Juno News - Justin Trudeau offers a FAKE apology for going to Tofino

00:00:00.200 Justin Trudeau's ill-advised Tofino vacation is starting to look eerily similar to his illegal 2016 vacation on the Aga Khan's private islands.

00:00:09.440 We've got all the details on the show today. I'm Candice Malcolm and this is The Candice Malcolm Show.

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00:01:11.440 Okay, let's get into the big news today.

00:01:13.700 So there have been some pretty major revelations about this trip that Justin Trudeau took to Tofino on Truth and Reconciliation Day last Thursday.

00:01:23.000 Now, let me just start by saying when this story first broke, I thought that it was outrageous.

00:01:27.660 That to me, the biggest component of it was the fact that Justin Trudeau lied,

00:01:31.340 the fact that his itinerary said that he was in Ottawa in private meetings,

00:01:34.720 when the reality was that his office knew damn well that he was not in Ottawa.

00:01:39.440 He was out in Tofino, or at least he was on his way out to the west coast of British Columbia,

00:01:44.180 as far west as you can get, the west coast of Vancouver Island in Tofino.

00:01:48.780 And so to me, it was the duplicity, the lies, the trying to cover up where the prime minister is and what he is actually doing.

00:01:55.580 The fact that he decided to go and take a little bit of R&R with his family in a quiet, serene location out in British Columbia,

00:02:03.040 to me, that's not that big of a deal. He just, after all, fought a grueling campaign and, you know, he's only human.

00:02:08.880 We all need some time, downtime with our families. I don't think it's a big deal that he went to British Columbia.

00:02:14.400 He's sort of from British Columbia. I know he, you know, grew up in Ottawa and he's from a Montreal family,

00:02:19.760 but his mother is from British Columbia. His mother's entire side of the family is from British Columbia.

00:02:23.640 He spent quite a bit of time growing up and in his, as a young adult in British Columbia.

00:02:28.880 So BC is sort of like a second or third home to him. And I don't think that it's scandalous in and of itself that he was there.

00:02:36.280 But now as more details are coming out, it's pretty clear that it wasn't just a lapse in judgment.

00:02:40.300 It wasn't just the fact that his office lied about where he was and what he was doing.

00:02:44.380 There seems to be something else here. And the entire legacy media, every journalist in Canada is now looking into it.

00:02:51.280 And boy, are they finding things. And again, this is looking really, really, really bad for Justin Trudeau.

00:02:57.060 So I'm going to start by talking about two explosive reports that came out of the Journals in Montreal today,

00:03:03.180 looking into the background and the history of the owner of the house.

00:03:07.780 And so I'll explain to you what I mean when I say that this is looking eerily similar to the Aga Khan scandal 0.86

00:03:13.560 that the ethics commissioner found that he was guilty of violating the ethics rules.

00:03:18.760 So let's start with Norm Spector's tweet this morning.

00:03:21.980 Norm is a former chief of staff in the prime minister's office, I believe.

00:03:25.120 He was chief of staff in the Mulrooney years. He's also a publisher, a longtime journalist.

00:03:30.840 He's an academic with a PhD. And he just spends a lot of time on Twitter posting really interesting things.

00:03:38.260 And so here he posts today, he says,

00:03:40.120 The owner of Trudeau's Tofino Beach House has links to a company in a tax haven and another that lobbied PMO to legalize cannabis.

00:03:48.700 PMO confirmed that Justin Trudeau paid for the rental but would not say how much.

00:03:53.220 So the first story that comes out about this owner, the owner of this house,

00:03:58.600 is basically that the guy has links to some things that are pretty sketchy, some pretty sketchy business dealings.

00:04:05.040 So here is the Journal de Montreal headline.

00:04:07.280 Controversial stay, Trudeau on vacation with man linked to Paradise Papers.

00:04:11.400 The husband of the owner of the villa where Trudeau stayed in Tofino has been associated with firms in the Paradise Papers.

00:04:16.840 So here we go. I'll read from the story.

00:04:18.820 And my apologies if the translations are a little bit rough. I'll do my best here.

00:04:23.020 But it says that the luxurious home that Justin Trudeau and his family occupied last week in British Columbia

00:04:27.520 is owned by a Calgary woman married to a businessman who has been linked to companies

00:04:31.860 that were established in a tax haven, according to our investigation.

00:04:35.680 The businessman, James McRoberts, also founded a company which registered in 2017

00:04:40.320 to lobby for pro-cannabis, in particular with the cabinet of Justin Trudeau.

00:04:46.680 The name of James McRoberts, the husband of Maren McRoberts, the owner of the Tofino House,

00:04:51.640 appears in the Paradise Paper list disclosed by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists in 2017.

00:04:58.300 We learned that he was a shareholder in two companies,

00:05:01.440 Pagia Limited and Rx Payments Limited, incorporated in Malta in 2005,

00:05:05.540 a tax haven in the Mediterranean. The firms specialize in internet payment systems.

00:05:10.940 The man who ran Rx Payments, Nathan Jacobson, was convicted in 2008 in the United States

00:05:16.040 for conspiracy to launder money.

00:05:19.180 It says, note that the Paradise Paper should not be confused with the Pandora Papers,

00:05:23.060 which were disclosed this week by the consortium,

00:05:25.640 and which also revealed a list of individuals and companies involved in tax evasion activities.

00:05:30.440 So there have been a series of these papers.

00:05:32.120 The first one, the big one, was the Panama Papers,

00:05:34.280 and then these other ones were the Paradise Papers, and now the Pandora Papers.

00:05:38.340 So these are just a series of investigative reports looking at sort of the world's rich and famous people

00:05:43.380 and where they keep their money, how they have these really complicated schemes.

00:05:47.240 Some of them are legal, some of them are illegal,

00:05:49.140 and they're all designed to avoid punitive heavy taxes in North American and Western European jurisdictions.

00:05:56.380 But anyway, so the individual who owned the house may have been involved in some sketchy business dealings himself,

00:06:01.980 or at least one degree removed from sketchy business deals.

00:06:05.260 And more concerning for this story and in relation to Justin Trudeau going and staying at this house

00:06:10.040 is the news that the owner of the house, or the owner of the house husband,

00:06:14.100 was registered, his company was registered to lobby the federal government,

00:06:18.500 not just the federal government, but the prime minister's office.

00:06:21.360 And this takes us to the second story that was in the Journal de Montréal today,

00:06:25.140 and this one is more information on James McRoberts.

00:06:28.080 It says that he was selling pot online.

00:06:31.200 In the months leading up to cannabis legalization in Canada,

00:06:34.160 businessman James McRoberts and his company Merco lobbied across Canada

00:06:37.980 to promote and oversee the sale of pot online through their online transaction platform.

00:06:42.940 The company, founded in 2016 in Calgary,

00:06:45.580 was listed in the Canadian Lobbyist Registry in 2017.

00:06:48.900 According to the listing, Merco payments intended to lobby directly

00:06:52.680 to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's office, the Privy Council office,

00:06:56.540 Health Canada, and the Departments of Justice and Public Safety in particular,

00:07:00.520 so that the online sale of cannabis could be allowed.

00:07:03.420 So of course, Ottawa already legalized cannabis.

00:07:05.780 So it says here, Ottawa legalized the use of cannabis in October 2018,

00:07:09.260 but its online sales is still regulated by the provinces.

00:07:12.260 Merco has notably lobbied Quebec, Alberta, and British Columbia too.

00:07:16.640 And this is where you get into some really dicey territory.

00:07:18.680 This is where the Prime Minister is really in hot water, 0.89

00:07:21.180 really foolish thing that he did. 0.90

00:07:23.100 So as the arm inspector pointed out, 0.93

00:07:24.440 it says that Justin Trudeau paid for the rental himself,

00:07:27.040 but he would not say how much he paid for it.

00:07:29.920 And so we can look at the listing of this house.

00:07:31.840 It happens to be up for sale right now.

00:07:34.700 Hilariously, the name of the house is called Surfer's Paradise,

00:07:37.900 which again, doesn't really help the optics of this story.

00:07:40.400 It's listed for a whopping $18.75 million, six bedroom, seven bathroom home,

00:07:47.740 6,000 square feet, and it is right on the beach.

00:07:50.280 It is an absolutely spectacular, beautiful home set on 1.2 acres.

00:07:55.960 Absolutely stunning, stunning home.

00:07:58.840 And so the idea that this home is selling for nearly $20 million,

00:08:04.140 it's hard to imagine what the nightly rate on a place like this.

00:08:07.140 My guess is that it would probably go for about $50,000 a night.

00:08:11.720 $50,000 a night, Trudeau was there for what, five nights.

00:08:14.260 So we're talking about potentially up to what,

00:08:17.040 a quarter of a million dollars to rent this house for a long weekend,

00:08:20.200 possibly even more.

00:08:21.440 I'm just speculating on the price there,

00:08:23.160 but really a house like this would go for a huge, huge premium.

00:08:27.620 And at this point, we don't know how much Justin Trudeau paid for it.

00:08:30.660 And again, this is where we get into dicey, dicey territory for the Prime Minister,

00:08:33.840 because he is staying at the home of a person who once lobbied him

00:08:37.780 for a decision that the government ultimately did, right?

00:08:40.740 This guy runs marijuana businesses.

00:08:42.840 He runs the payment platforms for selling marijuana.

00:08:46.440 And he was lobbying the government back in 2017,

00:08:48.940 likely lobbying them in favor of legalizing pot.

00:08:51.520 That's what Justin Trudeau ran on in his campaign.

00:08:53.880 And then he did.

00:08:54.840 So potentially, Justin Trudeau's decision to legalize marijuana

00:08:57.460 could have made this individual a lot of money.

00:08:59.840 And then now we have this individual renting his luxury home to the Prime Minister.

00:09:05.180 Did the Prime Minister pay the full rate?

00:09:07.280 Was it a discounted rate?

00:09:08.620 Was there some kind of a quid pro quo going on here?

00:09:11.680 It's possible that that's not the case at all,

00:09:13.240 that Trudeau paid the full retail price,

00:09:14.900 that he didn't know this individual at all.

00:09:16.840 But again, the optics of this are just so bad for the Prime Minister

00:09:19.880 because we don't know if there's a quid pro quo.

00:09:22.260 And of course, Justin Trudeau has a long history of doing these kind of things.

00:09:25.940 It's starting to sound like the Aga Khan vacation where he went 0.87

00:09:30.180 and had this beautiful, luxurious vacation at the Aga Khan's private compound,

00:09:35.040 private island in the Bahamas.

00:09:37.260 Justin Trudeau, of course, was found guilty by the ethics commissioner

00:09:39.920 of taking an illegal aircraft ride.

00:09:42.440 So out of the whole part of that illegal vacation,

00:09:46.120 the thing that the ethics commissioner dinged him on was sort of a technicality.

00:09:49.240 He's not allowed to ride in a private aircraft.

00:09:51.020 And he had to get to this private island.

00:09:52.860 And he had to take the Aga Khan's helicopter.

00:09:55.180 Of course, to the Canadian public, the bigger, bigger concern

00:09:57.580 was that the Aga Khan lobbies the Prime Minister.

00:10:00.560 The federal government gives huge grants to the Aga Khan Foundation.

00:10:04.180 And so you have all of this money being passed back and forth.

00:10:06.780 And in return, Trudeau is on this luxury vacation.

00:10:10.400 And that was at the very beginning of his tenure as Prime Minister.

00:10:13.860 Here we are, what, five years later,

00:10:15.460 and he's still doing the same kind of things.

00:10:17.380 He hasn't learned his lesson.

00:10:18.620 He's still taking luxurious vacations from people who are lobbying his office,

00:10:23.560 from people who potentially could be in a conflict of interest.

00:10:26.400 It's also sort of like the We Charity scandal,

00:10:28.400 where he refused to recuse himself from meetings in Cabinet,

00:10:32.140 where the Cabinet was making decisions on whether to give the We Charity

00:10:35.040 this huge, huge hundreds of millions of dollars,

00:10:37.800 nearly a billion dollar contract,

00:10:39.860 from a charity that has also paid the Trudeau family privately for speaker's fees.

00:10:44.980 It's just such a bad judgment.

00:10:46.640 The fact that Justin Trudeau thinks that he is above the rules,

00:10:49.120 that the rules don't apply to him,

00:10:50.520 really, really bad stuff from the Prime Minister.

00:10:53.940 And so, like I said, the media is all over the story.

00:10:56.920 The legacy media is really unrelenting

00:10:58.980 because they know something fishy is going on,

00:11:01.860 that the more that we dig into the story,

00:11:03.740 the more it unravels.

00:11:05.180 And the worse it looks for Justin Trudeau.

00:11:07.680 This is starting to look perhaps like his worst offense 0.95

00:11:10.340 in terms of these really, really silly lapses in judgment 0.78

00:11:13.340 and potential ethics violations. 0.56

00:11:15.620 So, the media was hounding Trudeau about this.

00:11:18.380 They asked him about it yesterday.

00:11:20.200 And this is what that looked like.

00:11:23.000 Hi, Prime Minister.

00:11:23.880 Ashley Burke, CBC News.

00:11:25.700 What made you decide to take a personal trip to Dofino

00:11:28.120 on a day that your government set aside

00:11:29.820 to honor the victims and survivors of residential schools?

00:11:32.400 Like I said, it was a mistake to travel on that day.

00:11:38.080 This is an important moment for Canada

00:11:40.580 and for Canadians to reflect not just on the past,

00:11:43.200 but on the present.

00:11:44.680 I was in error to choose to travel on that day.

00:11:49.660 And I apologize directly to Chief Casimir

00:11:52.140 for not having attended the event that she invited me to,

00:11:56.040 which is why I'm looking forward to going to the community

00:11:58.840 and sitting down with them in the coming weeks.

00:12:01.000 So, I want to break apart that apology,

00:12:03.560 that fake apology that Justin Trudeau gave,

00:12:06.220 because he always does this.

00:12:07.600 So, first of all, he apologized for traveling

00:12:10.140 on Truth and Reconciliation Day,

00:12:11.640 which the fact that he traveled on that day

00:12:13.840 is not that big of a deal.

00:12:15.320 He's the Prime Minister.

00:12:16.160 If he had to travel to multiple cities

00:12:18.120 to attend multiple ceremonies,

00:12:19.560 that would be completely fine.

00:12:21.380 No one would have any issue with it

00:12:22.840 and we wouldn't be in the situation we were in.

00:12:24.680 So, the way that he apologizes for traveling,

00:12:27.780 which isn't the misdeed.

00:12:29.060 The misdeed is the fact that he,

00:12:30.760 well, there's so many, right?

00:12:31.840 It's like he is the one that created this holiday,

00:12:34.660 supposedly a solemn day,

00:12:36.100 not a holiday to go and have a beach vacation,

00:12:39.120 but a holiday to have a solemn remembrance

00:12:41.540 and reminder of some of the awful things

00:12:43.600 that happened in Canada's history

00:12:45.080 in regards to our First Nations people

00:12:47.340 and particularly residential schools.

00:12:49.660 So, Trudeau is all about virtue signaling

00:12:52.220 and he was doing a heck of a job virtue signaling

00:12:54.480 about this day.

00:12:55.660 And then when it actually came,

00:12:57.040 he selfishly just took the day to himself

00:12:59.000 with his family.

00:12:59.960 So, he didn't attend any events

00:13:01.120 despite being invited.

00:13:03.200 And he just, he really didn't do anything

00:13:05.820 to acknowledge the day

00:13:07.140 other than lie to Canadian public

00:13:08.820 and go on a beach vacation with his family.

00:13:12.200 So, no, he's not apologizing

00:13:13.920 for the right aspect of things here.

00:13:16.440 And then he goes back to this familiar line

00:13:18.300 that this is like a learning opportunity

00:13:19.720 for the whole country.

00:13:20.540 So, he doesn't really take personal responsibility.

00:13:22.860 He steps back and says, you know,

00:13:24.600 this is a time for us to all reflect

00:13:26.560 on, you know, how we can do better in the future,

00:13:29.480 which, again, is sidestepping the issue.

00:13:31.660 We're not worried about the country doing better.

00:13:33.740 The country did a pretty good job

00:13:34.960 of acknowledging this holiday

00:13:36.260 and recognizing much of the mistakes

00:13:39.180 that we made in the past.

00:13:40.780 It's the prime minister who didn't.

00:13:42.280 So, it's not about traveling.

00:13:44.040 It's about not recognizing it.

00:13:45.580 And second, like I mentioned earlier on the show,

00:13:47.260 it's about lying.

00:13:48.160 It's the fact that the prime minister's office

00:13:49.660 put out his official itinerary

00:13:51.580 that said he was in Ottawa,

00:13:53.380 knowing damn well that he was not in Ottawa.

00:13:55.120 The prime minister's office,

00:13:56.180 whoever put out that personal itinerary,

00:13:59.060 knew that he was going to Tofino.

00:14:01.560 It's not like you can just sort of

00:14:02.920 spontaneously decide to go.

00:14:04.740 It's not like something that could just

00:14:06.020 sort of spur of the moment,

00:14:07.360 you know, we don't have anything going on

00:14:08.480 or our meeting fell through.

00:14:09.500 Let's jump on a plane and go to Tofino.

00:14:12.300 No, it requires a lot of work,

00:14:14.200 a lot of planning,

00:14:14.860 a lot of things in advance,

00:14:16.560 including renting this house

00:14:17.560 and setting up that deal,

00:14:19.560 getting his whole family,

00:14:20.920 getting the plane loaded,

00:14:22.100 everything like that.

00:14:22.840 This is a premeditated act.

00:14:24.300 It wasn't a spontaneous act.

00:14:25.600 So, yes, it was an intentional lie

00:14:27.420 on behalf of whoever put out that itinerary,

00:14:30.220 which ultimately the prime minister

00:14:31.540 is responsible for.

00:14:32.720 So, this is really a mealy-mouthed apology.

00:14:35.380 It's a non-apology.

00:14:36.140 It's a fake apology.

00:14:37.480 And I am not the only one who said that.

00:14:39.920 This is from Black Lock's reporter.

00:14:42.280 And it says,

00:14:42.960 PM's apology not accepted.

00:14:45.380 So, here I'm going to read a little bit

00:14:46.560 from this Black Lock's report today.

00:14:48.000 It says,

00:14:48.580 the Native Women's Association yesterday

00:14:50.200 questioned if Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

00:14:52.100 had suddenly seen the light

00:14:53.440 after he apologized for observing

00:14:55.160 Truth and Reconciliation Day

00:14:56.280 with a beach holiday.

00:14:57.360 Do better, said the group's CEO.

00:14:59.680 Sadly, we recognize this moment

00:15:01.060 of contrition comes after much public pressure,

00:15:03.380 not necessarily because

00:15:04.560 you have suddenly seen the light.

00:15:06.540 She said in a statement,

00:15:07.240 it will now be up to you

00:15:08.460 to rebuild trust in our communities.

00:15:11.040 The prime minister yesterday

00:15:11.940 said he was sorry

00:15:12.700 after photographers caught him

00:15:13.920 strolling by the sea

00:15:14.880 at Tofino, BC

00:15:15.960 and enjoying a glass of beer

00:15:17.280 on the patio

00:15:17.840 on the beachfront resort property.

00:15:19.800 Trudeau holidayed on September 30th,

00:15:21.560 the first ever federal observance

00:15:23.040 of Truth and Reconciliation Day

00:15:24.420 to commemorate the deaths

00:15:25.700 of Indian residential school children.

00:15:28.640 Traveling on September 30th

00:15:29.880 was a mistake

00:15:30.520 and I regret it.

00:15:31.500 Trudeau told reporters

00:15:32.480 and the story goes on

00:15:34.340 to remind Canadians

00:15:35.360 that the prime minister's office

00:15:36.420 was not truthful,

00:15:37.380 was not honest about where he was.

00:15:38.900 It says the prime minister's office

00:15:40.340 at the time

00:15:41.000 flew an Indian residential school

00:15:42.720 survivor's flag

00:15:43.540 outside his vacant office,

00:15:45.500 falsely issued a statement

00:15:46.660 claiming Trudeau

00:15:47.360 was in private meetings in Ottawa

00:15:48.660 and told reporters

00:15:49.820 he wasn't on a beach.

00:15:51.620 So again, they distinctly lied,

00:15:53.700 which is what Trudeau

00:15:54.840 should be apologizing for,

00:15:56.320 not the fact that he traveled.

00:15:57.740 But again, Trudeau is the master

00:15:59.140 at side swiping the issue,

00:16:01.540 downplaying his misdeeds

00:16:02.960 and just kind of pretending

00:16:04.320 that nothing happened.

00:16:05.100 Usually the media is all too happy

00:16:06.820 to go along with it.

00:16:07.840 But in this case,

00:16:08.760 let me just say

00:16:09.360 the legacy media are angry.

00:16:10.600 They're out for blood

00:16:11.280 and this is not going to end well

00:16:13.100 for Justin Trudeau.

00:16:14.620 I'm Candace Malcolm

00:16:15.140 and this is

00:16:15.800 The Candace Malcolm Show.

00:16:17.100 I'm Candace Malcolm

Juno News - October 07, 2021

Justin Trudeau offers a FAKE apology for going to Tofino

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