00:10:02.020And we know that they have stopped certain information from getting out there intentionally.
00:10:08.040The Hunter Biden laptop story, of course, is one that most people like to cite and remember.
00:10:13.120But 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.
00:10:28.060So obviously freedom of speech in that sense is very important, especially when we're talking about election integrity and the like.
00:10:36.220So obviously people are discussing primarily politics on X.
00:10:40.480Yeah, 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.
00:10:52.580I mean, it's a ridiculous defense to hang on to.
00:10:57.000And I also wanted to say that I read True North's article on that story.
00:11:00.580And we obviously we tried to reach out to the gas station who the employee said he didn't know what was going on.
00:11:06.000And 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.
00:11:17.620So I don't know why there's any secrecy remaining around that.
00:11:22.540But yeah, I know. I mean, oh, sorry, you could just go.
00:11:25.420Yeah, it was just absolutely like, again, I think we really saw the people who posted this image initially.
00:11:30.200They came with the receipts and I think it was fairly obvious to everyone that it would have been difficult to Photoshop that given.
00:11:35.700But, you know, just another day, some more drama on X.
00:11:38.120Another kind of funny thing that happened was a video that Stephen Guibault posted, you know, very unpopular environment minister of Canada right now.
00:11:44.680And he's trying to sort of catch on the bandwagon of some trends that we're seeing in the states.
00:11:48.640You know, why don't you take the lead on this one?
00:11:50.280I'm just I'm just too frustrated with it at this point.
00:11:52.800Go ahead and explain what happened here.
00:11:55.580Well, you know, just for some context, in the United States, Joe Biden has dropped out.
00:12:02.100And Kamala Harris is the presumptive nominee for president for the Democratic Party.
00:12:07.420And pretty soon after, Kamala Harris, you know, stepped forward and basically claimed the Democratic nomination.
00:12:15.600This social media trend, I would say it was a little manufactured.
00:12:20.240But the social media trend emerged, basically saying that Kamala is brat.
00:12:25.840Now, it is this like this stupid Gen Z thing.
00:12:29.580I'm part of Gen Z, so it's like, you know, self-generational criticism.
00:12:33.200But, you know, there's this stupid Gen Z thing where, you know, there's this artist, pop artist named Charlie XCX.
00:12:40.020She 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.
00:12:47.700I don't understand it too much because I don't listen to Charlie XCX.
00:12:51.500I'm not on those corners of the Internet.
00:12:53.940But basically, Kamala Harris and her team, they took this Charlie XCX trend and they basically, you know, repurposed it for their own campaign purposes.
00:13:04.180They are trying to say that Kamala Harris is brat.
00:13:08.320You know, it means anything to anyone.
00:13:10.480You know, it means what you wish brat to mean, you know, which in and of itself just makes the whole concept stupid.
00:13:18.280But, you know, they've branded their campaign HQ around it, you know, the sort of online campaign war room.
00:13:24.960And it seems as if this has caught in the attention of Canadian politicians.
00:13:29.440So, 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.
00:13:42.340You repurpose Kamala Harris' branding and say that, you know, this is a brat summer and that affordable housing is brat.
00:13:50.320You know, what is that supposed to mean?
00:13:55.300I advised Stephen Giebeau to delete the post because that's what any, you know, good person.
00:14:01.280Anyone who wanted the best for Stephen Giebeau's life, you know, they would tell him to take that post down.
00:14:06.080You know, I don't know what his communications people, his communications staff was telling him, but, you know, they should be fired immediately.
00:14:14.620It's the worst if I was to, you know, persuade Trump.
00:14:17.100But, 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.
00:15:23.980So apparently the trend of being brat means to be being bold and uncomfortable and it's to be the unexpected.
00:15:31.340And that's why they pick sort of that odd green color that you don't see too much because it was unexpected.
00:15:36.180I think it's funny that essentially Stephen Keebo was saying that affordable housing is unexpected, which it certainly is in Canada.
00:15:43.780We definitely don't expect that anymore.
00:15:46.640What's the average median home price in Ontario is like something around half a million dollars.
00:15:50.980And then the Atlantic also described it and they said that brat is a collection of nightclub bangers celebrating female hedonism.
00:15:59.720So, 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.
00:16:07.040But whatever it is, Stephen Keebo definitely didn't know what it was when he made that post.
00:16:11.880Like they have no idea what they're talking about.
00:16:13.920They're trying to fit into a trend that it obviously, you know, sure, you could repurpose this trend if you wanted to.
00:16:19.140But 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.
00:16:27.120Like he's so clearly taken this trend from the Kamala Harris campaign.
00:16:30.600He isn't even fully aware of what it is.
00:16:32.500They 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.
00:16:37.960And I think this is sort of falling on flat.
00:16:39.260I don't think it's causing any clarification on the policy methods that you're actually trying to get forward.
00:16:43.620Isaac, what's your take on this whole thing?
00:16:45.180Yeah, so obviously I didn't know as much background information about the Gen Z brat thing as you know, and maybe you, Rachel.
00:16:53.160But first thing I did when I saw this video, I thought I knew what a brat was.
00:16:56.600But 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.
00:17:08.200And, you know, I mean, you're the environment minister of Canada.
00:17:12.700Why are you even talking about housing in the first place, especially, especially in light of what just happened in Jasper?
00:17:18.140I really think you'd have bigger concerns on your plate.
00:17:21.920And 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.
00:17:33.240But 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.
00:17:45.060And we'll remember Canada's housing affordability reached an all-time low back in April.
00:17:50.940And 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.
00:18:01.880And as you said, Noah, they have not been going up but down, let alone double for seven years straight.
00:18:07.340At this point, it's more than that because obviously the housing starts have been falling, not rising.
00:18:11.420And 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.
00:18:24.880And 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?
00:18:35.220And 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.
00:18:45.600But anyways, in June 2024, the average house in Canada cost $696,179.
00:18:51.920So 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.
00:19:08.340And for a 30-year mortgage, this would fall to $3,477.
00:19:14.960However, this drop in price would cost Canadians almost $115,000 over the full realization of that mortgage.
00:19:22.180So for a 25-year mortgage on that $696,000 home, Canadians would pay a total of $1,136,853.
00:19:34.400That would be $651,561 in principal cost after removing the down payment, and then $485,292 in interest.
00:19:44.980And a 30-year mortgage would see obviously the same principal, but the interest would rise to $600,274.
00:19:50.380So 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.
00:20:07.140And 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.
00:20:14.240And 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.
00:20:27.080So yeah, I mean, look, all these issues always come down to the same issue of immigration.
00:20:30.800Yeah, 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.
00:20:39.800But 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.
00:20:52.780And 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?
00:20:59.280Like those are shocking numbers. I mean, I'm Canadian born.
00:21:01.400I've definitely considered at times maybe that maybe leaving to live somewhere that's more affordable.
00:21:05.960Have either of you ever, you know, actually had those considerations?
00:21:10.060Well, 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.
00:21:18.540And around those times, I was thinking like, you know, I don't have, you know, I do have, you know, roots in Canada.
00:21:26.400But 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.
00:21:43.480Wouldn't want, you know, that sort of opportunity, you know.
00:21:45.900And 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.
00:21:52.040I 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.
00:21:59.180I 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.
00:22:10.380You 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.
00:22:21.240So you can't really retire until you're 70 or even, you know, older.
00:22:25.120So that's sort of like, you know, the ideal roadmap for a Canadian in Trudeau's Canada.
00:22:30.560And 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.
00:22:43.260And are experiencing significant difficulties in trying to establish their lives.
00:22:49.800So definitely, you know, Steve and Gabo talking about BRAT housing affordability or housing affordability being BRAT.
00:22:59.100I don't think that's really helping a lot with the problems we're facing.
00:23:24.760But 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.
00:23:32.180I know Elon Musk got himself in a little hot water.
00:23:34.200I 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.
00:23:44.760But Isaac, why don't you explain what happened here?
00:23:46.240What did Elon do that got people's panties so wound in a knot?
00:23:50.300Yeah, so Elon Musk shared a parody with real photos and videos of her on the campaign trail.
00:23:57.260And then the 40th governor of California, Gavin Newsom, said that manipulating a voice in a, quote, ad like this one should be illegal.
00:24:06.900Newsom went on to say that he'd be signing a bill in a matter of weeks to make sure it is.
00:24:11.260However, 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.
00:25:02.820I was selected because I am the ultimate diversity hire.
00:25:05.820I'm both a woman and a person of color.
00:25:07.540So if you criticize anything I say, you're both sexist and racist.
00:25:12.160I may not know the first thing about running the country, but remember, that's a good thing if you're a deep state puppet.
00:25:19.260I had four years under the tutelage of the ultimate deep state puppet, a wonderful mentor, Joe Biden.
00:25:25.280Joe taught me rule number one, carefully hide your total incompetence.
00:25:29.400So basically, she's just saying what every sane person in the American public is thinking right now.
00:25:36.860I know Isaac talked a little bit about how the right for parody was protected.
00:25:40.900But, 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.
00:25:49.600Do you think that there's actually going to be a problem?
00:25:51.860Do 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?
00:26:01.660I 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.
00:26:08.480And it's going to have that sort of the Streisand effect.
00:26:12.260If 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.
00:26:24.900And, you know, it has the opposite effect.
00:26:26.500It has the effect of amplifying the thing that they are trying to censor.
00:26:30.000So 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.
00:26:48.720And it really should be because censorship should be viewed with scorn.
00:26:53.120I 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.
00:27:12.040It is a value that should be protected.
00:27:14.820And, you know, parity is part of free speech.
00:27:16.920You 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.
00:27:27.440You 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.
00:27:43.500You know, you should be able to mock someone about that like that.
00:27:45.920Now, 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.
00:28:10.120However, I think this video is clearly a parody video.
00:28:12.840I 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.
00:28:24.380She's not going to refer to Joe Biden as senile, realistically.
00:28:27.500She, she's not going to, you know, be nearly as cynical as that.
00:28:32.620And I think any observer should be able to tell that difference.
00:28:36.840So, you know, I think the outrage, especially the CBC's outrage about this really, you know, has no basis.
00:28:44.860And 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.
00:28:55.300I don't see why that's within the CBC's mandate.
00:28:58.400I mean, CBC shouldn't even be covering American politics.
00:29:01.260That seems pretty straightforward to me.
00:29:02.600Their mandate is the Canadian public broadcaster fine.
00:29:05.460You know, they can cover some Canadian heritage moments or some important news happening here in Canada.
00:29:10.360I don't even agree with their mandate.
00:29:11.480I 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.
00:29:19.520So 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.
00:29:26.140There was a man who was making memes about Hillary Clinton during the election, Douglas Mackey.
00:29:32.960I 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.
00:29:39.620And he was found guilty of a crime for that.
00:29:41.440So 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.
00:29:51.920I mean, that's essentially what we saw with Donald Trump.
00:29:53.620They threw everything they could in the book at him because, you know, they understood his popularity and they understood the threat that he was.
00:30:00.560And so they threw every legal case they could find.
00:30:02.440And obviously most of those have now fallen apart around them.
00:30:05.120And 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.
00:30:12.340But, 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.
00:30:21.640And 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.
00:30:31.800And 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.
00:30:39.640If 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?
00:30:55.220Yeah, I guess this could be a useful tactic.
00:30:58.180And 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.
00:31:26.720So, 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.
00:31:42.280You 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.
00:32:00.200So I really don't know what the answer is.
00:32:30.200Control and freedom of speech is such a tough line to walk in modern society.
00:32:36.920Yeah, I think you've sort of hit the nail on the head here.
00:32:39.180I 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.
00:32:50.540And 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.
00:32:59.820Fortunately, that's all the time we have today for our Friday fun show.
00:33:04.280Let 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.
00:33:11.140As 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.
00:33:37.220You 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.
00:33:45.580But 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.
00:33:58.980I think your job is more protected than you think it is, Noah.