Is This a Smear Job on Poilievre？
Episode Stats
Summary
CSIS alleges that India organized support for Pierre Polyev's 2022 conservative leadership bid. This is election interference, according to Josh. Josh and I have a lot of issues with this news article, so I'm going to walk the audience through this story, and then get Josh to comment and react.
Transcript
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This is the big story. This is the sort of the thing that was all over social media this morning,
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breaking news from the Globe and Mail front page story that CSIS alleges that India organized
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support for Pierre Polyev's 2022 conservative leadership bid. And I have a lot of issues with
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this news article. I have a lot of issues right down to the headline. So I am going to walk the
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audience through this story, and then I'm going to get you to comment and react, Josh. Okay,
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so let's just start off with this headline that CSIS alleges that there was organized support.
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Let me just say, let me just clarify, CSIS does not allege this. The story is based on an unnamed
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official within CSIS that leaked this story to the Globe and Mail. They decided to leak it in
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the middle of an election campaign, right? And they are making this allegation. So this is not
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coming from the head of CSIS. This isn't a press conference or a report that has been put out by
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the government. This is, in my opinion, election interference. They held this story. This is a
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report from 2022. They held it until a campaign, until the election was underway. They want to
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derail the conservatives. They want to derail Pierre Polyev. You make him look illegitimate,
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make him look like somehow there's something nefarious going on with his leadership of the
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party, it is all a deflection away from Mark Carney, away from what just happened, the total
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mess and ridiculousness of the liberal race, where they had 400 members, only 150,000 voted,
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where they disqualified two major candidates because they didn't want Mark Carney to be
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challenged in any meaningful way, right? And so all of that is happening. And then this story drops
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from the Global Mail, shame on the Global Mail for even printing this stuff and being involved in it.