Juno News - January 29, 2025


Jagmeet Singh to PROP UP the Liberals again？!


Episode Stats

Length

1 hour and 7 minutes

Words per Minute

161.70096

Word Count

10,954

Sentence Count

633

Misogynist Sentences

5

Hate Speech Sentences

15


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Hi, and welcome to the Candace Malcolm Show. I'm your host, Candace Malcolm. We have a great show
00:00:11.880 lined up for you today. We're going to talk about the latest in the tariff threats and the tariff
00:00:17.200 war that look like they could be coming as soon as this Saturday. We'll talk about the government's
00:00:21.820 response, which is basically creating a COVID-like schedule to pay Canadians just like they did
00:00:28.800 during CERB. It's unbelievable. NDP leader Jagmeet Singh suggesting that perhaps he will prop up the
00:00:34.340 Liberal government once again after promising us that he won't. We'll get to his latest comments.
00:00:39.000 We'll talk about Mark Carney and the leadership. And later on, we're going to talk about a First
00:00:44.020 Nations documentary that does a major disservice to Canadians in spreading mistruths. We'll try to
00:00:49.480 correct the record on that. I am pleased and delighted today to be joined by Tom Flanagan.
00:00:54.760 Tom Flanagan is Professor Emeritus at the University of Calgary School of Public Policy.
00:00:59.460 He served as a campaign manager on Stephen Harper's Canadian Alliance Leadership Campaign
00:01:03.040 and Harper's Conservative Party Leadership. It's always a pleasure to have Tom on the show. So,
00:01:08.740 Tom, thank you so much for joining us. Hi, Malcolm. It's great. Candace, great to be here.
00:01:13.720 Great. Thanks. So before we get into the rest of the news, I want to talk about a exclusive that True
00:01:18.500 North has published today an exclusive poll that we commissioned that found that nearly half of young
00:01:24.900 Canadian men would take American citizenship from Donald Trump if offered. So the poll was conducted
00:01:32.940 by one persuasion. 45% of young men aged 18 to 34 would take American citizenship and 46% would reject
00:01:43.180 it. So just right about half. Next, we saw that the willingness shortly decreased as men got older.
00:01:51.860 So only 15% of men 55 and older said that they would. Women were generally less interested in taking
00:01:58.460 U.S. citizenship. Only 25% of young women aged 18 to 34 said yes. Dropped to 18 for women 35 to 55 and
00:02:06.820 then only 7% 55 and older. It kind of makes sense. As you get more established, you're less likely to take a
00:02:11.660 risk and move to another country. One thing that I thought was really interesting was that the
00:02:16.040 education level mattered. It was a strong factor influencing whether they would be willing to take
00:02:21.800 this offer. So only 13% of respondents with a high school education or less said that they would take
00:02:27.100 U.S. citizenship, but it rose steadily with education levels. So 19% of community college or trade educated
00:02:33.840 said that they would take the offer. 25% with a bachelor's degree and up to 35% for those with a post
00:02:41.080 graduate degree. So kind of interesting that the more educated that you get, the more likely you
00:02:47.140 would be. I think that makes sense because personally, like I know a lot of people who are doctors or who
00:02:52.300 have post graduate degrees in medicine, and a lot of them go to the U.S. just so that they can make some
00:02:57.740 money, that there's more opportunities down there. Same thing for law, same thing probably for
00:03:02.040 universities. There's so many more universities down there. So if you have a PhD, you might be more likely
00:03:06.580 to be able to get a job down there. Tom, I want to get your thoughts on this. You worked in the
00:03:10.920 university. What do you think about the fact that the more education you have, the more likely you
00:03:15.500 would be to want to join and become an American? Well, I think it makes sense. You know, it's a
00:03:21.380 country is nine times as big, at least in the United States, and there are more opportunities down
00:03:26.560 there. And the many of these jobs are more, more highly paid in the United States. And high income
00:03:37.240 people are more highly taxed in Canada. So there are a lot of economic reasons why somebody might
00:03:43.740 consider, I would just add one footnote as somebody who actually has American citizenship, because I was
00:03:49.760 born and grew up there. If these people realized that if they obtained American citizenship, or even
00:03:57.900 if they went to the United States and, and worked there on a green card, they would have to file with
00:04:03.540 the Internal Revenue Service for the rest of their life, even if they came back to Canada later. So
00:04:08.920 there are some downsides that perhaps not everybody realizes. Yeah, that's right.
00:04:15.960 See why it looks attractive. Yeah, my stepmother, who's lived in Canada for 40 years, but she grew
00:04:22.200 up in Boston, she's American. It drives her crazy having to file her taxes every year to the point
00:04:27.240 where she's even considered renouncing, but then that's so much paperwork and money that she said,
00:04:32.320 forget it. I was talking to a journalist friend, because one of the things that was interesting was
00:04:36.560 that the number on the prairies isn't very high. According to this study, it was 18% of people on the
00:04:42.980 prairies that said they would take American citizenship, whereas I think BC was the highest
00:04:46.300 with 25%. I was talking to a journalist friend from Ontario, and he was really surprised by that. He
00:04:50.940 was like, you know, I would have imagined that Albertans would be the number one and not British
00:04:54.300 Columbians. But it makes sense to me. I've been talking to a lot of Albertans who, you know, they
00:04:58.440 mistrust Ottawa and the federal government in Canada, but they would mistrust a bigger government
00:05:04.400 in Washington, DC with a lot more power, even more. What's your take on that?
00:05:09.740 Well, I think, again, I think it's mainly economic that Alberta at the present time has more
00:05:15.380 opportunities than any other province, and that's demonstrated by the number of people
00:05:21.460 who are moving here right now. So I think young men are probably less dissatisfied with their
00:05:28.860 situation than they might be in some other provinces. So I can understand that. Now, that could
00:05:35.040 change with the change in the international oil market. And, you know, a lot of things could
00:05:40.500 happen to take away Alberta's prosperity. But right now, it's pretty good. And people are moving in
00:05:45.880 rather than trying to leave.
00:05:48.420 Well, yeah, that's great. I mean, I grew up in British Columbia in the 90s and the 2000s. And
00:05:53.380 I would say that like a large proportion of my graduating class in high school moved to Alberta
00:05:58.240 for the opportunities that the oil field had in the kind of early 2000s. A lot of them moved up to
00:06:03.180 Fort McMurray or Edmonton just to have jobs that didn't exist in British Columbia anymore. I want
00:06:10.680 to step back a little, Tom, and ask you about your broader thoughts. I mean, you've probably been
00:06:15.560 watching Donald Trump, as we all have, and his sort of, I think he's musing in his jokes about
00:06:21.780 Canada becoming the 51st state, sort of mocking Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, calling him Governor
00:06:26.180 Trudeau. I think that that is really Trump has a knack for making jokes in a way that really hits
00:06:32.020 someone where it hurts. I think that's humiliating to Justin Trudeau to be called the governor. And
00:06:36.020 Trump knows that. What do you make of Trump's actions, his words, the whole 51st state joke,
00:06:42.940 and the tariffs that may be coming as soon as this weekend?
00:06:48.280 Well, on the jokes, the 51st state, I think these are part of Trump's negotiating style
00:06:54.740 and the way he deals with rivals. And we've seen many examples of this. And then he often reconciles
00:07:02.940 with these people afterwards. So I don't think joining the United States is a serious idea for
00:07:09.700 anybody really. And so I'm not spending any time thinking about that. The tariffs, on the other
00:07:16.640 hand, are a very serious issue. And here the problem is to, for us to understand what Trump's
00:07:25.200 motive is. Because he's, as he often does, he has said different things at different times.
00:07:34.540 So at times he's made it sound as if the tariffs, excuse me, are a negotiating tactic to get
00:07:41.760 Canada to change certain policies like border control or contributing to NATO and
00:07:48.680 building up armed forces and so forth. So some Canadians have said, well, that's the response
00:07:56.360 we need to make is to satisfy Trump on these issues, which really aren't so terribly burdensome
00:08:03.440 for Canada anyway. On the other hand, there's a lot of evidence that Trump wants to
00:08:11.700 levy tariffs for revenue. He has economic advisors who have apparently convinced him that you can
00:08:19.980 get rid of the federal income tax and replace that revenue with tariff revenue. Now, you know,
00:08:29.420 personally, I doubt that that's true. But excuse me, my voice is not what it used to be.
00:08:35.140 Oh, if that's what's really in his mind, then the tariffs will come no matter what Canada does,
00:08:48.420 because the point is to raise revenue in the United States. I don't know what's in his mind.
00:08:55.340 I guess we just have to wait and see. But it's important to find out because our responses would
00:09:02.620 be quite different depending on what the what the real motivation is. And then there's this issue
00:09:09.560 of the unfavorable balance of trade. And that, I think, is based on a misunderstanding on Trump's part.
00:09:17.060 But again, if that's what's in his mind, he might be levying tariffs for that reason, too.
00:09:29.060 And there's not a whole lot that Canada could do about that. Ross McKittrick has explained to the
00:09:35.300 public in some columns why there's this unfavorable balance of trade and how it's related to the United
00:09:42.980 States need to borrow. So these international accounts balance in the end, but whether it's
00:09:51.260 in financial transfers or transfers of goods, it can change a whole lot. So anyway, I'm not sure what
00:09:57.900 the right response is. I think we have to wait and see what Trump's real motivation is. And maybe that
00:10:05.120 will become clear or not. I don't know. Yeah, well, Danielle Smith made a similar point. She basically
00:10:10.900 said if you take out our oil, which we sell at a discount to the United States anyway, in part
00:10:14.780 because we don't have another customer, that it's actually Canada that has a trade deficit.
00:10:21.200 And that might be based on misunderstanding. You said that you don't think that Trump's offer is
00:10:28.400 serious and that you shouldn't spend a lot of time thinking about it. I think that's right. But
00:10:32.780 I think it's a good time to have this sort of thought experiment. And I saw Jordan Peterson had a
00:10:38.060 piece on the cover of the National Post this morning. The cover says, what a poor friend we've
00:10:43.280 been. And the online version says, Canada must offer more than Trump could. Now, this article is
00:10:51.800 getting a lot of traction online. A lot of people on the political left are very upset that Peterson
00:10:57.200 would write this and that the National Post would publish this. It's a long piece. It's an essay,
00:11:01.920 but I encourage listeners to go check it out because it's really interesting. Peterson basically
00:11:07.080 says that there's this prominent anti-Americanism that's prevalent, particularly in Central Canada.
00:11:15.260 He gives an anecdote of when he worked at Harvard and then he moved to teach in Canada at the
00:11:21.320 University of Toronto. He brought with him some of the brightest sort of graduate students that he had,
00:11:26.400 brought them to Canada. And he was constantly embarrassed by the anti-Americanism that they would
00:11:31.920 encounter at the university and how prevalent it is. And there's this sort of pernicious attitude.
00:11:38.260 I don't think that that attitude exists in the same way in Western Canada. I haven't seen it as
00:11:42.840 much. Part of the reason I loved being in Alberta is that the knee-jerk anti-Americanism wasn't there.
00:11:47.240 It certainly is there in Toronto. So Peterson describes that. And he basically runs through the
00:11:52.420 case as to how Alberta has been severely mistreated by Canada over basically since Pierre Trudeau was
00:11:59.240 prime minister. I don't think that you'd get a lot of arguments from people in Alberta about that,
00:12:04.400 about just how unfair the federation has been to Alberta in many ways. He concludes by basically just
00:12:10.920 saying that Trump could offer Alberta a better deal, but we don't want that. Instead, it should be on,
00:12:17.640 the only should be on Canada to say, look, we need to, we need to start treating Alberta as a fair
00:12:24.440 partner in confederation. And we need to take ourselves more seriously. I'll read just the
00:12:29.100 last paragraph here because I think it's quite powerful. Peterson says, Trump is threatening the
00:12:35.720 integrity of Canada and very effectively. The fact of that threat and its effectiveness might make us
00:12:41.280 think twice. In such thinking, there could be an opportunity to shed the idiocy that is making us poor,
00:12:47.220 weak, and irrelevant on the national stage and contemptible to our neighbours. We could make this
00:12:52.560 saber-rattling into an opportunity, increase our cross-border trade, get out of our own way on
00:12:57.940 energy, on the energy front, rekindle national pride, at least to the point where we regard our
00:13:02.420 country as both viable and valuable, seek the international markets that would make us truly
00:13:07.520 independent, strengthen our commitment to the military, that would make us increasingly and truly
00:13:12.680 necessary in, if such independence were pursued, and make us, and make of the next hundred years,
00:13:19.820 Canada's triumph instead of the story of contemptible, self-aggrandizing, moralistic, falsely
00:13:26.260 green, and socialist demise. Now, that's quite harsh, well-written, but quite harsh. I actually
00:13:33.640 think Jordan Peterson is right on the money here. I think we should take this as an opportunity to
00:13:37.660 reflect, look at our country, which is failing because of the socialistic policies, the woke socialism
00:13:43.340 brought on by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and take this as an opportunity to really turn our
00:13:48.300 country around. I mean, we may not even have the choice. We have to do that from an economic
00:13:52.820 perspective, probably from a military perspective, if Canada wants to truly survive as a nation.
00:13:58.320 What do you make of all this, Tom?
00:13:59.780 Well, yeah, I mean, I would agree in broad outline with what he's saying.
00:14:03.020 As far as the anti-Americanism goes, yeah, it's not a big deal in Alberta. I have experienced
00:14:13.580 it a couple of times in my own life, but, you know, these were just twits that I didn't take
00:14:20.180 too seriously. It is more common in the East. People aren't even really aware of it in Ontario.
00:14:27.560 It's just, I think in Eastern Canada, it's very deeply rooted, probably goes back to the American
00:14:34.740 Revolution and foundation of Canada by the loyalists who were exiles from the United States.
00:14:41.380 Well, they're not fully responsible for the foundation of Canada, but a very large element
00:14:46.420 in it. So it's a long tradition there. Yeah, it comes with the territory, so to speak.
00:14:53.120 Most Americans are not aware of it, though. You don't become aware of it unless you spend
00:15:02.080 some time in Ontario. I mean, if you're just a tourist and you go to Toronto and you say,
00:15:08.760 hey, nice, or at least you used to say, nice, clean city and so on. Now, on the treatment of
00:15:15.340 Alberta, yes, I think that, you know, that's true. Of course, I did a whole book about it
00:15:20.900 recently together with Jack Mintz and Ted Morton. Our major industries have been treated very badly
00:15:27.860 by Canada. But it's, you have to distinguish on this kind of issue, both with Alberta and with
00:15:38.860 attitudes towards the United States. It's quite different under a liberal government and a
00:15:45.400 conservative government. Under Mulroney and under Harper, United States, Canada acted in a very
00:15:51.880 friendly way towards the United States, cultivated good personal relations with presidents, supported
00:15:58.680 American policies, at least talked about a greater military contribution. Not sure it was real, but
00:16:06.820 they talked about it. So it's the liberals going back to Pierre Trudeau. He was the first one to
00:16:15.780 sort of openly talk about distancing Canada from the United States. It actually didn't amount to
00:16:25.980 anything. He wasn't able to do it, but he talked about it. It probably created some antagonism there.
00:16:31.080 And with Chrétien and now with Trudeau Jr., there's been a pattern of not supporting the U.S. at key
00:16:40.300 times or making slighting comments, which you did not see under conservative governments.
00:16:49.640 Now, just a historical footnote here. This is ancient history, maybe, for many of our watchers. But
00:16:55.460 this reverses an older historical pattern. Up until Trudeau, it was conservatives who were
00:17:08.680 perhaps more negative about the United States and liberals who historically were more favorable. I mean,
00:17:17.060 a good example would be Diefenbaker refusing to take the nuclear missiles and Pearson doing
00:17:25.440 it. So Trudeau flipped the script. And since then, it's been the liberals who've been more
00:17:32.720 antagonistic towards the United States. If we get a conservative government, that pattern will change,
00:17:39.700 I think. Well, I hope so. Because, I mean, not that I agree with everything Trump says, but I think he
00:17:46.140 raises some good points when it comes to Canada's lack of commitment to securing our border, the issue
00:17:51.000 with fentanyl, the issue with people on terrorist watch lists, known terrorists sneaking into the
00:17:55.460 United States from Canada. Why were they lending into Canada in the first place? I think that the
00:17:59.320 focus needs to be, Tom, on fixing these problems and pulling our own weight militarily, rather than
00:18:05.460 the approach that the Trudeau government is taking. So we'll talk about this now. First of all,
00:18:12.640 we have Trump's new press secretary, Caroline Levitt, confirming that the U.S. does still plan
00:18:18.440 to implement tariffs on Canada on February 1st. Here she was yesterday, making it crystal clear.
00:18:25.220 Can you give us an update on the president's plan for his tariff agenda? He spoke a lot about this
00:18:29.740 yesterday, and there's a couple of dates coming up that he's spoken to. Number one, February 1st,
00:18:34.280 he's alluded to both the potential for Canada and Mexico, but also China to take effect on those days.
00:18:39.300 Whereas, what's he thinking about that? Should those countries expect that?
00:18:43.560 Again, he was asked to answer this question this past weekend when he took a lot of questions from
00:18:48.160 the press, and he said that the February 1st date for Canada and Mexico still holds.
00:18:53.540 So February 1st still holds. And in response, we saw this story on Tuesday in the Globe and Mail. We
00:18:58.540 covered this a little bit on our podcast yesterday, but we'll talk about it again. According to the
00:19:02.640 Globe and Mail, Ottawa is planning pandemic-level relief for workers and businesses if Trump
00:19:08.740 imposes his tariffs, sources say. So the federal government is planning a multi-billion dollar
00:19:13.680 pandemic-style bailout for workers and businesses if U.S. President Donald Trump follows through on
00:19:19.300 this threat to impose a 25% tariff on Canada as early as this weekend. This is shocking to me,
00:19:27.000 Tom, because it's like these liberals don't learn anything, right? Rather than taking a look at the
00:19:32.500 issues that Trump is highlighting very clearly, they go right to this knee-jerk reaction like,
00:19:36.880 we'll have a national program, we'll just print more money, borrow more money, exactly what they
00:19:40.600 did during the pandemic. They even had the Globe and Mail use that pandemic-level relief. Like,
00:19:46.440 that's not just a conservative talking point. That's what they're saying, that they want to
00:19:49.980 bring back CERB. They wanted to start paying people to stay at home if they're economically
00:19:55.520 impacted. Canada's broke. We don't have the money. I mean, we'll show this graph for eight years.
00:20:00.540 Every Canadian now owes $29,253. This is a post from Pierre Polyev. Just look at the debt. Look
00:20:08.700 at our national debt. Look at how it's gone up since Justin Trudeau was elected. It basically
00:20:13.040 doubled during COVID and continues to flail out of control, spiraling. And because of it,
00:20:20.840 we have an absolute crisis of inflation, cost of living, because the government has borrowed so much,
00:20:26.740 printed so much money and flooded the money supply. So it's baffling to me that they would go with this
00:20:32.840 approach. Not surprising. I think that, you know, rather than try to fix our national security or
00:20:37.680 immigration and make a deal with Trump, Trudeau will always go back to some grandos government
00:20:45.800 plan. What did you make of this report? And what do you think about this reaction here?
00:20:51.560 Well, a few points. Number one, these clowns don't need much incentive to spend a lot of money.
00:20:58.300 It's kind of a natural response for them. Secondly, it could only be a short-term response.
00:21:08.380 Canada, we can't possibly afford to do this for years. Yes, if you were trying to get over a
00:21:14.620 difficult period of a few months, maybe you could consider something like that. But
00:21:19.360 it can't possibly work in the long run. And third,
00:21:24.600 it may well just be an election thing. The liberals, like at the moment, they have nothing to run on.
00:21:37.120 You know, they're defending a record, which is a record of failure to a large degree.
00:21:42.360 They're trying to repudiate parts of it, like the capital gains tax and the increase in the capital gains tax and
00:21:51.160 the carbon tax. But this would give them something positive to run on. You know, we're defending Canada.
00:21:58.080 We're going to help you. So it appeals to some of the baser instincts of the electorate.
00:22:10.980 You know, it's almost jingoistic. This is the way we defend Canada.
00:22:16.060 Canada. And, you know, and it appeals to the widespread desire to get something for nothing.
00:22:21.380 Government handing out money. You know, isn't that great? I got a check from the government the
00:22:25.960 other day. I'm not quite sure why. I think maybe it was a carbon tax rebate. But I said,
00:22:31.500 what a great guy, Justin Trudeau. He's always sending me money. So I actually, maybe I'm cynical
00:22:38.000 as a political scientist, ex-campaign manager, but I would see this as primarily an election ploy.
00:22:45.340 It gives me something positive to run on.
00:22:49.080 Yeah, perhaps. You're right. What a sad state of affairs, though, that Canadians,
00:22:53.140 the Liberals think that of Canadians and that there's Canadians out there who would, you know,
00:22:58.120 happily just be locked down again, essentially, and take money from the government knowing what
00:23:02.860 it did to our economy in the wake of COVID. This is probably the most worrying element of it all.
00:23:08.620 We had NDP leader Jagmeet Singh, just an absolute disgrace here. But he
00:23:14.780 basically indicated that he might be willing to continue to prop up the Liberal government
00:23:19.800 to pass this government work relief program. It's just unbelievable that this person holds
00:23:26.280 a balance of power in Canada. Let's play this clip.
00:23:29.840 If Trump follows through on his plan with tariffs, would you keep the Liberals in power
00:23:33.820 and allow for the passage of a work relief program before supporting a non-confidence motion?
00:23:40.040 I'll just start off by the fact that I've spoken with a lot of workers who are deeply worried
00:23:45.220 about what the Trump tariffs might mean. They say, you know, I will sometimes I lay awake
00:23:50.940 at night saying, if that tariff goes through, do I lose my job? And what's going to happen
00:23:54.280 to my kids? What's going to happen to my family?
00:23:56.140 When we think about the analysis that's out there, if those Trump tariffs come in place,
00:24:01.320 there are hundreds and thousands of Canadian jobs at risk. Think about what that means for those
00:24:06.900 workers, hundreds of thousands of workers, for their families, for those communities. This could
00:24:11.880 be devastating for our country. So we do need to have a plan in place to support those that are
00:24:18.260 impacted, those businesses, those workers, most importantly. I have not had any conversations
00:24:22.980 with other opposition leaders. I think we need to come together to have a discussion about what is
00:24:27.040 the best way forward. I've not had any discussions with the government related to this. If there is
00:24:32.620 any desire to move forward, the government should call us together, like we did during COVID, and
00:24:37.660 discuss a plan that supports workers.
00:24:39.360 So he's willing to discuss a plan. He leaves the door wide open there for the idea of further
00:24:45.620 propping up Justin Trudeau and his failed Liberal government. Thomas is so infuriating because we
00:24:50.360 finally heard from him in late December saying, enough is enough. We will pull the plug on this
00:24:55.420 government. It doesn't matter. We're done. And then here you have Jagmeet Singh just a month later out
00:25:00.140 there saying, well, we have to have a meeting. We have to talk. I got an email from a Conservative Party
00:25:04.580 operative that pointed out to me that Jagmeet Singh and the NDP voted in confidence for the
00:25:11.460 Liberals eight times since he supposedly ripped up his Supply and Confidence Agreement in September.
00:25:17.000 He had propped them up 11 times prior to the Supply and Confidence Agreement. So a total of
00:25:21.760 286 times since the 21 election that Jagmeet Singh has propped up the Liberals. The idea that the
00:25:32.640 Liberals have prorogued Parliament as well, like, you should vote on something like this,
00:25:37.020 but we can't vote on it because they prorogued Parliament for seven weeks. So even in the Global
00:25:42.180 Mail story itself, it said that this would require legislative approval and the legislature won't
00:25:49.440 resume until March 24th. So it's supposedly an emergency, yet at the same time, they have to
00:25:55.320 prorogue the Parliament to have a leadership race. So we can't vote on this. Like, which one is it,
00:25:59.640 right? And then you have NDP leader there, just continuing to prop up this shambles,
00:26:05.960 this government in shambles. What do you make of all this?
00:26:08.920 Yeah, you know, there's one other point I should have made. We actually have a short-term emergency
00:26:15.500 program in place. It's called employment insurance. All these workers that Mr. Singh is talking about,
00:26:23.360 they're all covered by employment insurance. We have a very generous program.
00:26:27.640 This will, it won't go on for years, but it will cover them, it will give them relief for
00:26:34.020 months, several months, close to a year, depending on how long they've been working.
00:26:39.660 So there's no need to panic over the condition of workers. I mean, nobody, nobody wants to see
00:26:47.140 layoffs. I certainly don't. And it would be sad for those who are laid off. But it's not like
00:26:53.160 they're thrown into a bread line immediately. We have this program in place. So employment
00:26:58.940 insurance, excuse me, gives us time to consider what the actual long-term response should be.
00:27:06.680 So they're creating a, you know, a false emergency as an excuse to shovel out a lot of money
00:27:13.460 as an election tactic. And Jagmeet wants to get on the bandwagon here. You know, that's what the NDP
00:27:20.900 does is give away money and wrap up nationalist concerns about the United States. So it's a perfect
00:27:27.940 thing to, I mean, it's, it's really quite clever when I think about it, to get the NDP back on side
00:27:34.140 and, uh, to run a campaign and I promise to give away a lot of money and, uh, and stop the big,
00:27:42.520 bad Americans. So, uh, as a, as a piece of electioneering, it might have legs, you know,
00:27:49.520 we're going to have to see. I just, I can't, I can't understand what's motivating Jagmeet Singh
00:27:54.360 after all of this. I mean, I, I, we had, uh, NDP operative come on the show, uh, earlier this week
00:28:00.020 to talk about the movement to get rid of Jagmeet Singh, or at least to make him force an election,
00:28:04.920 uh, because people in the party are so dissatisfied with this continuing propping up of a failed
00:28:09.820 liberal government, you know, that, that, that, the, the electioneering element would show, uh,
00:28:15.000 something that would benefit the liberals in an election, not the NDP. I still don't understand
00:28:19.700 what's motivating him to continue to prop this up other than perhaps he thinks that he's going to
00:28:23.980 lose his job after the election. What do you think? Well, I mean, the cynical thing is he wants to,
00:28:29.440 stay in parliament long enough to get the pension. Um, I, I doubt that's true, but anyway,
00:28:35.780 the cynics say that, but, um, yeah, you're right. Historically, the NDP does better, uh,
00:28:43.620 at elections when the liberals do worse and the conservatives do better. The NDP also usually
00:28:49.340 goes up under that set of circumstances. So if he props up the liberals, he may well be
00:28:55.340 undercutting himself, but, but he's, he's done so many incomprehensible things to me over the years.
00:29:02.560 I just, I just don't know how shrewd a tactician he is, whether he really, uh, really understands
00:29:09.460 the dynamics here. I just don't think he represents the people in this party anymore. Uh, it seems
00:29:15.600 pretty clear to me. I'm surprised that they haven't axed him or found a way to have a leadership review
00:29:19.440 because I've heard from a lot of dissatisfied NDP voters. Uh, interestingly, we had block
00:29:24.140 Quebecois leader Yves-France Blanchette, uh, come out with the right decision here with the right,
00:29:29.140 uh, the right line. He says that he would absolutely reject, uh, government relief program,
00:29:33.500 um, and that he would not support, um, this if there were a vote. So let's play that clip.
00:29:38.560 There's talk today of the government presenting a bailout package for people affected by tariffs,
00:29:46.260 by American tariffs. Would you support the government in the house of commons if they
00:29:49.980 were to present such thing? I see no way I would support any astuce of the government. I suggest,
00:29:56.280 uh, I believe that the intention would be to create a context in which the government would
00:30:01.700 get one week, oh, two weeks, oh, three weeks, and then they remain there longer than supposed.
00:30:10.440 True hell in terms of parliamentary work. If the liberals want things to become clear and want to
00:30:19.400 help people, they should simply start the election sooner. Nothing prevents Mr. Carney or Mrs. Freeland
00:30:28.720 one. This person is selected as the leader of the liberals to say on March 10th that we are going
00:30:36.460 into election. We have improved the situation by two weeks, but I'm not getting into any tricks.
00:30:46.720 So, you know, he, he, he almost said similar to what you said that they're, they're kind of
00:30:51.340 manufacturing an emergency here to just prolong their ability to stay in office. Uh, it looks like
00:30:57.060 according to recent polling, Tom, um, abacus had, uh, Mark Carney is basically going to run away with
00:31:03.080 this thing, um, that liberal voters, um, see him much more favorably. He's, he's very high in the
00:31:10.120 polls, um, viewing, uh, liberal supporters view him 64% favorability. Uh, so it looks like he will be
00:31:18.160 the shoe. And I don't know, I've been hearing a lot of sort of conspiratorial thinking, um, about how
00:31:23.800 they could cynically push back the election even further. And I would say conspiratorially, except
00:31:28.220 for very credible mainstream voices have also been saying it. Like Sean Spear had a piece in the hub
00:31:33.320 outlining us. Hamish Marshall was on my podcast last week, and he outlined this idea that we think
00:31:39.380 that we should have an election in March or April or May, because that's what Jagmeet Singh said.
00:31:44.260 The election deadline isn't until October. So you think October could be the latest. Uh, but that's not
00:31:51.080 actually the case because when you look at the constitution act, um, it basically just says
00:31:56.920 that there's no maximum duration of legislative bodies and that the constitution lays out that
00:32:03.420 the legislature, um, that the election should have happened every five years. Uh, so I, I've been
00:32:09.240 getting, uh, a chain letter, uh, forwarded to me a couple of times, uh, with somebody really
00:32:15.240 just laying this all out, um, saying that, um, that there could be an emergency, uh, using emergency
00:32:22.260 powers, the government could, um, defer the next election until October, 2026, because under, uh,
00:32:28.660 both section 50 of the constitution act of 19 of 1867 and section four of the Canadian chart of
00:32:33.520 rights and freedoms, uh, say that we could, uh, so, you know, you're a political scientist, uh, Tom,
00:32:39.900 um, can you help us make sense of this? Is it possible? Do you, do you see a scenario where
00:32:44.380 the liberals could do this? And is it legal if they were to try something like this?
00:32:48.020 Uh, well, certainly legal. Yeah. No question that it's legal. Um, there would be presumably
00:32:55.240 some political cost to, uh, going back on your word. Um, so they would be, excuse me, trying
00:33:03.580 to take a balance there of, of plus a negative, um, Carney. Yes. He's going to win the liberal
00:33:11.780 leadership race. Uh, you know, this guy, he looks right out of central casting, as they
00:33:18.600 say, when I see a picture of Carney on the front page, I almost want to vote for it until
00:33:26.120 I think about what he represents. Uh, he just looks so much like a prime minister. Um, and
00:33:32.520 that's a, and that's a huge advantage. I mean, look at, look at what Justin Trudeau was able
00:33:36.960 to do with the combination of, uh, good looks and a sort of pleasing personality. Um, so I,
00:33:45.020 you know, I take Carney pretty seriously as an opponent and, uh, if that would, his strength
00:33:51.040 would probably increase if he could get more time. So I can certainly see why, uh, liberal
00:33:58.200 strategists might be thinking about that. And, uh, if that's the case, you could interpret this
00:34:04.420 bailout policy or the COVID pandemic type of bailout as the first step in, uh, uh, in that kind of
00:34:16.260 tactic that, you know, they could say, okay, now we're helping Canadians. We have to stay in power to
00:34:21.600 make sure that this help is delivered. Um, we're going to go back on the idea of the quick election
00:34:28.780 because conditions have changed so much. Uh, it's an emergency situation. You know, it's the lines
00:34:35.020 almost right themselves actually. So, uh, you know, I, I can see it. I, I don't, I don't say it'll
00:34:41.120 happen. I'm sort of out of touch with politicians. I spent years hanging out with politicians, so I sort
00:34:47.980 of know how they think, but I'm, I'm out of touch now. So I, I don't know whether this will happen,
00:34:54.220 but I, it's, it strikes me as, um, a plausible tactic that the liberal deep thinkers might be
00:35:01.640 contemplating. Incredibly cynical, bad for the country. Uh, but you're right. Uh, that's just
00:35:06.860 the kind of thinking that fuels the liberal party. Uh, it's interesting because Mark Carney is not a
00:35:11.260 member of parliament. He has never been elected. Um, he will be selected by the liberals in the process
00:35:16.160 that has been described as incredibly insecure. I mean, anyone can join the liberal party. Uh,
00:35:21.440 I don't think you even have to be a citizen, uh, citizen or a resident of Canada to join. Um,
00:35:26.940 and you don't have to pay anything. So there's no barrier. Uh, we've covered this on the show before
00:35:30.920 the tremendous, uh, instability that that will come. Interestingly, Tom, yesterday, uh, the government
00:35:36.720 released its foreign interference inquiry. Um, the report finding basically found that nobody acted
00:35:43.560 in bad faith and concluded, um, that rather than, uh, you know, focusing in on the potential,
00:35:52.400 uh, adversarial states that are funding senators and MPs, right? The interim report warned of MPs
00:35:58.760 and senators who had wittingly collaborated with foreign government. Uh, now, uh, basically the
00:36:04.520 report's coming out saying nothing to see here. Uh, the only thing that the commissioner Hoag found,
00:36:08.700 uh, was calling for, and this is, it shouldn't be surprising at all, a government agency to monitor
00:36:14.460 and regulate online misinformation and disinformation. It's like, you know, that's
00:36:20.720 the solution for everything for these people. Like let's censor the online discussion even more
00:36:25.280 throwing, uh, these accusations of misinformation and disinformation words that don't really mean
00:36:29.900 anything anymore. Uh, I've lost complete faith, Tom, in these central institutions, in the elites that
00:36:36.380 are running our institutions because even alleged outsider, like this commissioner Hoag comes to the
00:36:40.860 same conclusion that Justin Trudeau would have come to, which is just, it's all these like shadowy
00:36:45.740 right-wing forces online. And we just need to censor and regulate even more. Uh, this is a serious
00:36:51.340 issue that we have potential, uh, people collaborating with our enemies in our parliament being funded by
00:36:57.420 foreign adversaries representing us. I don't understand why they wouldn't name those individuals,
00:37:01.660 Tom. And I don't understand how you could come to this conclusion by just saying nothing to see here.
00:37:06.140 Uh, well, again, this, this is a, an area where I don't have any firsthand knowledge. Um,
00:37:17.020 for what it's worth, I think that, uh, foreign governments, particularly China, uh, have made an
00:37:23.580 effort to influence nomination contests. That's easy to do where your rules are lax as the liberals rules
00:37:30.620 were. Um, they've tightened it up a bit. I think now you have to be a resident of Canada to join the
00:37:37.340 party. Uh, but you know, what does that mean? And how is that checked within, uh, a few weeks? In this
00:37:46.380 case, it's such a quick election, uh, selection process, no practical way to check it. Um,
00:37:55.020 do we have a Manchurian candidate? I don't think so. Uh, I mean, I agree with the commissioner that so
00:38:00.940 far, at least this, this hasn't reached a level where, um, it has produced a serious result
00:38:09.740 for the overall conduct of Canadian politics. I think the Chinese clearly have tampered, uh,
00:38:16.140 in a few, uh, nomination races. Um,
00:38:19.820 um, it's something that could be, you know, could grow and should be, should be monitored and, and
00:38:27.420 rules should be tightened up so that it, so that it can't grow. Um, I think the prime minister came
00:38:35.740 in with a rather benevolent attitude towards China, something he inherited from his father,
00:38:41.900 that, uh, benevolent attitudes towards dictatorships, particularly China and Cuba.
00:38:46.940 And I think that's much more important than, uh, Chinese efforts to, uh, put their thumb on the
00:38:55.260 scales in choosing a few backbenchers because, you know, backbenchers actually aren't that important
00:39:02.380 in, in the overall scheme of things. So, uh, it's, it's not an issue that had me losing sleep. I mean,
00:39:12.060 it's something that should be dealt with, but I, I, I don't see it as extremely important in the
00:39:18.300 overall scheme of things. Um, setting up a new agency. Well, I don't see the point of that. The,
00:39:27.180 the main thing that the Chinese would do would be to, uh, influence nomination races by mobilizing
00:39:35.100 people. And you're not going to control that with, uh, a new agency to monitor the internet.
00:39:43.180 Um, so the response doesn't seem to be that part of the response anyway, doesn't seem to me to be
00:39:51.180 called for just as more government jobs. Um, so it's a mixed bag, but it, again, I say it's not
00:39:58.300 something that has had me particularly concerned. I think the opposition played it up as part of their
00:40:05.420 job to try and embarrass the government and the opposition played it up. Uh, but I, I, I not overly
00:40:13.660 concerned about it, uh, much more concerned about a lot of other things, put it that way. Fair enough.
00:40:20.140 I do think that there's a level of irony that the people who are complaining loudest about, uh, Donald
00:40:26.540 Trump and the 51st state comments and calling people like Danielle Smith or Jordan Peterson
00:40:31.820 or Kevin O'Leary calling them traitors, um, for, for trying to have a relationship with our closest
00:40:36.860 friend and ally, uh, are the same kind of people who, uh, you know, bury their head in the sand when it
00:40:41.580 comes to China and Iran, um, and other adversarial states act, uh, actively mobilizing, um, in Canada.
00:40:49.100 I'll leave it at that. One more story. I want to talk to you, political story, and then we can
00:40:51.980 move on to the documentary, Tom. Uh, this is with Justin Trudeau. So there's a story,
00:40:56.060 uh, coming out saying that Justin Trudeau is going to fill the remaining Senate, uh, vacancies before
00:41:01.260 he steps down. So he said he's resigning, um, except for he's not actually resigning and he's
00:41:04.860 going to continue to even do the political stuff. So there are 10 vacancies in the Senate. And
00:41:10.380 Justin Trudeau says that he will fill those, um, basically allowing someone to have, um, an unelected
00:41:19.260 job as a legislature until the age of 75. So quite, quite a good gig here. Uh, True North is reporting
00:41:25.340 that the conservative party of Canada is calling on liberal leadership candidates to oppose Justin
00:41:30.700 Trudeau's alleged plan to sack the set stack the Senate with liberal partisans shortly before
00:41:37.900 his resignation. Well, we decided to have some fun with that here at the Candace Malcolm show.
00:41:42.860 Uh, we've put together a new petition that viewers can, uh, head on over to my website,
00:41:47.660 Candace Malcolm.com and they can help, uh, guess or predict who they think Trudeau's Senate
00:41:53.820 appointments will be. So head on over to Candace Malcolm.com for this, uh, 10 influential, highly
00:42:00.540 paid, uh, senators, uh, two friends of Justin Trudeau. So we came up with a list of some of the
00:42:05.820 people that we might think, uh, you know, it could be Jagmeet Singh could be Rosemary Barton of the CBC,
00:42:10.860 maybe Gerald Butts, uh, or any number of other journalists and insiders. Um, so head on over,
00:42:18.060 let us know who you think he will select. You can also add your own because we don't, uh, we,
00:42:22.860 we didn't include everyone. We just included the sort of, uh, usual suspects that, uh, we, we think
00:42:27.900 he might pick. Uh, so head on over to Candace Malcolm.com and have some fun with that. Uh, Tom,
00:42:32.540 what do you think about this decision to, uh, stack the Senate on his way out?
00:42:35.980 Uh, well, yeah, it's naked, uh, partisan policy. He may not appoint partisan liberals. I mean,
00:42:43.980 he hasn't up to this point. He has appointed people whose thinking is in line with liberal
00:42:50.140 policy, but they don't have a history. Most of them as, uh, active partisan liberals. So I don't
00:42:56.060 know. Anyway, I, I would say if I can contribute to the list, I would put, uh, Jerry Butts and Katie
00:43:01.580 Telford at the top, they've been loyal soldiers, uh, you know, and deserve a reward, but who's to say?
00:43:10.460 Um, my recollection is that Stephen Harper did not fill the Senate on the way out and he absorbed a
00:43:23.820 lot of criticism, uh, internally from conservatives. I'm not sure how many went public with the criticism,
00:43:31.020 but a lot of conservatives were very disappointed that Stephen didn't fill up the Senate. So, um,
00:43:38.540 now the conservatives want to stop Justin from filling up the Senate, uh, whether he does that
00:43:44.700 or not, a new conservative government will have, I think, a problem dealing with the Senate. And it's,
00:43:53.100 it's probably more difficult than dealing with a Senate, which is composed of political hacks.
00:43:59.580 You know, when the Senate was obviously political appointments, everybody knew how the game is
00:44:04.860 played. And when the conservatives were in power, the liberals would go along with legislation,
00:44:11.500 unless there had been a major decision to try and bring down the government, you know. Um,
00:44:17.980 but now the Senate is largely composed of, uh, uh, you know, sort of free thinking people
00:44:25.340 that aren't, uh, totally aligned with, uh, with parties. I mean, there are a few political appointments
00:44:31.820 left, but most of them, uh, see themselves as independent. So they might be much harder for a
00:44:39.980 conservative government to deal with. I mean, I'd rather deal, make a deal with a bunch of liberal
00:44:45.660 hacks because we could all speak the same language rather than dealing with, uh,
00:44:51.020 a bunch of free thinking, progressive ideologues who don't feel any obligation to keep the wheels
00:44:58.700 of government turning over. Yeah, fair enough. I mean, it just seems to me like such an arcane
00:45:04.300 system and this just shows another one of our institutions that's failed and broken that probably
00:45:08.860 needs to be updated. Uh, Tom, I brought you on because I really wanted to talk to you about this
00:45:13.580 documentary on residential schools. So viewers know that, uh, True North published, uh, Tom Flanagan's
00:45:19.740 recent book, Grave Error, uh, How the Media is Misleading Us on the Unmarked Graves in Residential
00:45:24.940 Schools. Excellent book. I recommend everyone reading it. It caused quite the stir in the Canadian
00:45:28.700 media landscape. I think that, uh, we, we had quite a few angry sort of, uh, criticisms of the book
00:45:34.620 and it really helped with our sales, um, particularly, uh, with a boycott that happened up,
00:45:39.500 um, in Quesnel, British Columbia, Tom. Um, so, uh, the, the documentary, uh, which was released,
00:45:46.780 um, explores the legacy of residential schools in Canada. And on January 23rd, we learned that it
00:45:52.860 was nominated for an Academy Award. Uh, no, this film's not a drama. It's a documentary which is
00:45:59.180 supposed to be based on facts and truth. Um, unfortunately, much like the, um, story of the
00:46:05.340 Unmarked Graves, which many now believe, um, uh, has been exposed to be a hoax. Um, unfortunately,
00:46:10.700 this documentary seems to run fast and loose with the facts. So first, uh, let's just show the, uh,
00:46:16.700 trailer for this documentary.
00:46:20.620 I have felt dirty as Indian all my life in residential school.
00:46:25.900 Look at that. It's all names.
00:46:29.820 When you're brought up in an institution like the Catholic Church,
00:46:33.580 you have strict rules and you went with their ethics.
00:46:40.460 I've been trying to find out what happened at St. Joseph's Mission.
00:46:47.020 Everything was so secretive.
00:46:51.660 My dad was born there.
00:46:54.940 How did it happen?
00:46:57.980 It's not something that you want to open up. You know, it just keeps on damaging.
00:47:06.460 For decades, there were reports of neglect. Children dying or disappearing from this facility.
00:47:12.700 Two girls drowned. Priests were moved around.
00:47:15.900 Why are they dying? Did they think we'd be stupid?
00:47:19.020 All of our lives, the rest of our lives,
00:47:21.260 and nobody would ever find out these things.
00:47:23.420 It's a beautifully produced film, uh, very high quality,
00:47:28.300 very compelling story, the way that it's narrated and the way that it looks.
00:47:32.460 Um, the film was reportedly, uh, sold to the National Geographic, uh, for seven figures.
00:47:38.780 So the people who produced this film have made quite a bit of money off of it.
00:47:44.540 And it will be widely viewed.
00:47:46.220 Um, my concern, Tom, is that it's not based on actual facts.
00:47:49.740 Uh, can you, can you tell us a little bit about this documentary and what you found?
00:47:53.020 Yeah, it's, uh, it's on a par with the Kamloops hoax, actually. Um, I'll mention just a few things.
00:48:00.700 There's, uh, we, we have, we're going to have maybe, I'm not sure whether it's up yet today, but
00:48:06.860 we're going to have a detailed, uh, factual critique of the film on the website of the
00:48:13.980 Indian research school research group, which is easily available online. So anybody who's interested can
00:48:20.620 read all the details there, there's so many that I can't possibly bring them up in our conversation.
00:48:26.780 But, um, just a few things, uh, in the way that it's produced, uh, the film cuts back and forth between
00:48:35.740 different people and places without identifying them. So many things that are said actually
00:48:43.180 refer to events that took place on, uh, other reserves. It's supposed to be a focus
00:48:49.420 on the sugarcane reserve, which is one near, uh, Williams Lake, uh, British Columbia. But they bring
00:48:57.740 in like the children drowning in the trailer. That didn't happen at the, that's at another reserve
00:49:03.260 far away in British Columbia. It has nothing to do with Williams Lake. Uh, secondly, one of the main
00:49:09.580 storylines is about the birth of, um, uh, Ed Noiscat, the father, the film, the film, I don't know
00:49:19.740 producer is the right word, but the, the right, the, the little, the main voice is Julian Noiscat, his son.
00:49:25.900 Um, and, uh, they're pursuing the story of how Ed Noiscat was, was born. Well, there actually is
00:49:36.380 no mystery to this. This was reported in the Williams Lake Press at the time that it happened
00:49:42.300 that, uh, uh, Ed's mother who at the time was 20 years old and was not a student at the, uh, residential
00:49:53.580 school. She had been years earlier, but she wasn't now. Uh, she delivered the baby in her car while she
00:50:01.180 was driving past going, I think from one reserve to another. And she may have thought the baby was
00:50:09.660 stillborn that that's not clear, but in any case, she placed the baby in, uh, an incinerator, uh, where
00:50:18.940 garbage was burned outside the mission. And then she drove away and the baby was discovered a few hours
00:50:25.420 later by the dairy man, uh, who supplied the school with milk. Uh, he heard a crying sound and he went
00:50:34.140 and got the baby and they, uh, the, the people at the school saved the baby. And, um, the mother was
00:50:41.340 sentenced to jail for a year for whatever exactly the definition of the crime is. And, uh, then she got
00:50:48.540 the baby back and raised it. Now the, uh, the documentary tries to make you believe that the
00:50:56.700 baby was born at the mission or excuse me, at the school. And in fact, uh, Ed noise cat says at one
00:51:05.100 point I was born on the second floor of the, uh, school, but there's absolutely no evidence for that.
00:51:11.900 And there's a ton of evidence that the father of the baby was another
00:51:19.500 status Indian who had a temporary split with the mother. And, um, uh, later they reconciled sort
00:51:28.780 of off and on, but they did reconcile. They had other children. So there's actually no mystery here.
00:51:33.900 And the main facts were reported in the Williams Lake Tribune, I think it's called. And in the
00:51:41.100 documentary, they show the article, uh, to try and create an air of authenticity, but they don't give
00:51:50.780 all the facts from the article. They don't tell you that the mother is 20 years old and not a student.
00:51:56.860 And they don't tell you that there's no evidence that the, uh, father was, uh, of the child was a
00:52:04.300 mission, uh, priest or anything like that. So there's all kinds of implication, undocumented
00:52:10.780 implications in the film. Um, I mean, too many for me to deal with here, but it's, it's constant
00:52:18.300 throughout the film. The film also starts with, um, bad information. There's, there's some lines
00:52:26.460 before they get into photography. They, they start by saying that, um, after 1894, all Indian children
00:52:36.620 were forced to attend residential schools, which, you know, is not true. They take it for granted that
00:52:41.660 the Kamloops story about the 215 unmarked graves is true. Um, they end, uh, the film by saying on,
00:52:52.220 in print that, uh, we have determined a pattern of infanticide when in fact, they haven't done
00:52:59.020 anything like that. The closest they come to it was the baby put in the incinerator who was saved.
00:53:05.100 And that wasn't done by anybody at the school that was done by a former student. Um, but they imply
00:53:13.900 at many cases in the film that the infanticide has, has taken place. Um, they, for example,
00:53:24.700 they show another main character in the film, they show him digging in the cemetery. I mean,
00:53:30.460 this is an unauthorized cemetery. They show him digging in the cemetery and he uncovers apparently
00:53:36.620 the top of a casket, but, but we don't know who's in the casket. And then he makes the sign of the
00:53:42.780 cross on the casket. I mean, it's all very moving, but there's no evidence that this is a child or had
00:53:47.980 been at the, at the school. He's, he's just digging there. It could be anybody because all kinds of
00:53:53.260 people were buried in the cemetery, um, on and on and on. So like from beginning to end, this thing is
00:54:01.900 false and it's, you know, I would like to say it's a disgrace that it's been nominated for, for the, uh,
00:54:09.260 for the Oscars and it is, but this movie has received so many awards that it's, it's not just
00:54:15.980 the failure of a single award ceremony. This is, um, an indication of the zeitgeist or the
00:54:22.860 climate of opinion that people think this is a great film. They don't make the slightest effort
00:54:29.420 to do a fact check on, on what's in the film. Um, so anyway, a couple of my friends who are
00:54:37.660 involved with our ongoing, uh, research on, on Mark Graves and, uh, residential school
00:54:45.900 so-called atrocities, a couple of, uh, of my friends, uh, Nina Green and Michelle Sterling
00:54:52.060 have dug into it in detail and they have found all these dozens of factual, you know, you can't call
00:55:00.380 them errors. Uh, they are deliberate misrepresentations like, like with the, uh,
00:55:07.340 at noise cat story of being put into the incinerator. The basic facts were in the Williams
00:55:13.020 Lake story, which they had and they showed on the screen, but they suppressed some of the essential
00:55:18.380 facts. They didn't mention them. Um, you know, I could go on and on. I'm getting, I'm getting
00:55:24.700 wand up here. Uh, I could go on for a long time, but, uh, this is the basic thing I need to say,
00:55:31.180 but I could supply many more examples. Well, I look forward to the report that you
00:55:36.780 have forthcoming and we'll cover it on, uh, for True North, uh, make sure that Canadians see it.
00:55:42.940 I mean, I don't mean to work you up even more, Tom, but to me, it's like, it's, it's Hollywood
00:55:47.180 propaganda. It's not based on truth. It's based on a myth that they want to promote
00:55:51.500 about Canada being a genocidal country and trying to eliminate any moral legitimacy that we have
00:55:57.180 as a nation. It kind of goes back to the Jordan Peterson essay that I was talking about earlier,
00:56:01.820 that does Canada even have the courage to exist? Like, do we even believe in ourselves as a country?
00:56:08.060 And these kinds of stories come up and I worry that young Canadians will view these kinds of stories,
00:56:14.620 take them as fact, believe the propaganda, believe the hoaxes. I know you and your colleagues have done
00:56:19.740 uh, tremendous work to expose these lies. Um, but I mean, what, what, what else, what else can be done,
00:56:26.300 um, to, to counter this, this sort of propagandistic narrative? I think that, uh, so many people sort of
00:56:33.340 in, in, in, in the journalism world now, um, you know, on the political conservative side have come to see
00:56:39.900 the truth about the story. You know, obviously we feel quite badly for people who went to residential
00:56:45.580 schools and had bad experiences. Obviously the idea of, uh, children dying at a school is sad,
00:56:51.820 regardless of the circumstance, uh, particularly when it's a big, uh, federal government program.
00:56:55.980 Um, but the facts around the residential school, unmarked graves or mass grave stories were just not
00:57:01.100 true. And that's come forward. I think many, many people, um, now believe that and believe that
00:57:07.820 maybe, you know, there's, there's incentive, uh, for first nations groups to continue pushing this
00:57:14.060 myth because it leads to tremendous increase in government spending. Um, you had a report over
00:57:19.820 at the Fraser Institute, Tom, um, talking about how federal indigenous spending has almost tripled
00:57:25.100 since Justin Trudeau came into office, uh, projected to be $32 billion, um, that is going, uh, to,
00:57:34.060 to these groups. Uh, why don't you walk us through your report? Yeah. Um, okay. The, the tripling,
00:57:41.260 uh, of spending is based on the budgets of two departments, the, uh, indigenous services and,
00:57:48.060 uh, what's the name of the other one, the one that deals with, uh, indigenous Indian governments.
00:57:56.460 Um, anyway, we have two, two departments that focus on government affairs and the allocations for those,
00:58:03.580 um, departments have gone from approximately $11 billion to approximately $32 billion.
00:58:12.220 in the time that the liberals have been in power. Now those are nominal dollars. I haven't adjusted that
00:58:16.860 for, um, changes in the cost of living. So maybe the real changes two and a half times rather than
00:58:23.020 three times, but it is still a huge change. Um, in addition to that, we have the, uh, liberal policy of,
00:58:32.380 um, of rolling over on specific claims, uh, excuse me. Well, mainly specific claims are part of it, but
00:58:40.300 the bigger part is the class actions based on, uh, claims of historic maltreatment in starting with
00:58:47.580 schools, but then expanding into other areas. And as soon as liberals came to power, they stopped
00:58:53.260 contesting these claims and they said, we'll negotiate rather than litigate. And that's what has built up the,
00:59:01.340 uh, 76 billion dollars recorded for contingent liabilities, which have alarmed the parliamentary budget
00:59:08.780 officer. Contingent liabilities are, uh, contingent in the sense that we don't know for sure what the amount
00:59:16.220 will be, but we think there's going to be a big payout and, uh, they don't go into the, uh, budget of the
00:59:24.140 departments that deal with, with native affairs. They, uh, they're just in the general budget. And
00:59:31.260 when it comes true, they're dispensed by, um, well, whoever writes checks from the general revenue fund.
00:59:39.420 Uh, so it's a separate stream of spending. And that amount, when the liberals came to power
00:59:45.260 is, was about 10 billion. Now it's up to last time that looked, it was 76 billion.
00:59:51.820 So there's huge, and it's going to grow because there are lots of class actions out there. Um,
00:59:58.140 and unless the policy of the government changes, we're going to ring up more of these
01:00:03.420 of liabilities, which take the form mainly of payouts to individuals, but which could be very
01:00:08.300 large tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars per person. Um, so my article, uh, you know,
01:00:16.780 talked about the budget of the departments of the contingent liabilities, mainly for specific claims,
01:00:24.060 excuse me, mainly for class actions, but that also includes specific claims, which are
01:00:30.780 it claims that the government didn't administer the Indian act properly. And so now, uh, large
01:00:36.620 payments are due. And that has also exploded under the liberals up to billions of dollars a year. It
01:00:42.540 used to be much smaller. Um, I didn't try to do, there's another stream of spending that I didn't
01:00:49.260 even try to do. And that is indigenous programs in other departments. For example, fisheries and oats
01:00:56.860 oceans is spending hundreds of millions of dollars a year to promote first nations fishers, uh,
01:01:05.740 often by buying up license of, of other fishermen. Um, almost every department has a special program
01:01:13.900 for, uh, uh, indigenous people or for first nations or Métis or whatever, it depends
01:01:19.020 on the, on the, on the program. So I didn't attempt to total these. I don't know that anybody has,
01:01:25.580 but this would be a multi-billion dollar number as well, which is not in the budgets of the two
01:01:32.300 departments, which, uh, deal with indigenous affairs as such. So there, there's been this huge
01:01:39.100 spending explosion, or I call it an avalanche of money in my, uh, paper for the Fraser Institute.
01:01:46.700 And it's going to be a priority for any new government, whether it's liberal or conservative,
01:01:52.300 which has any concern for balancing the budget to try and deal with this. Um, but it's going to be
01:01:58.940 hard. The contingent liabilities are already committed in principle, uh, to payments. The budgetary
01:02:08.460 explosion has created programs which may be frivolous, but you know, there's always a constituency for every
01:02:15.660 government program. There's always a group of people who benefit from it and, uh, they will,
01:02:20.380 they will cry to high heaven if their programs are canceled. Um, I don't know if anybody in Canada has
01:02:28.220 the backbone of a Trump to just cancel a bunch of stuff all at once, which is one way of dealing with
01:02:34.380 it. I think, I think you'd have to, because I think even objectively, it's not like these programs
01:02:39.260 have resulted in incredible increases in standard of living, um, or, you know, uh, better communities
01:02:46.460 and happier people, uh, you know, by most objective Saturday, uh, standards are still suffering. Um,
01:02:52.620 many are still living without basic necessities. So it's, it's quite distressing to just see runaway
01:02:58.060 spending, uh, obviously benefiting a few at the top and not really changing, uh, the day to day life for,
01:03:03.660 for, for, for so many others. Well, you know, the one program that has actually, uh, brought about a
01:03:10.220 measurable benefit in the standard of living of first nations people on reserve is the, uh,
01:03:17.740 change to the childcare benefit, which the liberals had acted, uh, as soon as they came to power. And,
01:03:25.260 uh, it's, uh, for, for higher income people, it doesn't matter so much. And some of it will be taxed
01:03:32.940 back, maybe all of it, depending on how much you're in, what your income is, but for lower income
01:03:37.740 people and with larger families as tend to be the case on reserves, uh, the increase in income
01:03:47.340 is, um, is significant. And, uh, you know, I'm in favor of children. I think we need more of them.
01:03:55.500 So I, I, I, I'm not too concerned about an increase in pay, but what's interesting is this,
01:04:01.580 this program was not targeted for first nations or indigenous people. This was a program designed
01:04:07.420 to benefit all Canadians below a certain income level. It benefits tens of millions of people.
01:04:14.220 Um, you know, you could debate whether the program is needed or not, but it was not targeted. So the
01:04:19.660 one thing that has measurably helped the standard of living on reserve was not a first nations program at
01:04:25.980 all. Uh, so my general conclusion is that, uh, the best way to help, uh, first nations people is by
01:04:35.340 general programs, which, uh, encourage family formation, which encouraged paid work, uh, and so on. Um,
01:04:45.980 rather than trying to target things narrowly, particularly based on the assumption that they
01:04:52.140 were terribly mistreated in the past. Hey, something I should have said about sugarcane.
01:04:57.740 If I can just go back there for a second, it's related. All of these people talk about how they
01:05:04.140 were harmed in residential school and how they, you know, they deserve compensation for it, but they all
01:05:11.020 got compensation already. All these people who attended residential school would have participated in
01:05:17.340 the settlement, which was reached class action settlement, uh, finally inked in 2008. And,
01:05:24.620 uh, the payments were tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars, depending upon alleged
01:05:30.060 grievances, a mistreatment in the schools. I mean, all these people would have had their compensation
01:05:35.820 already, but here they are again, talking about the need for another round of, of, uh, of compensation.
01:05:43.660 They've had their apologies. Um, they've had a cascade of new programs, uh, like everything that
01:05:51.740 government could conceivably do has, has been done, but they are creating bogus stories about, uh, infanticide
01:06:03.260 and throwing babies in the incinerator and so on. Um, which, which are without evidence, but it's,
01:06:09.500 I'm not saying the motive is to get more money, but I can't get inside people's minds, but
01:06:15.980 they, they certainly are asking for more compensation in the movie. And again, this is another
01:06:21.740 falsehood in the movie that when they ask for compensation, there's no voice saying, well,
01:06:28.060 yeah, but they already got $200,000 a piece or 50,000, depending on the, on the case. Anyway,
01:06:34.380 the, the, the, so the, the spending is a bit related to the sugarcane. So all these atrocity
01:06:40.300 stories like Kamloops and sugarcane, they feed a mentality of deservingness. Like we need more
01:06:48.860 compensation. We need government to do more things for us. Uh, so, so they are in fact related
01:06:55.900 psychologically.
01:06:56.700 Well, absolutely. We heard a lot of that in the wake of the unmarked grave story. And I think that's
01:07:01.100 sort of, again, uh, one of the things that the liberals do best is they always have a solution
01:07:06.380 to, to borrow more and spend more to try to fix every problem. Well, Tom Flanagan, it's been a
01:07:10.620 pleasure to have you on the show. Thank you for setting the record straight, uh, bringing this
01:07:13.900 information to the public. I will certainly be reporting on, uh, your next report there. So, uh,
01:07:19.500 thanks for your time and thanks for all the hard work you do.
01:07:21.420 Okay. And I hope you spend your childcare benefit wisely.
01:07:27.580 Well, I'm completely on board with, uh, we need more children. Uh, my husband and I are doing our
01:07:31.580 best with our four little ones, but, uh, okay. Thanks for your time, Tom. And to the audience,
01:07:36.860 thank you so much for tuning in. I'm Candace Malcolm. This is the Candace Malcolm show.
01:07:40.940 We'll be back again tomorrow with all the news. Thank you. And God bless.