he was.

00:30:00.560 And so they threw every legal case they could find.

00:30:02.440 And obviously most of those have now fallen apart around them.

00:30:05.120 And so instead now they're turning back to the corporate media to do their dirty work for them and to make it appear as if there's all this momentum behind Kamala's campaign. 0.63

00:30:12.340 But, you know, we know raises an interesting point that there may be there is an ethical question as to how far can we actually go when we're doing parity and when we're using AI especially.

00:30:21.640 And Isaac, I wonder if you think this is something that could be effective here in Canada or if you think maybe the Canadian people have perhaps a lesser tolerance for those sort of gray areas.

00:30:31.800 And it wouldn't be, you know, a popular thing to try here with, let's say, whoever takes Justin Trudeau's place as leader of the Liberal Party in the next election.

00:30:39.640 If he does indeed step down, as I think we all expect him to, would it be a good idea for opposition parties or maybe just organizers to try to paint that person by using AI especially to poke fun at them?

00:30:55.220 Yeah, I guess this could be a useful tactic.

00:30:58.180 And just talking quickly on whether it should be allowed or not, that is deepfake in general, I mean, it's such a crucial line to walk, you know, because as Noah kind of covered, like any, let's say, deepfake video that was intentionally trying to lie and deceive people or show them something that just simply wasn't true and it wasn't clearly a parody as was this video.

00:31:26.720 So, you know, obviously that's going to be harmful, especially during elections, you know, especially if people come online and maybe they're not so tech savvy, let's say, and they just see a video of a political leader doing something crazy that might have been a deepfake.

00:31:42.280 You know, that's obviously something that needs to be addressed, but when thinking about any regulations or similarly that could come into place surrounding this, you know, you just have to think about how it could be used negatively, obviously, which is to essentially censor freedom of speech.

00:32:00.200 So I really don't know what the answer is.

00:32:30.200 Control and freedom of speech is such a tough line to walk in modern society.

00:32:36.920 Yeah, I think you've sort of hit the nail on the head here.

00:32:39.180 I think things that are obviously parody and are being created to be humorous should be allowed and, you know, potentially even encouraged to bring a lighter side to politics, help people to laugh at some of the darkness that we're seeing.

00:32:50.540 And when things are a deepfake or being created to pass itself off as truth and reality, when it is not, I think those types of things should definitely be discouraged.

00:32:59.820 Fortunately, that's all the time we have today for our Friday fun show.

00:33:04.280 Let us know what you think of this episode in the comments below and give us some suggestions as who you would like to see host the show in weeks to come.

00:33:11.140 As I mentioned, our colleague Andrew will be gone for at least a couple of weeks, if not a couple of months, and we will certainly miss him.

00:33:16.620 But wish him the best of luck.

00:33:17.740 So let us know who you would like to see host off the record in the weeks to come.

00:33:21.240 And don't forget that everything you heard today was off the record.

00:33:32.920 Did it, guys.

00:33:33.800 37 minutes.

00:33:34.680 I think Noah should host next week.

00:33:37.220 You know, it would be funny if, you know, I host and then Andrew comes back and you're like, yeah, you know, Noah, great hosting job.

00:33:45.580 But I got to say that all those insults that you threw my way while you're hosting, all those jabs, it's going to result in the extinguishing of your tenure with the True North, Noah.

00:33:58.980 I think your job is more protected than you think it is, Noah.

00:34:02.940 Oh, yeah, because I'm the DEI hire.

00:34:05.380 Just, you know, go to the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal.

00:34:08.180 You know, just walk down the block and say, hey, these True North fellas, man, they're exactly what you thought they were.

00:34:14.380 Can you imagine a human rights case against us?

00:34:18.340 The public would love it.

00:34:19.560 People would be like, we knew it.

Juno News - August 02, 2024

Guilbeault tries to be hip and cool

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